VERSION|0.5.1|SUBJECT|Rev Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James Piccadilly, handy for Fortnum and Mason   |CONTENT|[b]Rating[/b] 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

[url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130718.html][img=images/2013/07/pic130718.jpg popup=false float=right][/url]For a change, I'm not going to talk about what was on the telly the other night. I'm actually going to talk about a real, current news story. There's going to be more [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/17/five-year-olds-tests-clegg]testing for school children[/url].

"Hurrah!" I hear you shout, but before we all celebrate this exciting new innovation, a word of caution. Children are [i]so[/i] important. The future depends on our children. When you are old and grey and want to go to the supermarket, it will be one of today's children that drives the taxi, that handles the checkout, that programmes the database that analyses your shopping habits and suggests useful new products that you might like to try while on special offer. Today's children are tomorrow's adults. Children are the future. The clichés are endless.

That's why it is so important to educate children in care and empathy, otherwise they might not care or empathise about anybody. That's why children are [i]so[/i] important. Jesus, the visible bit of the Invisible Magic Friend, thought children were important. So if you didn't think that children were important before you will surely think so now.

As well as learning to achieve and to win, they must also learn to lose. They must be able to accept failure, to have their ambitions crushed, to learn that the bright spark of teenage energy and optimism will be replaced with the gloom and despondency of middle age. Won't someone please, [i]please[/i] think of the children.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01cz0pc]Listen/Read[/url]|CATEGORIES|31,83|IP-ADDRESS|94.168.119.214|CREATEDBY|admin|DATE|1374132049
