This is a small miscellany. Our teaching is the sum total of our experiences. So here are five places I’ve found ideas from, often unintentionally so:
The Pirate Supply Store
I found myself in this store, on Valencia Street, San Francisco in the summer of 2013. It is author Dave Eggar’s project and it is still going strong today. It exists to help children and young adults develop their writing. It also aims to inspire teachers to inspire those children and young adults. It certainly inspired me. It’s ostensibly what it says on the sign: a pirate supply store. But the conceit creates intrigue. For although you can actually buy eye patches and skull flags, what this place really deals in is creativity and literacy: behind the curtain, it’s a writing centre and tutor programme. And it’s fantastic.
Ali Abdaal’s YouTube Channel
I stumbled upon Abdaal’s channel when Googling cognitive processes. I was teaching in an independent school at the time, and was enjoying the space on the timetable we were given to give students a solid foundation in study skills. A reflection on why state schools aren’t able to afford similar amounts of their timetables to giving their students the same is probably worth more than an aside. Nevertheless, I continue to use this channel in English lessons - students get the most from the videos when they’re allied to specific topics and accompanied with explicit instructions. Could I distil Ali’s best video into a single sentence? Yes, I could. Stop copying notes, write study questions instead.
The Guinness Storehouse
Just before you leave the Guinness museum to head up for your complimentary Guinness in The Gravity Bar, there is one final display - it’s made up of all the previous guest comments, and I’ve written here about how it got me thinking about feedback, display, plenaries and a few other things. After I’d had a good think, I went upstairs for the free beer.
Chris Evans’ Pie Chart
Evans is a genius broadcaster (IMO). One day, I’d like to interview him. For now, I’ll settle for writing a paragraph about one picture from his autobiography. At a moment when I was trying to find a compromise between my resistance to writing lesson plans and the overscrupulous demands of the edu-bureaucracy in the school I was working in, I found a picture of a hand-drawn pie chart, coloured with crayons. It was an example of how Evans approaches the planning of a 60 minute portion of radio. The representation of a clock face allows him to chart the progress of the show. He shades in the minutes taken by the news, the weather, the travel and the sport; the ads; the songs; and the regular features. He knows that what is left is what needs filling. In turn, this makes the prospect of talking on the radio for an hour far less daunting. The result is an entertaining hour of showbiz, glamour and pop. So I did that. For Year 9 literacy.
Carmel Waldron’s Classroom
Carmel was my English teacher. She was brilliant. She could hold a class for an hour, book in hand, glasses perched at the end of her nose. She did not require a radio DJ’s pie chart to plan her lesson. But she wouldn’t be dismissive of the idea either, because she encouraged and harnessed creativity in her students. Often displaying the trust required to allow us to write freely in our writing journals for an hour. Her literature classes at A-level were next level. There we were, pencils sharpened, scribbling down her every authoritative word into our Othellos. Carmel encouraged and coaxed and inspired. She was everything an English teacher should be. And a wonderful writer, drama teacher and director of school productions too. Cheers, Miss.