Over the years, many people have called for an overhaul of the “industrial” or “factory” model of education. Get rid of the straitjacketed convention of children sitting at their desks learning via direct instruction. Bring in flipped learning. Chuck out those textbooks and get everything on an iPad.

Edtech entrepreneurs have been lining up to disrupt schooling while smooth TED Talkers have confidently told us how they would reimagine it. Unfortunately for them, in the UK at least, teachers have so far proved a cautious bunch. Trapped in perpetual motion owing to persistent policy nudges, many of which end up making things worse, they have an in-built bullshit detector that makes them eye many of these innovations and pronouncements with suspicion.

Let’s be honest, it’s usually with good reason. As John Pane - a senior scientist at the Rand Corporation in the US, who has researched innovations in education - says, almost everything thrown at schools so far seems to have been poorly thought through. Even personalised learning, the great hope of reimagined schooling, could “pass by without ever having gained the traction that would enable it to stick”, he says.

Now, with the coronavirus we have the wholesale disruption those entrepreneurs could only dream of and a hesitant world ripe for reimagination. The rulebook for education has gone out the window and, even better, children have to learn remotely. This is the time for those entrepreneurs and reimagineers to shine.

But where are all the crusaders bringing us a new dawn? Where are the big ideas? My inbox hasn’t been inundated with articles offering ingenious ways to help teachers at this difficult time (recycled press releases giving away your stuff for free don’t count). The slick TED Talkers are strangely silent. The only useful stuff has come from the staid old BBC and the Department for Education (with its backing for Oak National Academy), neither of which are renowned for their revolutionary thinking.

And while tech programmes have become an essential part of learning, they are still just that - a part of it. There has been no educational leap for humankind, no breakthrough innovation.

Is education, then, particularly resistant to change? Does it have a role to play in the failure of revolution? In this special issue, we look at how the current interruption could pave the way for fresh ideas and shine a light on a series of questions that go to the heart of how we structure our schools and our education to see whether the barriers to change are science, lack of resource, insufficient time or the will of the profession. Or even - horror of horrors - is it a case of much of what we have now actually works and is worth sticking with?

The conclusion is that teachers have intuitively, for the most part, got it broadly right. There is no need for revolution. There is much still to discuss - a few things that could be added on, a few things cast off, a few things to re-evaluate - but wholesale changes would not be helpful to anyone.

What’s more, in times of crisis, we yearn for what we know and hanker for the status quo. It’s like going back to an ex. Yes, they lacked excitement, but they were also reliable, familiar and made you feel secure.

In the end, that may be the denouement to this roller coaster coronavirus ride. We’ll all go back to the ex. And why not? There’s a good reason the tech entrepreneurs and education visionaries have failed to seduce us. It’s not because education won’t change - it’s because most don’t think it needs changing.

@AnnMroz

This article originally appeared in the 29 May 2020 issue under the headline “A change isn’t always as good…so give it a rest, tech imagineers”