Inspiration amongst tough times

With all the talk about National Standards at the start of this year, the debates that will follow and no doubt the interesting times we face with negotiating our contracts this year I think it's important to continue to look at what we are here for as teachers.  That's to teach the children, our adults of tomorrow, to help them to learn, grow, prosper in a world with an uncertain at best future. 

I've been inspired by the video I need my teacher's to learn (below)


I think we all need to jump behind the eyes of a child occasionally and actually see our classrooms from their perspective.  What are they actually engaging in?  Is what we are doing in our classrooms really any relation to these children or are we just doing it because that's the way we always have and it worked 10 years ago so why won't it work now?

Don't get me wrong the debate around National Standards needs to happen and we all need to make sure that our education system doesn't end up with a teach to the test mentality as that would be a disaster!  I just think we also need to remember that we're still teachers and the children we're teaching this year and next aren't going to go away because we have been asked to implement something that hasn't been researched properly.