Fifty years ago the old saw was that television was dumbing down children. Only teachers could give them the knowledge they need, they said.

Now, however, we can see just how wrong this was. Ask any child about the natural world and they conjure up vivid images or animals in their natural environment, not from teachers but from David Attenborough. The same with science, history and almost every subject. This extended beyond educational subjects too — the opening up of social relationships through soaps and sitcoms has led to a drop in crime of over 30%.

Ironically, the current problem is the close relationship between those much derided broadcast media and academia. Academics have found a ready outlet for what is often pseudoscience. Newspapers and magazines have found academics an easy source of quotations so they can sell reader eyeballs to advertising companies and academics don’t seem to mind being complicit, often for no payment, in this commercial venture.

The reality here is plain for any secondary school teacher to see, if they can simply get past their own cognitive bias. Children are growing up with a tablet or phone in their hands from an early age and are learning at an astonishing rate. They no longer need to go to a library or ask a grown-up — they find that whatever they need to know is on Wikipedia and whatever skill they need to acquire is on YouTube.

We are seeing that they know how to code by the time they are ten, are entrepreneurs by their early teens and maturing into adults earlier. No longer do they have to consort with undesirables to learn the facts of life their parents are too embarrassed to share, they can learn in the safety of their own homes. They are learning sociability too — how hurt people can be by a simple remark, how others share things behind your back etc. through social networks. And they can venture off-piste — to learn in much greater depth the things which fire their imaginations, without having to move on to the “next subject in the curriculum”.

They learn faster, wider and deeper than ever before. And it is this that is driving the world at a faster pace and showing up our 17th century teaching system as the anachronism it is.