“I have some sympathy for people getting nervous when discussing genetics and education,” says Dr Kathryn Asbury, a senior lecturer in psychology in education at the University of York. 

Unfortunately for her, though, she can’t avoid it: Dr Asbury is one of the country’s leading genetics researchers and is co-author of G is for Genes: The Impact of Genetics on Education and Achievement.

In this week’s Tes Podagogy podcast, she talks at length about why the teaching profession needs to get beyond its nervousness on the topic of genetics. She argues that the problem for teachers is often not the research, but how they fear it may be used. 

She also details common myths around genetics (such a what heritability means), how teachers might take genetics into consideration in terms of pedagogy and also why genetics research demands more diversity of options after education (a theme she also mentions in this Tes article).