'Yes, but ...' A single impulse

'Yes, but ... ' is a notorious feature not simply of English teaching but of teaching generally. You know the sort of thing: it is a classic dilemma for the English teacher - faced by a student's work, one is torn between wholehearted approval and unstinting, unqualified praise on the one hand, and on the other a nagging sense of the need for careful criticism and artful extension of what is there, a drawing-out of the potential in both the work and the student. Fundamentally, it involves a tension between the present moment and its possible future: what the work is now and where the student is now, and what and where both the work and the student could be, with careful 'nurturing'. It's the same thing, I've noticed, when teachers are asked to reconsider their practice in the light of new knowledge: 'yes, but ... ' However, I am quite unrepentant about doing this very same thing here, because I feel strongly that it's both warranted and must be said. Let me begin positively, however.