It all started with the biro...

At first glance the Steer Report on learning behaviour (and there’s an interesting phrase) seems very worthy. New technology gets a look in: whiteboards are good, mobile phones useful for surveillance, cyberbullying an ongoing concern etc etc. There are also recommendations for more training for teachers. So let’s hope this doesn’t get oversimplified as ways to pacify unruly kids. But all in all it’s not as bad as the media headlines which started off by drawing our attention to ‘disciplinary measures such as forbidding pupils to doodle on books and folders and refusing to mark their work unless it has been written with a fountain pen’. If that’s how to promote learning behaviour then higher education is doomed.