No I don't want to write about this.

Big sigh.  All I want to do is be a maths teacher and to contribute to the maths teaching profession.  I just want to carry on with my blog about maths education.

But there is a need to interject.

He's really doing it isn't he?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/8227535/Michael-Gove-my-revolution-for-culture-in-classroom.html described, in December, his intention to launch a cultural revolution on teaching in England.

And, with his plausible lies about 'increasing teacher freedom' and Red Ofsted Guard already in place he's off and running. Every day there are more edicts, each more disconnected and ludicrous than the first.

Here are today's: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390358/Weak-teachers-removed-classrooms-just-term-heads-new-sacking-powers.html#comments  It takes a while to sort out failing teacheres because, er, we sort them out.....failing situations can happen to anyone during their career.  Problems at home, a personality clash at school, changes from outside, stressful and bullying inspections.  How many great teachers have each of us seen go down?

Failing, contentious and problematic teaching situations occur for all sorts of reasons, usually there are multiple contributory sources which it takes a while to unravel and put right.  There aren't thousands and thousands of teachers who clearly are failing teachers Mr Gove, this is a fantasy of your imagination.  There weren't millions of enemies of the state in China either, but the cultural revolution demanded they exist so people had to invent reasons to blame others to avoid the beatings themselves. 

At consultations groups Conservative MPs happily tell us that the days of policy in education being generated by those in education are over.  Mathematics education policy will now be gerated in accordance with the voting preferences of average members of the middle class public.

WHY?  HOW ON EARTH DO THEY HAVE SUCH LITTLE INSIGHT INTO HOW GOVERNMENTS ACTUALLY WORKS?

I sometimes wonder, do they really believe that Maggie Thatcher pulled her policies out of the air?  Do they not understand that she liaised with a substantial professional and business community of experts who understood what she was doing much better than she did?  Who had analysed the consequences and saw how horrific they would be but had also analysed the consquences of doing nothing.....  Who wrote and consulted through both the main press and the IOD and the journals and so on.

This government is nothing like that.  Honestly for those of you who are not involved in the upper echelons of education please believe me that there is no link between what those who are respected in education are advising and what Gove is actually doing.  There are just people floating round desparately trying to limit the damage and make good from bad despite the horrors of it all.

This is surely just a nightmare.  I'll wake up soon.  Please.  This blog post wasn't needed.  We can go back to undertanding the possibilities broadband brings for enhancing education in the 21st century rather than suddenly having to ditch all that and focus on sacking teachers of subjects students find relevant and forcing reluctant 14-16 years old from tough backgrounds through a 1950s grammar school education. 

Please reassure me this isn't real.

Please.