This is a man unelected by anyone, who lives a life of unbelievable luxury and privilege, a man who never gets told the truth about anything, who is surrounded by fawning courtiers, who is part of a dysfunctional family with severe communication problems. In his rarefied world, mobile phones, computers and digital television channels don't offer opportunities, they represent a threat.Of course the Prince is wrong, and now we get to the crux of the problem. Nothing wrong in that, or having hobbies you feel passionately about, but it doesn't qualify you to issue edicts on some perceived breakdown in education policy.What the Prince really objects to, as with all his other pronouncements about art, modern architecture, and science, is progress. They have different skills, different ways of expressing themselves. We can't exist in a time warp.The Prince had a very unhappy experience as a schoolboy at Gordonstoun, and only achieved a second-rate university degree. His two sons attendedEton and are no better scholars for all the time and effort lavished on them in the fee-paying environment.
Prince Charles is a master of hindsight, having educated himself since he left college (like many of us) by dabbling in whatever has caught his fancy. If they send endless text messages while listening to iPods they must be rotting their brains. The breathtaking arrogance displayed by the Prince insults not only pupils, but also the teaching profession.My brief time in the staffroom proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that these days teachers are far more committed and display a far wider ability to deal with a whole range of subjects than a couple of decades ago. Teachers have assumed many of the tasks parents once undertook, from sex education to teaching about relationships, manners, social skills and even how to hold a conversation. Many children are never spoken to at home, the television is permanently on, and meals are not eaten together.
In the circumstances most young people are no more inarticulate than I was at their age. When I read aloud to them, far from fidgeting, nearly every single child sat and paid attention. This despair over English teaching is like the current debate about hoodies and yobs - there is an undeniable tendency by those over 40 to imagine that acceptable standards are falling by the wayside and, in the process, young people are becoming illiterate, badly educated, uncouth and foul-mouthed, because they are not wearing cardigans knitted by granny or reading Charles Dickens. The Prince claimed that learning needed to be "organic" and not a "genetically modified hybrid" - he obviously only has one speech writer who has to turn his or her skills to farming one week and education the next.As usual, he's way off the mark. Unlike Prince Charles I have spent time working in a classroom teaching English and History.
