Digigran

This is a flightless cormorant. I snapped it (my photos remain at the level of snaps whatever the context) on my visit to the Galapagos. For more information about the bird see: http://www.nature.ca/notebooks/english/galapa.htm.
It seems a perfect analogy for the kinds of young teachers we are currently producing. Just as the cormorant flew into a habitat where the stocks of fish were so rich and the competitors so few, it evolved to develop its swimming and diving at the expense of flight, so young teachers enter departments, which after ten years of a National Curriculum, abound with resources, schemes of work and predigested reading materials - all photocopy ready - so that they see no need to devise lessons of their own. Moreover there is far less competition for jobs and so fewerof them need to be anything other than a confident deliverer of ready-made schemes of work and as a result many of these young teachers, but thankfully not all, appear to be losing the power of flight. By that I mean the ability to create a magical lesson from the classes' own interests that allows both teacher and taught to soar above the everyday.
As you can see, I have been thrown back into my old identityas educationalist, by a round of visits to school to assess the performance of new entrants to the profession. I was impressed by the young teachers' enthusiasm and obvious warm relationships with their classes, but also more than a little dismayed by the abundance of pre-prepared, departmental materials in use.

A system that subjects everything to measurement, that sets minimum standards for practitioners and expects a particular kind of performance from the pupils will always have this effect. As one of the tutors remarked, as I described a particularly dire condensation of Jane Eyre to small chunks of text which omitted the whole Lowood experience, what the children reaaly need is more narrative, less textual features. I can agree with that. With my other hat on, I also hope Alexander's life will be full of stories- some of them about Edward.