In Praise of Teachers : Identity, Equality and Education

Teachers, the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska has said, have in common with poets, artists, doctors and gardeners that they are visited by inspiration. They have consciously chosen their calling and they do their job with love and imagination. In six topical lectures, Robin Richardson pays tribute to teachers' courage, commitment, imagination and energy, and defends them against the ill-informed and unfair attacks they have suffered from successive governments since 1988. He re-affirms concepts of teacher as artist and maker of history, of education for equality and social justice, and of classroom as miniature community. The book is a collection of recent lectures given at British conferences. Much use is made of story, imagery and metaphor, satire and jokes, quotations from fiction and poetry. The six texts are about the craft and art of the lecture -- a script to be interpreted, performed and enacted, not merely "delivered" and about education at its most inspirational.

Robin Richardson, a director of the Insted consultancy, was formerly director of the Runnymede Trust.