Teachers need possibilities to regenerate and learn about recent fascinating academic developments, like for example, Matt Ridley’s research in genetic imprinting. Teachers need the opportunity of being able to contribute to research from their own experiences with children. These possibilities are rare and usually non-existent in poor struggling school districts across the “developed” world, let alone the “developing” one. If a teacher wants to express their expertise from years in the classroom s/he has few options. Either s/he can go into the area of administration where the pay is better or s/he can write a PhD, which will sit unopened on a university library shelf for years to come. Too much has been written and not enough is being DONE.

Everyday, teachers have to face the humiliation of being told what to do by administrators who often know little of how to cope in the classroom. This only adds bile to the already bubbling brew not to mention the ridiculous injustice of the salary scheme. The school boards and principals in turn feel bound by idiotic government policies and restrictions, imposed by ministers that know and perhaps care very little about the reality of teaching and learning. One can argue that there is no time but when children’s education is at stake this is no excuse! This is very important to understand and I applaud your efforts to address this. No wonder the profession attracts rule and authority seekers but needs characters and people with other interests. Schools should be hiring teachers from life. Teachers should teach for a few years and then be allowed a sabbatical to do something completely different for a year to recharge their batteries and encourage the other interests that they have in life, not sit behind desks and write papers that no one will read. No wonder so many excellent teachers have opted out of the system for good. What a loss.

The recent discoveries you touch on in cultural anthropology, biology, genetics, and evolutionary psychology are fascinating. How can we take these exciting new thoughts and enliven schools and teachers? How can we totally turn everything upside down and inside out and redesign it to make sense? I crave an opportunity to do this with like minds. I have to battle against my disappointment when I meet yet another person who has lost their nerve and who just therefore won’t do a flying peanut about any of these crucial issues. When I wonder why there isn’t even more crisis than there already is, I think it will only be a question of time, but will that mean it is too late? I only hope that somehow through your book and enough shouting in the right places at the right time people might start to wake up! It’s a long road. These sorts of changes can only be made in relation to others, not in isolation. Meanwhile I will continue to work with children who, as the very aware creatures they are, are constantly telling me in their own unique way that the world we currently inhabit is killing us in more ways than one.

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