*Quotations in italics from:  Dominic Cummings: Some thoughts on education and political priorities: https://static.guim.co.uk/ni/1381763590219/-Some-thoughts-on-education.pdf

As my Oxford tutor said,

I’m fizzing with ideas.

I like to bring things down that don’t work.

We need an Odyssean education 

To synthesise all knowledge

into … crude, trans-disciplinary, integrative thinking

about complex systems.

Foresight demands 

the ability to identify and gather

great quantities of relevant information; 

the ability to catch glimpses, using that information,

of the choices offered by the branching alternative histories of the future, 

and the wisdom to select simplifications and approximations

that do not sacrifice the representation

of critical qualitative issues,

especially issues of values…

So you need people as clever as me.

So this is why

I got Gove to change the education system

into one based entirely on factual recall

tested by sudden death examinations.

Most children won’t thrive on this, but the best will.

Maybe we can breed for brains.

If pensioners die, too bad.

And this is why

I used my powers of deception

To persuade 17.4 million Britons

To leave an economic and social community that worked.

And this is why

I wrote rules to control the pandemic

And flouted them.

Then rewrote my blog

To show I foretold the future.