I am one of many teachers, parents, academics, and writers who are horrified at the rapid changes in our schools being made by the Coalition’s Department of Education. We share a desperate worry about how these changes will affect the future lives of our children and grandchildren, and are shocked at how little the media is reporting our concerns.
Rather than publish another book detailing the horrors of what is happening to our schools – which few might purchase and even fewer have the time to read – in the summer of 2013 I experimented with Twitter as a way of reaching the many people who engage in this modern form of communicating. For an academic, the discipline of limiting thoughts to 140 characters is challenging – but worthwhile if it works.
The tweets are necessarily terse and sometimes I have had to précis the quotations used. They come in groups, but taken as a whole they convey a powerful message about what is being done to our schools and the consequences for our children and grandchildren.
The tweets are set out in six 'chapters' listed below. Click on content links below to reach them.
The hash tags should help spread the over-riding message: trust teachers not politicians.
Michael Bassey
Twitter address @michael_bassey
Tweets One: THE EXCELLENCE OF OUR SCHOOLS #content_42240406
Tweets Two: EDUCATION UNOTADICE NOTACUIDE #content_42240457
Tweets Three: THE POLITICAL CORROSION OF EDUCATION #content_42240699
Tweets Four: EDUCATIONAL IDEOLOGY OF MICHAEL GOVE #content_42240751
Tweets Five: CHALLENGES TO MICHAEL GOVE #content_42241446
Tweets Six: IF … BUT SINCE NOT … TIME TO GO! #content_42241478
These pages were posted on 3 August 2013, modified on 17 November 2014, and archived on 10 November 2015