That’s a comfortable world for everyone, not just the leader. The blue pill takes us to a world in which leaders lead with confidence, clarity and certainty. That’s why they are senior leaders isn’t it? Accepting that we probably can’t tell if learning is taking place is tantamount to the factory manager admitting that he can’t judge the quality of the firm’s product, or the football manager telling his players that he doesn’t know how well they played. Swallowing the red pill means we have to swallow our pride and start to redesign the systems we have come to rely on. So many of the systems and processes we have created are predicated on a certainty that we can tell if students are learning lesson observation, work sampling, performance management, performance related pay and data tracking, for example.It is highly inconvenient to accept that learning is invisible. This has been written about extensively, not least of all by David Didau (, despite convincing argument and evidence to support this claim, most senior leaders in schools refuse to swallow this pill. One of these red pills, I believe, is the realisation that learning is invisible. When given the choice, it is our duty to take the red pill, but this may not always be an easy choice. To willingly deceive ourselves, or be manipulated by a deceitful other (like Descartes’ demon), is somehow to surrender our humanity.Īs school leaders we are faced with many red and blue pills. However grim and difficult reality is, at least it is authentic. Ignorance is bliss, whilst reality is grim. Like Buffy, we would love to believe the world without evil is reality, but know that this world is just to good to be true.Īll these mythologies share the idea that the true reality is likely to be the less digestible option. For a while, we question which world is ‘real’ and which is the dream. In her dream world, her Father is still alive, vampires are a fictional creation and she lives the life of a normal teenage girl. Buffy ‘dreams’ of an escape from the world in which she is chosen to sacrifice herself in her role of protector of humanity. The metaphor of the red pill, or similar, is a recurring one in philosophy and literature from Descartes’ allegory of the cave, to films such as Total Recall, not forgetting the red vial which Alice is offered as an escape from Wonderland (referenced by Morpheus above).Īside – my favourite incarnation is in the superb Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The red pill offers the chance to escape this virtual reality and live in the actual world a grim reality where humans are kept as mere energy sources for a web of computer intelligence. The blue pill allows Neo to return to his fake reality (essentially the world we know). In the Matrix, Morpheus offers Neo the choice of a red pill or a blue pill. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Morpheus, The Matrix (1999) You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Not that anyone’s complaining.“You take the blue pill, the story ends. What even is reality anymore? Folks also loved the brief glimpses of brand new footage, and there were also several reactions to Reeves looking almost exactly like John Wick. Judging by the reactions online, The Matrix fans are loving the old school marketing campaign, and, yes, it feels weird to call the online marketing campaign old school now. Keanu Reeves’ Neo is back inside the Matrix, taking blue pills and seeing a therapist played by Neil Patrick Harris, until a man portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II steps into Neo’s life and gets him to see that his reality is just a mirage. In the context of the teaser, each choice presents users with two different angles on what appears to be the central story in “Resurrections” (as first teased to exhibitors during CinemaCon in August). The Matrix Resurrections September 7, 2021

Matrix red and blue pill