Dr James Mannion

speaker

1,455 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 12 Aug

Dr James Mannion’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.

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Rethinking Education · The missing science of how we learn - and the “barefoot unschool” that’s already LIVING it · 25 Jun 2026 podcast

requires coordinated brain network switching, not just sustained focus.

So um so talk us through this attention um as a spotlight, um as which is the model that's often talked about in schools, that you need to sharpen that spotlight, increase the luminosity of the bulb.

Get the kids to focus on this, right?

This is the thing that's really important.

And the more that we can get them to attend to that, the more likely it is that they'll learn stuff.

Talk to us about why you feel like this is perhaps a limited metaphor for understanding attention.

Yeah.

So for the benefit of people again coming to this new, um, I just want to do a little recap of so we've got these three networks.

So you were talking about the executive control network, the thing that allows you to focus on, for example, doing a podcast or cooking an omelet or solving an equation.

Then you've got the that that reflective network, the what's called the default mode network, sort of meditating.

ruminating at my default mode network because I care so much about education reform, I basically just often I'm staring into space, my wife says, Are you thinking about education?

The answer is usually yes, I am.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

So and so so we've got our two ends of the sp of the of this this the the seesaw, of course.

And it of course and it's nice because it's like this sort of like one's sort of essentially externally focused, for want of a better phrase.

You're focusing on a particular thing, the other one's like more sort of internal rumination.

And then the salience network is what gives us the pivot.

And that's why like you you just mentioned it very, very, very nicely that when I'm talking about that

You know, w when a kid comes to your lesson and say, Oh, we're doing something fun today, sir.

Heart sinks, he sort of go.

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