I just don't buy this. If you have watched any TV programmes aimed specifically at children you can see the inventive ways that teachers use to engage and create interest in their pupils. The sheer delight is obvious to see and they seem just as excited at new things to do as they ever did.

Err. Pronoun problems?

If the they you speak of are teachers themselves, then you need to stop watching programs and start speaking to education professionals.

I went to school in the era of hippy-dippy teachers and wacky new educational programs. It was almost a dogma that rote learning was bad, and that childrens' responses were the best arbiter for the effecacy of the technique. The goal was to reach the average child. And budgets were in place to create programs for special needs students on either side of the bell curve.

The effect of our current "back to basics/ no child left behind" programs is to place rote learning and standardized testing ahead of the childrens' needs. The effect has been devastating on the morale of teachers who remembered a better way. And I predict that the undervalued profession of teaching will soon take the kind of critical hits that effect nursing.

Dante