curse of – A former senior leader in a central London secondary school and education influencer warns that what experts call “common sense” can be a social shortcut that hides real gaps in beginners’ knowledge. Drawing on neuroscience and cognitive science, the argument
Some phrases land softly. Others leave a bruise you don’t notice until years later.
“I remember my reply,” a senior leader recalls from a moment in a large secondary school in central London. A younger member of staff had a problem to resolve. The topic, the context, even the precise details are gone from memory—but the answer isn’t. “It’s just common sense.”
He didn’t realize he’d offended them. At the time, it probably felt helpful, even efficient. But twelve years later. that small exchange still pulls at the same nerve: what seems obvious to someone experienced can be anything but clear to someone still building the knowledge that makes the next step possible.
The phrase “It’s just common sense. ” the writer argues. can function like a casual social slur—less a comment on someone’s character than a quiet suggestion of a knowledge deficit. It implies that you should already know. already have worked it out. and should be able to see what the speaker sees. In his telling, the danger is that the sentence doesn’t describe the real problem. It replaces it.
Because the truth, he says, is that “common sense” isn’t common at all. What looks obvious is usually established knowledge.
Over the past 15 years. he has spent time investigating neuroscience. neuropsychology and cognitive science—how the brain learns. how knowledge accumulates. and how memory supports decision-making. From that work, a key message follows: education debates that set “knowledge versus skills” against each other miss the point. Skills don’t float in the air.
Creativity, problem-solving, questioning, evaluation, leadership and judgement all depend on established knowledge. He even argues that creativity is not the absence of knowledge, but a knowledge domain in its own right. Expertise, in this view, is built—practised, revisited, refined, forgotten, retrieved, corrected, and strengthened. Over time, knowledge becomes automated. The expert no longer has to consciously think through each tiny decision because so much has moved into long-term memory.
That is why expertise can look effortless. and be assumed as “common sense.” He offers vivid examples: a skilled teacher scanning a classroom and noticing a child drifting before anyone else sees it; a headteacher detecting a safeguarding risk from a sentence in a meeting; an experienced chef tasting a sauce and knowing exactly what’s missing; a mechanic hearing an engine and suspecting the fault. To the expert, it can feel like instinct. But the writer insists it isn’t magic.
It’s memory. Pattern recognition. Knowledge deeply encoded.
Then he flips the viewpoint.
Put a novice in the same situation. The writer asks readers to imagine knowing very little about quantum physics. assessment design. school timetabling. safeguarding thresholds. curriculum sequencing or behaviour systems. If someone hands you a problem to fix and says, “Well, it’s just common sense,” where do you begin?. You may not know what matters. You may not know what to ignore. You don’t have the relevant vocabulary or the rules that govern the task. You may not even know what a good answer looks like.
This, he calls the curse of expertise. The more we know, the harder it can become to remember what it felt like not to know.
He brings in cognitive science language, pointing to schema—mental structures that help us organize knowledge. He describes it as a spiderweb: if he were a spider, what would he do first?. How does the spiderweb form over time, and what happens when anchor points break?. Experts, he says, have richer, better-connected schema. They can hold more relevant information in mind because background thinking becomes automatic. Novices can’t do that yet.
So when an expert says “It’s just common sense,” what they may really mean is: “I have seen this before, and solved this type of problem many times.” That isn’t common sense. It’s expertise.
His second example lands even more plainly: tomato ketchup.
He says he is an expert in tomato ketchup—able to recall facts, concepts, rules and processes. He knows the ingredients. the history. the texture. the balance of sweetness and acidity. the role of vinegar. sugar. tomato solids. seasoning and preservation. But ask him to make tomato ketchup, and the situation changes.
Because of that background knowledge, a teacher could show him how to adapt it. Perhaps a spicy version requires chilli; perhaps a barbecue flavour means bringing in smoke. molasses. brown sugar. soy sauce. cider vinegar and heat. To the expert, that all appears obvious. To a novice, it is not. It’s a complex web—ingredients, ratios, taste, chemistry, process, timing and judgement.
He is explicit about the limits of expertise: he does NOT know anything about ‘scoville’. the measurement of spicy heat in chilli peppers. He might use a habanero chilli instead of a mild chipotle pepper and ruin the recipe. The point isn’t the condiment. It’s the transfer of knowledge: we can only adapt. improvise. or make good judgements when enough relevant knowledge is already organized in memory.
That leads directly to classrooms.
The writer warns that the implications extend beyond individual misunderstandings and into public debate—especially when teaching knowledge is caricatured as “direct transmission of facts.” In his view. that criticism misunderstands how learning actually works and echoes another social slur driven by the media that lacks expertise in how learning happens.
He argues that teaching children how to learn matters, and so does the selection of knowledge chosen in the curriculum. But he also says teachers can fall into the trap of “common sense,” often unintentionally—even when they are experts in their subjects.
“Just show your working out. ” he writes. or “Just use your initiative. ” are examples of how familiar advice can hide a deeper chain of knowledge—modelled steps. practice. feedback and confidence a pupil might not yet have. School leaders can make the same mistake with staff. He admits he did it too in that opening moment, and says he won’t do it again. In conversations, he suggests, people default to “Just follow the behaviour policy.”.
None of these things are simple when someone is new, doesn’t yet have the knowledge, or is under-supported or working in a complex environment. Experts should remember that they cannot know or assume everything.
To address the gap between expertise and beginners, he points to an idea called cognitive apprenticeship—described as being “just as important as the research on cognitive load theory.” In summary, he says, the research suggests making expert thinking visible to novices.
Instead of telling someone. “Use your common sense. ” the expert models what they notice. what they ignore. what they prioritise and why. In the example he gives, the expert might say: “I noticed the pupil had stopped writing before they became disruptive. I chose to intervene early because this usually prevents escalation.”.
And instead of assuming “It’s just common sense,” he urges a different question: “What knowledge is missing here?” He says that question changes everything.
The close is personal. “The next time we are tempted to say, ‘It’s just common sense,’ perhaps we should pause,” he writes, “and ask: What expert knowledge have I forgotten that I once had to learn?”
The piece also lists the academic references that shape his argument: Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Newman, S. E. (1989) on Cognitive apprenticeship; Sweller, J. (1988) on cognitive load during problem solving; Willingham, D. T. (2009) on why students don’t like school; Chi, M. T. H., Glaser, R., & Farr, M. J. (1988) on the nature of expertise; and Deans for Impact (2015) on The Science of Learning.
The writer’s own background is part of the foundation for his warning. He founded @TeacherToolkit in 2007 and is described as being widely recognized as one of the leading influencers in education in the UK and across the world. In 2015, he was named among The Sunday Times/Debrett’s 500 Most Influential People in Britain for his impact on….
What remains unsaid in the final line is the rest of the recognition. What is said, repeatedly, is the cost of forgetting what it felt like to be new.
curse of expertise common sense education cognitive apprenticeship cognitive load theory schema neuroscience knowledge transfer teaching skills vs knowledge classroom practice
So basically don’t tell teachers “use common sense”? okay.
I hate when people say “it’s common sense” like that doesn’t make you feel stupid. But also… isn’t that just how adults talk? Idk, sounds like an excuse to blame someone else.
Wait, this is about schools in London right? But we have the same thing here, like kids ask a question and the response is “obvious.” Still, I feel like if you’re a “beginner” you should just google it. Doesn’t that solve the whole invisible thing?
I’m getting “political correctness” vibes from this. Like yeah, maybe wording matters, but “common sense” is still common for a reason. If someone’s offended by a phrase, that’s on them? Also neuroscience?? I mean come on, maybe the problem is teachers rushing and not explaining, not some “curse.”