Knowledge is power.

Knowledge is power, but the skill to apply it makes that power effective; it's like a bullet and a gun - one without the other is a lump. You can smack with it, threaten with it, but you can't strike with it.

Our pupils need to be able to strike. Forgive the inherent violence in my opening metaphor, but we live in a society where power is abused, used to exploit an threaten and control. 

Class warfare is ongoing, in one direction. The power system oppresses, and and is allowed to do so by a media filled with pliant supplicants. A fight back is essential before society ultimately fragments into an Orwellian two-tier dystopia of proles and party members.

We must arm our pupils, ensuring they're ready to compete and secure a fair deal in a world which simply wants them to be mindless consumers, which wants them to hand back their earnings for pointless trinkets. 

Knowledge is power. Power corrupts, but so does a lack of power. Let's make sure our pupils are not only skilled, highly, at reading and writing, but able to use the knowledge they can gain through novels, poetry, plays and journalism to strike, powerfully and perceptively at the heart of the system that seeks to control.