The summer break has arrived for teachers. For many, this will be a time to go to the beach, play sports, tidy the garden and visit friends. All good things for sure as some time of rest is vital. It is right that any hard-working and dedicated professional should feel tired at the end of a session. Given that teachers have longer holidays than other professionals, perhaps there should be some time earmarked for ‘serious’ reading designed to feed the mind and soul.
As we all know only too well, the educational world is awash with bullet-pointed policy statements and whirling presentations of action plans which often confuse as opposed to enlighten. Prolonged exposure to such media can leave one begging for mercy and in need of immediate intellectual sustenance. To counter this, we need to find a comfortable chair and feed our mind with some of the great books of the western canon. My own summer reading is the ‘Divine Comedy’ by Dante: much more meaningful to me now than when I first came across it as a teenage undergraduate studying Modern Languages. To return to these great sources of the western intellectual tradition can only be a moment of joy.
The teacher with the well-stocked mind - whether in primary, secondary or tertiary education - is worth more than any number of bullet pointed action plans.
