There's no debate... so let's talk the talk

DEBATING, we are told, will become common in most subjects under the new national curriculum. By all that's holy, what took them so long? We know young people are word phobic.

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We know why. They are terrified of stringing two sentences together. They'd rather tap away with their freakishly elongated thumbs than give an unrehearsed response to a question.

Parents and grandparents have become resigned to determinedly nonverbal "yoof" communicating in grunts and gurns. The very idea of looking another human being squarely in the eye and engaging in anything approaching dialogue sends them into meltdown. How this conversationally stunted generation expects to thrive in any working environment except WFH in pyjamas in their mum's back bedroom is a mystery.