The past is a strange country

This was much I agreed with in Stephen Twigg's speech today, which may mean that Labour are on their way to shaping up their ideas. Meanwhile, Mr G has heads in his sights, again 'marching towards the gunfire'. As you would expect from a woolly liberal/Trot like myself, I have contradictory thoughts about all this. I certainly take HUGE issue with the soundbite on complacency-all this change by consecutive SoS mean no space to be complacent even if I believed there was complacency in the system and I have been around and about since, sigh, 1979. There is a real problem for me in harking back to any previous golden era. We know that Victorian inspectors were complaining about standards. My g-grandfather,  a headteacher in 1902 was writing in his log book that the new Maths methods were exciting as they held out the promise of children understanding, rather than learning by rote. He found the weather made the children excitable, and complained that parents often dragged their children out of school to visit the fair or help at home. Plus ca change, one might say.Probably better to say in Latin, but not sure my elderly Latin is up to it. Ah wait, google translation, plus ca mutatio(or as the spellchecker insists mutation)....The point is, this constant carping back to the past, and 'what worked for me and my friends' does our young people a disservice. Let's forget trying to reshape schooling all the time, and concentrate on what we want from education, and how schooling might be a part of it.

PS  Is a bad teacher ever good? I have been reflected on what I learnt from doing A levels with Ms X, possible the worst teacher of history in the area at the time. Later, I discovered that her HOD had tried to get rid of her but failed (that was in the days when it WAS difficult to get rid of a bad teacher). However, her brand of incompetence did a great deal for me, but maybe not others. Why? She failed to turn up, or was late for lessons. I learnt self reliance, organisation, and self study skills. She was caustic to the girls in the class. I learnt the art of the witty riposte. She told long and involved, and mainly irrelevant, tales about Gladstone and her grandfather (who I recall had a glass eye, granddad that is). I learnt that a good story remains in the memory long after dates of the 30 years war are forgotten. She had blackouts at her desk. I later learnt she was epileptic. I learnt compassion. But then, I was a grammar school girl......