Alice in Education Land
This article is the first of a series of stories to be included as occasional contributions to International School magazine, created by Chris Binge in response to some of his experiences in international education. Intended to be provocative and amusing, they are also used to provoke discussion when he leads workshops.
Alice gets a job In which Alice begins a new journey and finds herself with a surprising opportunity
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on it, but the only writing that it bore were the two words “Open me”. Alice had learnt before that interesting things can happen when you follow enigmatic instructions, so she opened the letter. It was from the office of the Red Queen.
O�fice of the Red Queen Headteacher Today Dear Alice, I am pleased to say that your application for a post as a teacher in Wonderland has been successful. You are now appointed as teacher of the pawns with immediate e�fect. Please report for school this very a�ternoon for your training and professional development. I am sure you are looking forward to working in our fine establishment. pp Red Queen Alice wasn’t sure she ever remembered applying for such a job, which she found a little strange. It turned out to be one of the least strange things she discovered in the Wonderland of Education. Into a classroom In which Alice encounters some strange values and meets some of the school community. Alice drifted through the looking glass in a daze and landed softly on the cushions of the sofa on the other side. As she came to her senses she could see that the room was as before, similar but eerily different from the one she had left. Everything was back to front again. The first thing she saw was a door on her right, or was it her left? She was already confused. The door had a number on it. The entire door was rather dirty, and the bottom particularly looked as though it had been kicked several times, with shoe marks on it and even a few dents. Further up were some rather grubby handprints, and the handle was loose. There was a small window in the door at head height for an adult. Alice Autumn |
Spring
Alice was feeling drowsy as she sat on the sofa in the living room. While the weather was inhospitable and cold outside, the warmth of the fire had a soporific effect as she looked at the mirror above the fire and remembered her past adventures as a 6-year-old girl. Of course, she was much older now, and was a confident and knowledgeable adult because she had been through Education. She always wondered whether to write the word education with a capital E or a small one. Capital E Education made her think of the systems and institutions that she had been through from kindergarten and school to university and college. It meant the names of the courses, the way they were organised and, of course, the qualifications that she had gained, which were now framed on the wall just next to the looking glass. education with a small e meant something different to her. It summed up what she had actually learned, what she knew and what she could do, how she understood the world and the skills she brought to bear on the bits she did not yet understand. The mystery was why these two seemed so different to each other, and why there seemed to be so little connection between the two. Two other words sprang to her mind as she reflected on her learning, and she knew that all good learners should reflect. She had been told that many times. The two other words were “because” and “despite”. They seemed almost interchangeable in so many sentences, which left her even more confused than before. Did she learn because of school or despite it, because of exams or despite them, because of teachers or despite them? It was at that point she resolved to get to the bottom of the problem, using all the talents her education had given her. In short, she would find out whether she had gained an education because of her Education or despite it. The opportunity came sooner than she might have dreamed. It grew colder in the living room for reasons that Alice could not quite explain, for the windows were closed and the fire still blazed. Yet, there seemed to be a breeze springing up, and coming from the fire. No, not from the fire, from the looking glass above the fire. There was something borne on the wind, fluttering in the air. A piece of paper? A letter? Yes, it was a letter and it floated through the glass into the sitting room to land on Alice’s lap. It looked formal as it had a crest
| 2019
