For the 2014 Eccles Centre/Fulbright Commission Lecture Toby Young will discuss the ‘pernicious influence’ of romantic ideas on the public education systems of Britain and America, particularly in the last 50 years, and make the case for a more traditional, knowledge-based approach to teaching.

Toby Young is a journalist and author. He is also the CEO of the West London Free School Academy Trust, an educational charity which has set up a number of free schools, as well as the author of a forthcoming book about the new primary national curriculum, What Every Parent Needs to Know. Young is a follower of the American educationalist E.D. Hirsch, the former Professor of Education at the University of Virginia and author of Cultural Literacy. Young is a member of the US-UK Fulbright Commission’s Board of Commissioners.

The lecture will be followed by a reception.

This event is sponsored by the Eccles Centre for American Studies in collaboration with the US-UK Fulbright Commission.