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If you have something to say...
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Regardless of how amazing and engaging a lesson may be, if it is not reinforced in one way or another, it will sadly be forgotten and not entirely absorbed. The present-day student is definitely overwhelmed and even consumed by the various forms of technology.
Many of the new education policies seem to focus on the short-term rather than long-term. Of course a rational person wouldn't want to defend Gove, but he's right about one thing. Change is needed.
Will the government make something of the Big Society in time to win the elections?
Schools should equip children with intellectual learning and skills for life outside the school gates. One of the most important and practical skills throughout life - and one of the keys to a prosperous adulthood - is the ability to manage money competently.
We're living in the age of algorithms. An age in which digital is creeping into every aspect of our personal and professional lives. The majority of us are passive users. Yes we can navigate around a computer, but under the screen we know nothing.
Other pesky issues tacked on the blog this week included the imminent scrap over the new National Curriculum, due to be published any day, and the chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw's stringent views on the state sector failing its brightest pupils.
It's an utter travesty without qualification for a young person in want of a job to be unemployed. But it's equal if not more a travesty to see young people go through education uninformed about the world of work and uninformed about where the job potential lies.
Gove even found time on Wednesday to reveal that on Thursday he would be shadowing an Ofsted team as it inspected a school. To say this got the edu-citizens of Twitter going would be an understatement.
In short, the school will become an unhappy place for all but a few who enjoy the rough and tumble - but these do not sound like desirable qualities in an educator. Any sense of working together to create a sound institution in which each and everyone can take a pride will disappear.
This is a measure that at best will be a waste of time, a precious resource in teaching, and could well lower the quality of teaching. I can't imagine a headteacher who values the cohesion of his staff and their goodwill wanting anything to do with this.
Having worked for the last seven years engaging young people with the arts, I've seen just how influential they can be on helping children to develop life skills giving them the confidence they need to shape a better future.
If this Coalition government really is trying to instil more civic pride and individual responsibility in the public, then there are few more compelling icons of altruistic endeavour than a woman who traipsed half-way around the world to support those fighting in her name. Was she a saint? Not at all, and she herself struggled at times to deflect racial taunts by trying to distance herself from those with darker skin, so she might better fit in.
At the heart of Twigg's oratory was a depressing reaffirmation of Labour's support for neoliberal education policies and the choice agenda. Chastising Michael Gove for seeing academies as a panacea, Twigg has plumped instead for a 'whatever works for you' approach
Among the first tranche of cuts introduced by the Coalition upon taking power in May 2010, was the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future programme.
Michael Gove, a scholarship pupil at the selective Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen, clearly regards his own educational experience as a template for the rest of us. It worked for me, the thinking goes, so it ought to work for everyone else too.
Even in the Prime Minister's own backyard of Oxfordshire, there are too many coasting schools. We need to learn from success stories like Wigan and Darlington to understand why other areas, like Derby and Doncaster, are less successful.
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