Anyone remember Christmas? That lovely holiday where all was festive, fun and frivolous; where league tables, Ofsted reports and impending budget cuts seemed a way in the distance? Thought not.
How about new year? A little hazy? As it should be. One wonders whether the same can be said for our beloved secretary of state, who, according to the Daily Mail, spent Hogmanay with the PM at Chequers. If you have a second, go online and have a look at the paper’s photo of guests on a walk in the Chilterns the following day - a somewhat dishevelled-looking Mr Gove certainly appears to be enjoying having the cobwebs blown away.
This got us thinking at TES Towers. What new year’s resolutions might Mr Gove have made as the grandfather clock chimed midnight? Who better to ask for a bout of rampant speculation than the good people of Twitter? The responses came thick and fast (join the debate at #goveresolution). Ideas varied from the mildly supportive to the downright rude. Take the tweeter who comments under the pseudonym of homayon. He suggested Mr Gove’s 2011 new year’s resolution should be to “consider other wider sociocultural contributors that also may be at play” in places such as Sweden or the US before fully adopting their educational solutions. Not exactly quitting fags, but eminently sensible.
Others were more aggressive - itsmotherswork urging him to “find a job better suited to his talents”. One or two others had a punt at a wee bit of pop psychology. For example, lptomg suggested Mr Gove should choose 2011 as the year to stop “confusing his own childhood experiences with a thorough evidence base”, an idea that will surely be cheered to the rafters by our friends in educational academia.
And, unsurprisingly, there were those that were a little more political, which Mr Gove will certainly ignore. Take mwdavern, who suggested that the secretary of state should resolve to “implement Lib Dem ed manifesto policies instead of Tory ones”.
In truth, we don’t need Twitter to tell us that the next 12 months are going to be complicated for Mr Gove. As a direct result, they’re going to be complicated for you, too. Hope you had a restful Christmas. You’re going to need it.
