That's lovely Paul, very touchy-feely and I certainly feel much more confident that our children are in good hands when it comes to education.

A couple of problems though. Our kids are leaving school less literate than they've ever been, I've had young people apply for jobs with me who can barely spell their names, and they've left high school with quite good grades. I don't care that all your manipulated little studies show how great our education system is. I've got to live with it in the workplace and it's not meeting the mark.

The other problem you've got is your pin-up boy Sawyer who admits in his editorial that English teaching has failed because Howard was re-elected. So on one hand we've got you saying how rosie everything is, and on the other we've got your main mouthpiece saying what a failure you all are. Which one is it?!!

Congratulations on a fantastic riposte Paul.

Professor Wayne Sawyer has dared to express a point of view to English teachers quite capable of making up their own minds, and to raise questions about an issue that lies at the heart of maintaining an informed citizenry: ie. education's role in equipping students with the capacity to question and critique, rather than blithely to accept, assertions put forward by people, regardless of their political persuasion or context. This ideal is, after all, not new. Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero and, yes, even Shakespeare espoused the fundamental need for individuals to understand and critique the power of language to illuminate, to question, and even to distort and obfuscate 'truth'.

It seems that Editors of newspapers may express their views to which readers can respond as they wish, but an Editor of a professional journal is not allowed to exercise his democratic right of free speech to an audience quite capable of making up their minds, without the personal abuse and threat to which he has been subjected.

Clearly, there are some in our community who take hysterical exception to Professor Sawyer's position and employ ill-informed personal vitriol as a means of attempting to silence debate. There's always the 'Baxter' solution. Isn't that what we now do with people who don't 'fit in'? Long live our democratic principles, which include freedom of speech, and the right to dissent.

Dr Jackie Manuel & Dr Paul Brock

bozzie when you went to school could you program a computer?

"Long live our democratic principles, which include freedom of speech, and the right to dissent." It seems we're hearing this little catch-cry and variations of it on a regular basis these days. Nothing wrong with that, I absolutely believe in the views expressed. I just wonder where these people were during the 1980's and '90's when no one dared speak out on a whole range of issues for fear of being vilified or labelled rascist, stupid or worse.

Everyone knows the hammering given to anyone who said anything contrary to the politically correct ideology of the time. There has never been a period since Federation when free speech or the voice of dissent was more supressed with such vitriol and hatred.

Now that things are starting to swing back towards the centre, these cultural elites must be feeling a little bit insecure. Now they're demanding the rights that they denied others only a short while ago. Nothing wrong with that, but the hypocrisy is breathtaking.

No one is trying to stop Sawyer having his say. I'm just saying he's wrong. If you read his editorial there's no way he's arguing for critical, unbiased thought. He's saying that the majority of Australian people are brainwashed fools for re-electing the Howard government. His call is not for students to think for themselves, but to think like him. He deduces that people must not be thinking for themselves for if they did they would reach the same conclusions he has and Howard would not be in government. It's arrogant and insulting and it's a view that should not be let go through to the keeper.

Have you ever read any "Letters to the Editor" columns? Quite a bit of vitriol there sometimes about editorial comment, but I suppose that doesn't count? Newspaper editors aren't formulating education policies to teach our kids and young people. You can choose to read, or not, a newspaper. School students are a bit of a captive audience. If Rupert Murdoch did an editorial in one of his rags about how wonderful and marvellous John Howard was and how the people of Australia were obviously well informed, thinking people to re-elect him I can imagine the furore, the vitriol, the hate that would spew forth from these same people.

Kenny, I still can't. What's your point?

my point is computer skills are just one of the many skills that students have now when they leave school that students 25 years ago did not. Sure some things kids are taught are not the same skill level that you may have been taught but they have also been taught a great many things you were not taught or did not ever exist. Children come out of high more life ready then ever. We need more teachers (come on Kev) and more schools and to help pay for them we should have a levy like Medicare.