I have intentions, I have aims and goals, and I can see ways of possibly achieving these, but at any point the whole context may switch and alter significantly – so my detailed plan has been a bit of a waste – I either amend, abandon, or more likely grimly hang onto is as a comfort blanket.

So I'd argue for the usefulness of knowing what we want to achieve, and the detailed planning time (often rendered a waste by circumstances) is used for discussions and possibilities considerations instead. This equips us for a more flexible and often more interesting experience anyway.

This also fits better with the way some of us can employ the expertise of our personal learning networks – which are by their nature not context bound.

I respect Ewan's views enormously but am wary as someone within school but who teaches a reduced timetable (13 periods per fortnight) that it's easy to become out of touch with everyday practices.

That's not to say that people not teaching on an everyday basis can't have a valuable input, of course. It's just that I forget what it's like to be in the classroom over the summer holidays, never mind after a few years out of the profession!

1. 'Out of Touch' , although I think that everyone is entitled to give their opinion about education, and indeed both yourself and Ewan often cause me to think, rethink and analyse, there is an issue when those not connected to schools and the classrooms try to change education. I have experiences to many blog posts, keynote lectures and poor inset delivered by 'experts' who never suggest a practical way forward. It's one thing to imagine the future, but a whole other kettle of fish to actually create the social change that is needed in our school in order for real change to take place. I guess one of my mam' favorite sayings hits the nail on the head 'Any fool can critisise and every fool does': it is easy to say what's broken and what it should be like, but what we need is a road map to help us with the journey.

Having said this, neither of you could be accused of being in the 'out of touch' category

In addition, too often senior school leaders are not only out of touch with the classroom and latest developments, but also with the outside world of industry and innovation

2. Planning – in geography classrooms we have for years been planning to not plan. Floating topicality (not my term) enables us to explore current events and react to what the pupils tell us they want to learn. Having said this, there is a scaffold behind the lack of planning. A route map if you like designed to support teachers. This approach should be adopted more widely if education is to adapt to an every changing playing field.

3. About 'Pilots', these are often carried out at a Middle Leader level as, in my view, the main barrier to real educational change is the inability of school leaders to filter out and prioritse what is important. The role of educational leaders at all levels should be to act as censors to the government, NGO, charity initiatives. The sleep issue today is one example. I agree with the point that sometimes a pilot is embarked upon with an expectation of faliure. In my experience this is often due to a lack of funding / time / support.

Of course, I am speaking as a middle leader from the perspective. I don;t yet have the perspective of being higher up the food chain

The cogs are defiantly turning!

It's a real shame that Twitter seems to have taken over and become the 'norm' for comments about blog posts. I much prefer interactions like we've had today – considered, unconstrained reflections – instead of 140 characters. Twitter has it's place but isn't appropriate for everything.

I do hope you return (in an explicit way and job-related way) to education someday. You're missed in this sphere!

I do think, however, that removing oneself from an everyday school setting can lead to a vastly different outlook. Sometimes (often, in fact) that can give a valuable and different angle on a particular issue. Sometimes, though, it involves a disconnect. I can see now that you're not disconnected – yet!

Your point about planning is a goodone. It's all about direction; I think we can agree upon that!

I take your point about students living an unexamined life. I think that's why bandwagon-jumping can be a bad idea: students may produce something that *looks* good without necessarily having gone through the (normally) important processes behind creating that artefact.

I got used to “being out of education” when, one week into the new job, I was listed not as an education blogger but a media one. Of course, the labeling of “being out of education” is exactly the kind of comment that alienates parents and those with an interest in education the world over. Oh well.

The fact of the matter is that I live the trials of the current day classroom through my wife and friends who can't seem to talk about anything else during the week, and it's not much different to the realities one school session ago. And today I see how young people interact with each other and online most days more now than I ever did as a teacher.

I'd be sorry if, because I'm not wiping snot of kids 9-5, I couldn't add my angle to the debate on where learning could and can go.

The thing I like about what Ewan does whether he is in touch with educuation or not (which I think he is) is that he often gives my grey cells a kick up the backside and helps me to challenge the status quo in terms of what happens in my classroom.

Your bandwagon/hitch-hiking point was something that I was thinking of when I read Ewan post and I do agree with you there. If you are trying new things do it with a sense of direction.

I kinda disagree with both of you with planning. Don't plan 'more' or 'less'. Facilitate space for learning to happen but keep plans open, free and allow the creativity of the learners to take the learning in new directions. As you say however, a sense of direction (an outcome) is important in this.

Well hey, thats my tuppenceworth Thanks both for some challenging thoughts.

1. Yes, it's about using the correct (existing) tools for the job, and mashing those up to create new ones where appropriate and exciting to do so. The thrust of my post is arguably against those 'edu' creations that are unexciting and made for administration, not learning.

2. Plan less is quite distinct, and relates to the Merlin John piece (which explains this anyway in much more detail – follow the link): it's about planning some gaps for the unknown so that we can have more time to think and plan when we NEED to, not when senior managers want us to plan for something that, by the time it comes around, has become less important.

3. Standing still and doing nothing shouldn't last too long. Nuff said

5. I think the word 'pilot' is often used to preempt expected failure, instead of setting expectations higher that the small initial project will grow into something more significant. This one is probably more semantics than anything else.

Personally, I think you don't think I'm wrong, but perhaps the melding of my own blog post and an interview on another webpage have led me to synthesise too much what actually demands more attention and thought (that Merlin's piece conveys).