Watching Robert [ Ryan Wilson's mentor] was extraordinary. He marched around, castigating and praising in equal measure.
But he cared deeply about his students and they loved his lessons. For all his bluster, he was a brilliant teacher. When he retired, there was a sense that we’d lost one of the last of the old guard.
In my experience, the number of eccentric teachers has dropped drastically. Schools have changed. They are now more slick and corporate, with appraisals, observations and management drop-ins.
Teachers are expected to create plans for every lesson, drawing on student data and dividing the learning into phases that stretch the most able while supporting those who struggle most.
League tables, funding cuts, forensic inspections and exam pressures mean that this has become inevitable. But change comes at a cost: able, experienced teachers who’ve spent years honing their craft are told they haven’t made enough use of data or their lesson plans aren’t sufficiently detailed.
Eccentric teachers are often brilliant. They are the inspirers who make learning effective as well as memorable and fun, the ones we all remember from our own school days.
Any system that is too inflexible to accommodate them deprives itself of some of the best. Ryan Wilson. Daily Mail.
