Did you see the latest shock/horror news that thousands of 16-year-olds are to be hired to fill in for teachers?
Ministers say the classroom apprentices could help teach pupils up to the age of 14, but teachers say it's a non-starter as they would lack the maturity and credibility to take on such responsibility.
New idea? - pah! When I was at school it was assumed that when we were in the sixth form, and accepted for university or a college of education, we would help out with the teaching.
I remember tentatively going into a class of 12-year-olds, clutching my copy of The Odyssey (a school's version obviously and not in the original Ancient Greek) to take my first ever lesson.
Actually it wasn't the first time I did this. At primary school, older pupils heard the little ones read. I had a bracelet with little coloured cylinders which I used as pointers - it must have been my first teaching aid...and my first taste of power!
But our apprentices will not always have instant success and they will learn from experience, as I did, that nothing goes well all the time.
At 19, when a college tutor came to observe me teach my first ever drama lesson, I had decided that the eight-year-olds, helped by my sound effects record, would experience the seaside. They would mime making a sand castle, fish in a rock pool, feel the sun on their faces.
But my nerves got the better of me. I lost control and, as the pupils mutated into manic beach bums, whizzing round the school hall, screaming and knocking each other flying, a frosty-faced tutor took over my lesson.
I vowed never to teach again, but fortunately this turned out to be a temporary hitch; I regained my confidence; qualified as a teacher, and enjoyed 15 years in primary schools (even becoming an acting deputy head) before later changing to journalism.
The sweetest irony was that I eventually had special responsibility for my favourite subject - drama - and also eventually enjoyed a stint as a tutor at the Beck Youth Theatre in Hayes.
So, youngsters, never give up!
* Were you amused to read that music teachers have been ordered to wear ear muffs or stand behind noise screens while children bash away on their instruments. What next to protect our educationalists' senses? Nose pegs for cookery lessons or full body armour for PE lessons maybe?
