For anyone who’s not yet discovered the Epic Rap Battles of History on Youtube, I suggest you sample at least one. Take your pick from Einstein vs Stephen Hawking, Dr Seuss vs Shakepeare or even Genghis Khan vs the Easter Bunny.

They are all brilliantly done and incredibly popular with Youtube’s (male-dominated) audience. The most popular (Darth Vader vs Hitler) has close to 50 million views.

I was totally drawn in, mostly because I have a mental age of 13, but also because I was struck by their power as a model for teaching and learning. So I started writing an article about it.

But then, because I have a mental age of 13, I got bored and thought how much more fun it would be to make the point I wanted to make via the format I was writing about. The medium is the message, and all that jazz.

So here it is, with humblest apologies to the brilliant and original Nice Peter:

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education
Rockin’ the mic to raise the status of this nation
We’ve fallen behind because of you and Tony Hart
I’m going to cut the funding for drama and art

I’m Rolf Harris
Let me tell you a story
You miserable pipsqueak of a man, ya f***in Tory
Two little boys and they both got skills
They’re gonna use their creativity to pay the bills
You think everyone’s like you
But that’s your vanity
English, Maths, Physics, French
Now choose a humanity

Gove: With the greatest of respect, your logic is whack
Drawing Rolfaroos doesn’t feature on my E Bacc
I want literacy, numeracy, ICT and grammar
So you can grow up to be a computer programmer

Harris: Take this rap battle, it’s kinda creative
We’re doing the research
but then I go native
With a brush and wobbleboard, gonna prove you wrong
You write a 1000-word essay
I’m gonna write a song

Gove: This isn’t learning, where’s the academic rigour?
You just search Wikipedia, then see who can rhyme bigger
Your style is phoney, this kind of learning is dodgy
We’re going to take it back to the old-school pedagogy

Harris: You’re missing the point, Mike, and you think you’re think you’re being thrifty
But this the real World
It ain't 1950
Changing status to Academies, well that’s just wet
We got a much bigger problem
Can you tell what it is yet?

If you’d like to see this video come alive, please show your support by tweeting and liking.  If we get enough interest, we’ll take the plagiarism one step further and go ahead and record and film it.