I have described various aspects of perspectival knowing here, here, here and here and why it is a necessary component of twenty-first-century skills.

One of the values of having data about many aspects of day-to-day school and classroom operations is to be able to ask the question “have you noticed that …?”.A question that brings a new item into our salience landscape, that is, it stimulates our perspectival knowing.

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Early on in my interest in education I realised that the profound problems in education were systemic in nature. Systemic problems arise when the boundary between ‘education’ and ‘not education’ is put in the wrong place. A problem is inside the boundary and the solution is outside, for example, means that the problem has no solution and, if a problem has no solution, it becomes just the way things are. Alternatively, a problem crosses the boundary and is thus undefinable, no problem.

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It is endorphins that give us that glow after we have engaged in demanding exercise. I only recently discovered that endorphin is a contraction of ‘endogenous morphine’ i.e., morphine that the body produces itself.

When flushed with endorphins we feel good about ourselves and that makes it easier to engage in whatever activity we choose to do next.

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I have been thinking about motivation in terms of self-regulation. I cycle about 30km twice per week for fitness. The practice I have always done on a long hill is to choose a marker 50 metres away and then go hard for it, then set another marker 50 metres further and then go hard for that and so on to the top of the hill.

I discovered recently what this practice is doing.

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