>The main reason I am writing this comment is that I believe the way to progress is forward not backwards. I couldn't disagree more, forward only implies new,

>The main reason I am writing this comment is that I believe the way to progress is forward not backwards. I couldn't disagree more, forward only implies new, which isn't necessarily better. The old paradigm of teaching, I find, was built on a lack of rules; evolving naturally from the one-on-one home upbringing, to apprenticeships and into the modern classroom. (Feel free to add jumps.) Obviously it had flaws, as with a despotic ruler the students were at the mercy if his/her whims, but from what we're seeing today that hasn't been mitigated in the least. Despite serious efforts (teacher evaluations, PISA testing, etc.) Instead, because teachers are being scrutinized down to the atom and the school system is monopolizing education, we have children who aren't taught to respect their teachers, and parents who aren't taking appropriate action to it because teaching is being brought out of their area of responsibility. How can we hope to best human nature at teaching when human nature is something we've barely scratched the surface of? Is it really right to bet our children's future on a live experiment in human understanding? Yes, of course we have to attempt to improve, and obviously there is and always has been room for improvement, but the teachers weren't the enemy in that regard. They were generally doing what they could every day to make kids learn. Now, instead of teachers, we have politicians trying to secure the upcoming election by ripping apart the status quo so they are able to use fancy sentences and faulty statistics in the media.