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Telling Tales out of School

Connecting the Prose and the Passion in the Learning and Teaching of English

University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

As U.K. school exam results continue to rise, perennial accusations appear in the media of the "dumbing down" of the curriculum and of employers' complaints about school leavers' lack of basic literacy skills. In this context, Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, has raised questions about how to provide an inspiring English curriculum, the place of creativity and imagination within it, and how much emphasis there should be on the nuts and bolts of language. If idealism isn't added into the mix, he asserts, it will have denied English the chance to fulfill its proper responsibilities to strike a balance between functional values, literary values, human values, and philosophical values. This article explores these issues. It continues an earlier story told in QI, and by drawing on contemporaneous diary extracts from the author's 1960s schooldays, it introduces and acknowledges the significance of a character who had remained hidden there.

Key Words: learning and teaching of English • poetry • literature • love • autoethnography • growing up

Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 13, No. 6, 808-820 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1077800407304465


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