The Love of the Lesson
There is the lesson, and then there is what lingers. The lesson objective on the board, the ticking clock, the stretch of curriculum to “get through.” But it’s often not the core knowledge alone that roots itself in the memory—it’s the hinterland.
Christine Counsell’s now-familiar concept of hinterland is not frill or footnote. It’s the stuff that gives lessons gravity.
Put simply core knowledge is what we want students to learn. The key concepts, theories, terms, and facts are all core to a curriculum. They are the parts that make a wider narrative. Once these are learnt, they make the whole curriculum. They are the curriculum, broken down. They are organised into schemes or topics or units, each with its own important knowledge.
Hinterland knowledge is knowledge that is used to help access, understand and enrich the core.
Hinterland is where the “magic” often lies. It is in the stories, the metaphors, and the glimpses beyond the exam specs. These elements offer coherence and cultural meaning.
Hinterland is understood as a way of building cultural capital. It helps children see themselves not just as pupils. They are participants in something larger: a shared cultural and historical inheritance. It’s the difference between knowing that VE Day is 8th May 1945. It is also about understanding what that felt like to live in the aftermath of WW2.
But if hinterland provides the soil, then cognitive science offers the trellis. Retrieval practice, interleaving, dual coding—these help tether the wandering vines of narrative to the structure of schema. But as cognitive scientists (and many teachers) warn, if we focus solely on what can be measured, we risk losing the richness—the emotional architecture—that storytelling provides.
While the core is essential, it’s the hinterland that helps students care about it, remember it, return to it. The hinterland is not extra. It’s the invitation in.
Teaching as Story-Telling
Storytelling is not just a pedagogical flourish—it’s foundational to how we think and learn. Cognitive science tells us that the brain is hard-wired for narrative. We make sense of the world by sequencing events. We identify causes and assign meaning through story. This narrative instinct forms part of our cognitive infrastructure—the mental scaffolding that allows us to connect new knowledge with what we already know.
When we teach through story, we offer students a structure for memory, emotion, and understanding. A well-told story doesn’t just convey information. It builds schema and fosters empathy. Additionally, it creates durable mental hooks that help knowledge stick and resurface when needed.
Neuroscience of Story-Telling
Human brains are hard-wired for stories—they cut through distraction, create emotional engagement, and foster deep understanding. Neuroscience shows that when we hear a story, our brains mirror the storyteller’s through a process called neural coupling, activating multiple regions including the sensory, motor, and frontal cortices. This mirroring allows us to build a shared mental model and vividly imagine events, enhancing empathy and memory.
Emotionally charged stories trigger dopamine release, making the content more memorable—much like recalling the details of a wedding proposal or a powerful TED Talk. Stories also generate insights, offering structure, coherence, and meaning, which is why they’re as essential in education as they are in everyday life.
In my own social science classroom, storytelling isn’t just an engaging tool—it’s a cognitive necessity. Our brains are hard-wired for narrative; we naturally understand the world through cause and consequence, characters and context.
When teaching sociological theories embedding them within real-life stories—whether it’s the lived experiences behind class inequality, the narratives of social movements, or the trajectories of changing family structures—helps students connect abstract ideas to human realities.
This narrative framing supports their cognitive infrastructure by building schema. It makes it easier to retrieve, apply, and evaluate complex sociological concepts in exams and beyond. A compelling story doesn’t just illustrate the theory—it makes it memorable, meaningful, and analytically rich
When Hinterland Goes Wrong
Hinterland, when misapplied, can inadvertently overshadow the core knowledge it aims to illuminate. If students leave a lesson recalling only the peripheral details, they focus on aspects such as the color of a character’s bag in a video. They also remember a speaker’s personal anecdotes. They miss the central concepts. Without understanding these concepts, the purpose of the lesson is lost. For instance, using a popular song to explain a theological concept might result in students remembering the artist. They may focus on the artist more than the doctrine itself. These missteps highlight the need to choose hinterland content carefully. It is crucial to integrate it properly so it reinforces the essential learning objectives, rather than distracts from them.
Hinterland: An emerging plan.
- Signpost the hinterland: Be explicit. Let students know that what they’re hearing—this poem, this story, this odd anecdote—is what gives meaning to the “main thing.”
- Make space for resonance: Plan for emotion. Allow silence after a good story. Let the room breathe.
- Be clear what the core and hinterland is for a topic especially for teachers with other specialisms.
- Ensure that students remember the right stuff.
- Consider how this knowledge plays its part in our curriculum – when will it be revisited? how do topics link?
- Trust the stickiness: Story and context will lodge in memory, sometimes more than bullet points ever could.
Because long after the exam, it is often the hinterland—the ghost of the lesson—that remains.
Other blogs on core/hinterland
https://neuroleadership.com/your-brain-at-work/the-neuroscience-of-storytelling/
the unconscious curriculum 