Change of use

125 bin
The stories that teachers tell are so interesting. Today I was listening to teachers talking in Barnsley … and then Chesterfield… and became fascinated by the way that professional lives are blended with the everyday. I made a note in the margin that said ‘teacher as magpie’ as I heard one teacher describe how a short film that she shot on holiday in Fuerteventura became a stimulus for some creative writing back in school. Another recounted how a pebble found on a beach became a magical object for her class. And then I remembered how Jackie used an old fridge door from a skip as a place to do magnetic letters. Perhaps this creative use of materials is where teaching-as-bricolage begins. Teacher-bricoleurs should be encouraged, because the connections they make are non-standard and they trouble the normalizing discourses of centralized curricula and entrepreneurial publishers.... And now for something completely different – the talented guitarist Annie Clark.