By the time Boy Two – who has just started school – is grown up, half of his class will take jobs which have not yet been invented.
It was parents’ night and the head teacher was sharing a few thoughts. She was trying to explain that things had changed a bit since we all embarked on education.
They don’t have blackboards any more. No, not PC-gone-mad. They have electronic boards which link directly to the computers and the Internet.
They’ve re-designed maths apparently. It’s not long division anymore it’s decomposition whatever that is.
And our kids will do stuff we can’t even begin to imagine. Without meandering too far down Old Fart Alley, think about how once James Bond was pretty swish with his phone which also shot people. What would 007 have have thought about a phone upon which you could take video, listen to the radio, access porn and order a new sofa having examined the colour of the cushions?
But under all the technology and old-new-old ideas such as spelling by sound the really clever things which happen at school haven’t changed.
Teachers manage to turn a room full of miniature savages into literate and numerate citizens and that’s remarkable.
If you don’t think so, try helping a primary child with his reading and writing when he or she doesn’t get it and not getting cross about it.
So while we might not have need of train drivers, shepherds, fax machine manufacturers and local bank managers we will always need patient, dedicated teachers.