b'THE ELLESMERIAN industry and pocket calculator makers; diary manufacturersI think there is much to be said for Douglas Adams analysis and I and sat-nav companies have also taken a major hitand therewould suggest that one of the most important things that those of 6 are more examples, of course.Most of this was unforeseen atus over forty can do is to resist the tendency to catastrophise new inception. developments in this way.Humans, understandably in many ways, have an aversion to changeSchools themselves have a history of being resistant to change. as change brings with it uncertainty. This aversion to change andPublic schools were founded on the study of the Classics. So far as a technological development has long and deep roots in humanmost headmasters in the nineteenth century were concerned, that history. was how they should have remained: Classics was what gentlemen did. The nineteenth century public schools did not trouble In one of Platos dialogues Socrates complained that thethemselves with what ladies might do, of course. Mathematicsdevelopment of writing would lead to people ceasing to exercisenot exactly a new subjectwas only introduced to Eton in 1851. their memories and that they would become more forgetful.ThisIn 1880 the governors of Radley College built science labs. Their seems a remarkably eccentric view now, butjudged by theconstruction was against the wishes of the headmaster and when awesome memory standards of the Ancient GreeksSocrates wasthey were built, he used them to store pupils trunks and cases: obviously right. clearly mathematics and science are not the proper pursuits of gentlemen.The creation of the printing press in the fifteenth century was greeted by the rather wonderfully named Hieronimo Squarciafico with considerable dismay. He feared that the easy availability of books would make people intellectually lazy and less studious. He also argued that cheaply printed books would undermine religious authority, demean the value of scholars and scribes, and lead to debauchery.As with Socrates views on writing and memory, Hieronimo was obviously right: cheaply available books have done all those things.What these two examples have in common is their demonstration of the anticipated negative aspects of change without an awareness of the far greater positives that were at the time unforeseen. I do not think there are many people who would be prepared to sacrifice writing and books and all that they have led to for the genuine but comparatively rather small benefits of collectively better memories and greater studiousness.Francine Gilmore and Anna Maughan been handed the Jogn Beswick On a more domestic scale there is a Private Eye cartoon from theInternational Award for shooting for England1980s that shows a teenage boy dressed in animal skins staring into the dancing flames of a small fire, obviously fascinated. Behind him,So how is Ellesmere going to deal with all of this? I start from a bearded and leaning on a club stands his obviously disapprovingposition that I do not actually know how the world is going to Neanderthal father horrified and muttering: when I was a boy, wechange, but I do knowand have always believedthat change it had to make our own entertainment. For stone age fire perhaps,will, and that the most important thing is that we prepare our pupils we should now read computer games. for unknown changes.Resistance to change does operate at a very human individual level.We are, as it happens, already using AI. We are currently working The late great Douglas Adams, writer of the Hitchhikers Guidewith a company called Century Tech, which provides personalised to the Galaxy, believed that technology provoked one of threeartificial intelligence support in the GCSE years for mathematics, different reactions in people depending on their age at the time ofEnglish and science. We looked at the system five years ago and the invention. Anything invented before our tenth birthday leavesit was in its infancy and not ready for use. Five years onmany us unimpressed: it is just infrastructureplumbing, if you likeandgenerations in terms of AIit now looks to be a worthwhile an ordinary and expected part of life. By contrast, things inventedsupport to our teaching.in the thirty years after our tenth birthdays is Real Technology (with a capital R and T) and a source of awe and fascination andAs you will know, an Ellesmere education has always been about excitement. Things invented after we hit forty are unnecessary andmuch more than simply passing exams and has always aimed to unwelcome complications, frequently regarded as the work of theprepare pupils for lifehence the slogan Life Ready.devil, many of which will inevitably lead to the decline and collapse of society as we know it. It is not just a slogan: it is something we try to live by. Of course, the focus always remains personal academic grades, becauseat'