I’m an English teacher in Yorkshire, England. Or, rather, I am the online avatar of an English teacher. I think teaching is an important profession: perhaps too important to take too seriously.

For whom is he writing?

Primarily I write for himself. When I first started teaching there were plenty of things I would have loved to have known. Who else do I write for?  I write for other teachers, specifically those who teach English in state schools. Sp should anyone else be interested? Some of my students, past and present, might want to see examples of how school life extends beyond their seats and desks. Is that it? I know some keen parents follow this blog, too, although this website will never become a definitive homework setter. We have planners such things.

So why write a blog?

Inspired by such sites as www.boxoftricks.net, I have enjoyed playing with all sorts of exciting technology. There are, though, established blogs that deliver excellent content on technology in the classroom (see my resource section). Therefore, this blog isn’t about reviewing resources. Instead, it’s about occupying a niche for what English teaching is for me.

I recommend that anyone in any profession keeps a blog. I have one on my sport, and one on my hobbies. It’s an excellent opportunity to reflect in a space outside the demands of the school bell.  This is not least because I’m a firm believer in wasting time during the school day. That is, I actually enjoy addressing the plethora of triviality that doesn’t affect him or the grades of those he teaches: finding lost glasses; repairing  falling-outs; discussing the events of the world around us with my students. While I think that I would be more productive in blocking any/all of that, I choose not to. Why?

Do I think teachers (in state schools, at least) represent the spectrum of what society decree the social face of authority? Is it because it is more entertaining to be bring judicious levity to the proceedings of a school day? Or is it because I think that what a teacher is, is important than what he or she teaches?

English is not the most important subject in school. However, literacy is. Not just literacy enough to ‘read’ (not just comprehend) fiction, but digital literacy. Literacy enough to be aware of how the world must necessarily treat all of us as a means-to-an-end, and how we might one day, in our own time, use the technology available to us to enrich our imaginative lives (and have an idea for how to play the games of life!) That is the hope – that his students will realise that whatever is most important in life is surely not only available because someone likes your CV, or what your grandfather might have done or not done.

Easier said than done, and certainly not entirely up to me.

So tell me, Mr Quill Guy. Isn’t this all just a bit ambitious/naive?

Of course, I write above vaguely about some of my ambition. The lived truth is different. Teaching is hard. It aspires, yes, but it deals daily with inadequacy, ill-health, and doubt. I’ve worked inner-city Hull, and I’ve worked a city school in York. Although I work in rural Yorkshire, I know that ambitions to aspire to more than managing classes may seem lofty and seem occasionally misplaced. Therefore, all my posts, suggestions and work are tempered with this fact:

I’m doing it.

I’m in the classroom day-in, day-out, performing, planning, and marking. Everything I write or suggest or try has survived, or failed, the acid test: Friday afternoon period 5. Or boredom. Or a windy day. Or a person who has hardly slept. If what I attempt does not work, then I’d soon know about it, largely because I’ll be there as I’m doing it.

So, on that note, enjoy! Any comments, collaboration or criticism please find me  on the TES, or speak to me in school.