S2E4: Harry Fletcher-Wood on behavioural science, habit change and our failing public institutions

This episode features a conversation with Harry Fletcher-Wood, who has written an absolutely fascinating book called Habits of Success: Getting every student learning. Ground-breaking books about education don’t come around too often, but Habits of Success is truly pioneering. We’ve heard a lot about cognitive science in recent years - often a quite narrow interpretation of cognitive science which focuses largely on memorising stuff. But there has been another area of social science bubbling away in the background in recent years, slowly coming to the boil - the field of behavioural science. A few years ago the UK government set up something called the Behavioural Insights Team - also known as the Nudge Unit - which focuses on how to change people’s behaviour not by telling them what to do (like ‘eat 5 fruit and veg a day’), but by nudging them in the right direction (like by putting attractive displays of fruit next to the checkout in a school canteen). In Habits of Success, Harry applies insights from the world of Behavioural Science to the problem of how to help students build helpful habits for learning effectively, while breaking one or two unhealthy habits along the way. I really enjoyed my conversation with Harry. About half-way through the podcast there’s a section where I ask him some taxing questions about the book, and his responses were really impressive. Harry has an enviable gift for expressing complex ideas in a really engaging, accessible way. As always, this was a fascinating conversation which left me with many more questions than answers, which is always a good sign that you’ve hit a rich seam. Link to the Fiorella paper on the Science of Habits Harry mentions paywalled unfortunately): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-020-09525-1 Mighty Network Welcome Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47xZ73YPTNs Rethinking Education Campfire Conversations playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ…WX9gMBCQJtHxoGNh2 The Rethinking Education Mighty Network: https://www.rethinking-education.mn.co/feed Become a Patron of the Rethinking Education project: https://www.patreon.com/repod Buy James a pint, a coffee - or perhaps even a pint of coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/repod The Rethinking Education podcast is hosted and produced by Dr James Mannion. You can contact him at https://rethinking-ed.org/contact, or via @RethinkingJames on Twitter.