An Ode to English Teachers
I found this picture of my early teaching days this morning, and fell into a reverie...
I spent over half my adult life as an English teacher and am endlessly grateful for those years. I loved being constantly inspired and amused by the teenage brain; loved the journeys we would go on together with each new poem, play or novel, and loved the infinite moments of inspiration found in the endless discussions that ensued.
English often gets a bad wrap:
"What's the point of an English degree?"
"How can you call sitting around talking about poems 'a proper subject'?"
"Why bother reading books written by dead people?"
Yet English lessons are an invitation to explore what it means to be human, and English teachers are the guides into the portals of the soul.
In our early days when we first encounter words, we’re learning to express ourselves and connect with others through language; exploring the collective imagination through stories . Our teachers walk with us, gently guiding us into our fullest sense of expression.
As we journey through school, English lessons offer the chance to travel the world with stories from different cultures, places, perspectives. We time-travel in space and time, leaning into stories of old, of the here and now; of what may become.
📚Each text is a step into empathy: an invitation into the heart of another human in order to feel with them for a brief moment. This gift of connecting is an essential quality that will guide our relationships for the rest of our lives.
📖Each story read is a journey into a different way of living together; understanding that we’re all just living out stories from our cultures and conditionings, and that no culture owns the narrative of ‘how to be human’.
💬 Each discussion and exploration with a class opens up a space for dialogue; for leaning into the different interpretations of the students; for listening in to the different reflections and responses. The English classroom is a place for sharing space - not to agree on the “right" meaning of a text, but to appreciate the many-layered resonance of the words together.
And then along came education reform, and with it:
Literacy
Phonics
Pre-frontal adverbials
Teaching for the test
These are just some of the concepts forced into English teaching over the past decade and which now greet children through their days of school and haunt teachers across the land. When a journey into understanding our humanity is forced to fit into formulas and spreadsheets, you know you’re looking at a painfully broken education system.
Yet here’s a little secret. Inside every English teacher is an explorer waiting for their moment to set sail. Inside lies the empath, constantly nurturing hearts and minds. Inside lies that magic spark waiting for the moment to light up the imagination. What can happen in an English classroom can change the world. Let’s hear it for all of those weaving their beautiful magic in classrooms across the land.
NB: This picture was taken in my second year of teaching, when I was supported by the English department to direct the school play, King Lear. Gratitude to some of those extraordinarily magical English teachers that have inspired me and my journeys over the years:
💚Ms Matthews
💚Mrs Knapper
💚Mr Kavanagh
💚Mr Kennedy
💚Dervel Tubridy
💚Chris Baldick
💚Blake Morrison
💚Nigel Tattersfield
💚Angela Vick
💚Dee Cattermole
💚Angela Spelman
💚Jo Kean
💚Dougal Hand
💚Steve Halliwell
💚Jo Henderson
💚Jane Peters