The 'ploughman's lunch' of pub menus is a curious bit of nostalgia: it has no basis in real custom. There is no evidence that ploughmen traditionally lunched on bread, cheese and pickle. The new nostalgia for the school education of the 1950s is similar: it, too, has no basis in reality.

Chucking chalk
There is little to regret about the passing of the schools of the 1950s, or the kind of staff room I joined in 1959. Teachers positively took pride in being sarcastic, chucking chalk and clipping ears or worse. Co-operative discipline policies were unknown: it was each man for herself. Somehow a new teacher had to learn to lion-tame or die. Ferocity was the only prescription, 'Don't smile till Christmas' the only advice. Any difficulty confessed only showed your weakness, as the deputy head and keeper of the cane smirked that he never had any trouble with 3C.

Scottish education of the time is much vaunted for its high standards: try reading Billy Connelly's biography to find out about the cruelty he experienced in a 1950s' primary school in Glasgow. Read Joanna Trollope on the mindless boredom of her grammar school. Before being convinced of the high standards of literacy, read some of the popular books and magazines of that era. They were snobbish, nasty and feeble. The Times certainly had long, ponderous sentences, but the journalism seems positively naïve and certainly laborious.

Cruelties
Teachers in the 1950s not only got away with some near-murderous cruelties - they were also able to be extremely lazy. They could dictate the same notes again and again, and spend lessons listening to rote learning. Not much preparation needed there.

Their classroom was their castle. After their initial assessment as competent, no other adult ever entered. An inspector might come to the school every 50 years, but most teachers managed to escape them. No head of department or member of the senior management did lesson appraisals or discussed techniques. A teacher could bore on indefinitely in class, provided the troops were sufficiently cowed.

Dumbed down
As a society, we have dumbed down - no question - but it is not schools that have done that. Most schools today are islands of civilisation in our seas of crassness and hypocrisy. Much written English is inaccurate and standard spoken English is sloppy, but that is because of the language of business schools and pervasive management-speak as much as a lack of learning grammar in English language lessons.

Woolly-mindedness and the imprecise use of words is encouraged by the media. (Just consider the recent hi-jacking of the word 'reform'.) Advertisers do not want an audience of clear thinkers who are accurate with words. The less clear we are, the more we can be persuaded to buy. A truly clear-thinking, sharp population would only be trouble. We are merely required to be literate enough for the purposes of the day.

Heroic
In the conditions of our times, our modern schools are, in fact, heroic - the only places where a struggle is being made against the dumbed-down sentimentality of present-day society.

And their teachers are heroes. They work under conditions that are vastly more difficult than those of the old grammar school or even the old secondary modern.

They are open to constant scrutiny and appraisal. Every month, say, business people work up one presentation for clients. Teachers have to produce much the same, only for six or seven different lessons every day. They have to keep minute records of lessons, homework and student acceptance, and they must report constantly. 'Could do better' is no longer acceptable.

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