I have begun to despair at what appears to be a takeover of The TES by people who delight in being “radical”. For example, you hailed an article by a self-confessed terrorist, Bill Ayers, with a reference to “digs at the academic’s radical past in the Weather Underground” (“Teachers are now ‘glorified clerks’ imparting predigested wisdom”, March 20). If you regard being a terrorist who took part in attacks that only missed killing people by sheer luck as a radical, then perhaps you should consider asking another former terrorist and education minister, Martin McGuinness, to contribute on how best to teach our children. An article by McGuinness on the wiring of electrical circuits or shooting skills would introduce interesting vocational skills.

As the education writer Sol Stern once said, “Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer.”

David Terron, Elgin Academy, Elgin, Scotland.