Education On Fire - Sharing creative and inspiring learning in our schools

Through a Different Lens - Lessons from a Life in Education with Prof Dr Ger Graus OBE

April 7, 2025·53 min·4 clips

"I'm standing here today because of the man who's just walked into this room" — said about a teacher Graus watched from the corridor 43 years earlier.

1. Education on Fire host Mark Taylor interviews Professor Dr Ger Graus OBE about his book Through a Different Lens: Lessons from a Life in Education. 2. Ger Graus is a longtime education figure who sits on a Middle East government's education board and previously founded the Children's University; Mark Taylor is a musician and music educator who hosts the podcast. 3. The episode's core question is what children are actually learning in school versus what schooling could be if accountability returned to the child. 4. Graus argues that since Ofsted's creation in the early 1990s, UK schools have become accountable to the system rather than to children, with the word "child" nearly absent from inspection frameworks. 5. He describes moving from a small, relatively affluent school in Norwich to a large, disadvantaged school in Hull, where his 17-18 person languages faculty realized they had only ever taught the top 25 percent of students. 6. Graus cites Sergey Kozaretsky, a professor at the National Research University in Moscow, who compared him to Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Gianni Rodari as a voice for children. 7. He credits his friend Carlo Rinaldi, president of Reggio Children, with the phrase that adults "must trust the children as much as they trust us." 8. Graus criticizes schools that forbid students from talking in corridors, arguing no adult workplace enforces the same silence. 9. He tells the story of Richard Taylor, head of English at his first school, whom he watched teach Shakespeare to a reluctant Year 11 class as a newly qualified teacher. 10. Graus reveals that 43 years later, a stranger at a conference publicly credited Richard Taylor by name for changing their life, unaware Graus was in the room. 11. He argues technology like AI risks widening inequality for disadvantaged families sharing one device via a school-provided dongle, referencing lessons from the COVID period. 12. Graus contrasts UK political short-termism in education funding with Sharjah declaring early years the most important stage of schooling and investing accordingly. 13. He cites SEGi University in Malaysia mandating vocational experience for every student regardless of degree, so graduates are prepared for the workforce. 14. Graus references Ken Robinson's idea that mass schooling built for the industrial revolution is obsolete in an age of personalization. 15. He notes that when asked why they go to school, roughly 80 percent of children say "because I have to," which Graus calls evidence that schools give the answer rather than let children find it. 16. Graus argues teachers are role models who "are not in charge of numbers, but in charge of people," and that funding should adapt to children's needs rather than the public purse. 17. The conversation is a long-form, unscripted two-person interview built around Graus recounting personal stories and career anecdotes in response to Mark's open questions. 18. The tone is reflective and critical of UK education policy, delivered in a conversational, first-person storytelling style rather than a structured lecture. 19. Teachers, school leaders, and education policy watchers interested in child-centered reform would get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners looking for quick classroom tips rather than a systemic policy critique should probably skip this one.

As heard by us

A blunt case for putting the child back at the center of schooling.

The piece makes a steady case for personalization that begins with seeing children as more than a grade and for placing some of the burden back on the child rather than the system.

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Why you'd press play

When school rules collide with trust and lifelong learning, this gives you a reset.

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