Education Letter: Be active to beat bores

WITH REFERENCE to Celia Dodd's article "Teacher I'm Bored..." (Education, 3 December), one of the saddest developments for education over the past 20 years or so has been the lowering of children's boredom threshold as electronic entertainment has become more sophisticated. The quest to be "interesting" can, unfortunately, lead a teacher to remove all educational value from the content of lessons, rather like a drinks' manufacturer concocting a highly flavoured cola which has no calories or nutrients.

Surely we do children no favours by letting them expect to be passive recipients of a teacher's brilliant "performance routine", a situation apparently favoured by Chris Woodhead and Tony Blair. Young people will be very disappointed by working life if they have not learnt how to take an active interest in whatever they do at school. Boredom comes from within, as well as being a side-effect of certain teaching techniques.

MR E M GUYVER

Gloucester