I have students who would elect to drop any subject like English or math that they find difficult. They would prefer to spend the day playing video games. How do I know? They've told me so. I do think that students should be given some choice. But, as the adult in the classroom, I feel I have a duty to help them appreciate the need for subjects, topics they may think at 17 they do not need. I talk about knowing as much as possible about as many things as a defense for the future. You never know when knowledge about something will be useful. Sometimes it's a hard sell, but I keep trying.

I have found that the new digital technology that I've introduced these past two years in my classroom does make the medicine go down. Reading, writing and arithmetic is not as painful. Granted, I teach struggling and reluctant learners, but out of respect for them I keep encouraging them to prepare for the future.

Luckily, there are more pathways forstudents to take now- the pathway of work, the pathway to college and the pathway to university. I think with in each pathway , the choice needs to be how they will learn rather than what they will learn.

I hope that the cult of educational romanticism that I wrote about http://tinyurl.com/5njddl does not continue to set kids up for failure. Some times adults do not know best. We need educational realism. Are you asking whose realism we need? That's the difficult question.

I have students who would elect to drop any subject like English or math that they find difficult. They would prefer to spend the day playing video games. How do I know? They've told me so. I do think that students should be given some choice. But, as the adult in the classroom, I feel I have a duty to help them appreciate the need for subjects, topics they may think at 17 they do not need. I talk about knowing as much as possible about as many things as a defense for the future. You never know when knowledge about something will be useful. Sometimes it's a hard sell, but I keep trying.

I have found that the new digital technology that I've introduced these past two years in my classroom does make the medicine go down. Reading, writing and arithmetic is not as painful. Granted, I teach struggling and reluctant learners, but out of respect for them I keep encouraging them to prepare for the future.

Luckily, there are more pathways forstudents to take now- the pathway of work, the pathway to college and the pathway to university. I think with in each pathway , the choice needs to be how they will learn rather than what they will learn.

I hope that the cult of educational romanticism that I wrote about http://tinyurl.com/5njddl does not continue to set kids up for failure. Some times adults do not know best. We need educational realism. Are you asking whose realism we need? That's the difficult question.

Thoughts?

I'm not going to go through your points individually as I think we generally agree.

1. Within education, we look at value-added, but the wider public still looks at (demands?) better-than-last, unfortunately.

4. Yes, there should be 'some improvement' – but not necessarily one that's testable by pen-and-paper exams.