Whereas the previous government, regarding education primarily as a means to an end, showed little interest in questions of curriculum content, Gove's counter-revolution involves the enforcement of a deeply authoritarian politics of knowledge. An adequate response to such cultural and curricular conservatism needs to expose the falsity of Gove's claims to rigour, but also to promote an alternative model of curriculum and pedagogy. The salient features of such an alternative are to be found both in the history of progressive education and also in aspects of current practice--aspects that are ignored or marginalised in the dominant discourses of education.