What role do English teachers play in protecting or extending students’ cultural boundaries?
‘English teachers are the most tenacious gatekeepers I know.’ A university academic was speaking at a seminar about developing students’ cultural understandings. Affronted, challenged, I entered the debate. My lengthy experience as a practitioner told me otherwise. As a profession we were flexible, open-minded, innovative; surely the group in the school most open to change. And then I reflected— soapbox struggles at faculty meetings protecting Macbeth or Looking for Alibrandi; more passion spent arguing a case for Romeo and Juliet than is uncovered in the play itself; a text list that embodies the various enthusiasms, political views and backgrounds of its teaching cohort; teaching activities, resources and attitudes that resolutely provide a cultural construct for students about what is valued. Want to look at this more closely? What’s on your text list? What’s not there? What are the politics of the choices made in your school? How much does it matter? Some years ago I found myself t
