Did Anybody Learn Anything?

There's a book to be written (or maybe it already has been) about the new tough language of education. Gone are the days when we could take pride in the fact that we didn't really know what we were doing: now we've got to 'deliver' the curriculum and measure the 'impacts'. Teachers don't teach poems any more, they 'use' them. I'm liaising with a teacher at the moment who's got to bring five kids to an event at the end of April: we must have exchanged at least four e-mails so far just about the risk analysis she's required to do. The kids have to travel by Tube, get out of the Tube station and cross one main road - at traffic lights - before walking another 100 yards to the venue. This will be on a Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm. I will keep my fingers tightly crossed and hope they don't encounter an escaped axe murderer or an unexpected tidal surge in the Thames. You never know.

Meanwhile, I was chuffed to receive an e-mail completely out of the blue from someone I taught in the early 70s:

"I have fond memories of the lessons you gave" he writes. "I was a scruffy little waif who attended your classes with excitement not knowing what you were going to surprise me with next.

"I remember you making a film with the class, I recall having to jump over the school gates into the playground four or more times due to your demanding directorship, the rest of the epic shooting is I am afraid vague."

No other 'impact' can compare with receiving a message like that after nearly 40 years. It's a good reminder that, whatever the targets and league tables say, we should never forget that we don't know, and most of the time will never find out, what difference we may be making to kids' lives, and we should be humble enough to admit it.

Of course, if I'd done a risk analysis before making the film, there wouldn't have been any jumping over the school gates, and if I'd put my lesson objectives on the board at the start of the lesson as everyone is supposed to do now, no one would have been excited about what I was going to surprise them with next.

I do hope that some of the poor sods whose talents and commitment are ground down by having to churn out the latest initiatives will get messages in 2046 from men and women whose names they've forgotten, saying "thank you for the everlasting impression you made upon me". It's a long wait, but you do find out in the end that it was all worth while.