Marcelo Staricoff

Assistant Professor in Primary Education in the Department of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex

Workshop Information:

An interactive session that uses the principles and ideas that underpin the innovative JONK approach to illustrate how transformational it can be when children develop a love of not knowing combined with a thirst and a very special intrinsic motivation for then wanting to know through which we can then nurture children’s innate curiosity and zest for life.

All the principles and practical ideas presented are very easy to implement and are designed to build on your existing practice and using real life examples and children’s work from Marcelo’s time as a primary school teacher and headteacher, to illustrate the wonders of creating classrooms that function as  values-led, personalised, creative, critical and philosophical thinking, dialogue-rich, thought-provoking  inclusive communities of inquiry, where every child is develops a very special  lifelong love of learning. 

The five main themes that make up the Learning to Learn Week are 

(i) Personalised Models of Learning 

(ii) Creative Thinking Skills 

(iii) Visible Thinking and Learning Strategies 

(iv) Philosophy and the Curriculum and 

(v) The Lifelong Learning Dispositions 

We will also have fun discussing a number of JONK related pedagogical provocations that are at the heart of JONK’s philosophy of educational practice and school leadership and that are designed to transform the way you, the children and their families think about learning and school; these include the ideas that 

(i) It is best to not know! 

(ii) that teachers should not teach! 

(iii) that the best learning happens when the students don't realise that they are learning! 

(iv) that children should be able to access the curriculum multilingually and that 

(v) before any learning happens, the children should be taught how to learn, which has been designed as the focus of Session 2 

Check out Session 2, which follows this one!

Biography:

Marcelo is an Assistant Professor in Primary Education in the Department of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex- Course Leader Masters in Education, Lecturer BA Primary and Early Years Course  QTS and the author of ‘The Joy of Not Knowing’ (Routledge, 2021; China Youth Press, Chinese Translation, 2024) and 'Start Thinking' (Imaginative Minds, 2005) and he is a former research scientist and Primary School Headteacher.

Marcelo is the Departmental lead for the visiting Bolashak Scholars who join us every year from Kazakhstan. Marcelo is also the University of Sussex Representative on the UK-Uzbekistan Education Forum and the External Examiner for the BA in Primary Education Course with QTS at the University of Durham.

Marcelo has recently worked on behalf of UNICEF alongside policy makers, educators and textbook writers, drawing on the philosophy that underpins The Joy of Not Knowing approach, to help the Ministry of Education in Uzbekistan to introduce a reformed Primary and Secondary National Curriculum. Marcelo also works for Coram Life Education, the children’s charity, runs courses, acts as an advisor to a number of schools and educational organisations and speaks regularly at national and international events on the principles that underpin the Joy of Not Knowing’s philosophy of education and educational leadership.

Marcelo has published widely in the fields of creative, critical, multilingual, multicultural and philosophical thinking and learning in the classroom. Marcelo is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Education (APPG) and of the Steering Committee of the International Academic Forum (IAFOR) organisation. Marcelo also works closely with the EDGE Foundation and acts as the Chair of the Global Empathy Conference Annual Conferences, an initiative led by Virtual School Australia.

Marcelo's work and contributions were recognised in 2019 when he was named as a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and in 2023 when he was awarded Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.