I've been in elementary education for years and my belief is that Christmas pageants in schools are little more than conditioning kids for the Christian religion.

I put forward formless and unresolved notions as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools not to establish the truth but to seek it.

Technology will eventually destroy the way schools are run now.

So I see technology as a Trojan Horse: It looks like a wonderful thing but they are going to regret introducing it into the schools because it simply can't be controlled.

Scientists at MIT and engineering schools all across America say that they could improve the fuel economy standards for the existing set of vehicles by 10 miles per gallon using existing technology without compromising safety or comfort at all.

I studied with a blind teacher from about 5 until I was 16 at two different schools. From the age of 12 until 16 I was in a boarding school-which I believe at that time was compulsory for blind children.

I had a great drama teacher and he sort of made out drama school as this incredibly difficult thing to get into: 6 000 people apply every year and some of the schools only have 12 places. It's a phenomenally difficult thing to get into. And that excited me - I wanted that challenge.

There happened to be guitar classes at the college and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

Cultural dominance of middle-class norms prevail in middle-class schools with a teacher teaching toward those standards and with students striving to maintain those standards.

There is a shortage of teachers but the January 2001 schools census showed that teacher numbers were at their highest level than at any time since 1984 - and 11 000 higher than 1997.

We know the parental support community support makes a difference. It's not just the metrics of testing and putting pressure on the schools and on the teachers.

Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers.

As an example one of the schools I have been studying is too small to compete effectively in most sports but participates with vigor each year in the state music contests.

Today over half of China's undergraduate degrees are in math science technology and engineering yet only 16 percent of America's undergraduates pursue these schools.

It was generally believed that Catholics were not interested in arts and science graduate schools. They weren't going to be intellectuals. And so I put the theses to the test. And they all collapsed.

I do not think we are ever going to be able to for a long time get the kind of quality of school personnel that we need in our schools especially in the areas of science and math. One of the answers to that problem is to use more educational technology.

Many of the mainstream agricultural scientists especially at the agricultural schools but at all of our major universities are tied into all sorts of contractual relationships and consulting relationships with the life science companies.

The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.

The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science especially in the schools of America.

It is a sad commentary that today we face a choice between having schools that are a monument to our past - or schools that will be the lifeblood of our future. But since that is our choice let us resolve to choose wisely.

So many schools are getting rid of music programs and it's really sad because I know that when I started singing and stuff it was something that I always wanted to do and I never believed in myself to be able to do it.

Religion is compulsory in English schools you know.

There is so much that is positive wonderful even about state schools. At a state school your kids will learn to live alongside and appreciate other kids from many diverse and different cultures.

I wanted to reimagine the role in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents events preoccupations and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.