The Nitty Gritty

I am intensely distrustful of theorising in general and particularly with regard to education. I suppose that's because education is what I do, or try to do, and there's really nothing quite like doing something to keep you grounded in the sad - and happy - realities of human messiness. This is one of the reasons I frequently find myself pouring scorn on the notion of progress in education. As far as I can tell schools continue to do pretty much what schools have always done with the same, predictably, mixed results. A lot of really good stuff, and quite a bit that's, shall we charitably say, not so good.

This is why whenever I am told of glowing results, research that simply proves this and that, and the way to guaranteed success, I take it with rather more than the proverbial pinch of salt. I'm tempted to quote Blake at this point since he's always right about everything, except when he's wonderfully, dazzlingly, wrong. But, failing to think of anything absolutely apposite from every sane person's favourite madman, I'll content myself with the remorselessly sane H.L. Mencken bang on form: For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.