Subversive teachingYou're right Seb, there are a lot of dedicated and motivated educators in the system, and I've had the pleasure of working with some of them. As my own children go through the school system, I see more and more that one size does not fit all, and that technology is one way to increase the opportunities for learning.

The success of the online courses offered by the Department in Spanish and other specialty subjects are evidence that there is a demand for enrichment, and that some people are doing something about it. The interesting thing about the Spanish course is that the Premier announced the program without consulting his senior bureaucrats, and then the Department had to make it happen. The course development was a success due to a small group of exceptional people. In this case, change originated from the outside.

Even if there are guerilla tactics in the trenches, how long can the system continue like this? When the actual teaching culture and official system are not aligned, we get a neurotic environment. Kind of like the unoffical but real economy that existed in parallel with the official Soviet system.

We live in interesting times.