If there is one statement that haunts the teaching profession, it is this infamous line from George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play Man and Superman: ‘Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.’ This is the starting point of Must Do Better, which is a rallying cry for a reframing, redirection, and reinvigoration of teaching. The book is co-authored by Harry Hudson and Roy Blatchford. Hudson is a History teacher at a West London secondary school who writes for several publications including The Times and The Spectator. Blatchford is Director of Blinks Education who, as a former Headteacher and Ofsted inspector, has a wealth of experience of schools at all levels.
The book starts by surveying the image of teaching across the generations and highlights the pervasive stereotyping of teachers as of low worth, brutal and/or lazy, particularly by authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Hudson and Blatchford suggest that these stereotypes remain dominant because of society's deep respect for the English literary canon. However, they ask why, if we can question 19th and 20th century portrayals of women and race, do we continue to accept their attitude towards education as fact (p. 30).
The book is then organised into three parts. It first identifies the problems facing the image of teaching, then explores the nature of teaching in the 21st century before suggesting the changes needed to raise teaching to a higher level in the national consciousness. A nice touch is that each chapter is introduced with a quote from a celebrity about their favourite teacher, most of which, but not all, taken from Pamela Coleman's 2012 book My Favourite Teacher.
The first problem identified by Hudson and Blatchford is pay, both in terms of starting salaries to recruit the best graduates but also salaries further up the pay scale to increase retainment. They further argue that what they term the ‘illusion of knowing’ (p. 44) needs to be broken, namely that everyone has experience of school as a pupil and so assumes that they ‘know’ what schools and teaching are like, even if their experience is outdated. Two further problems that they address are perhaps more contentious. Namely, that the media and unions only promote a negative view of teaching. The media do so because negative stories are more likely to lead to sales and clicks (p. 58) and the unions, as the only public voice for teaching, hold the profession back by just voicing grievances (p. 61).
Part Two examines the nature of 21st century teaching and celebrates the modern profession. Hudson and Blatchford see teaching as a balance between social justice, intellectual challenge and cutting-edge pedagogic developments, which they argue is the USP of the teaching profession (p. 94). They applaud that teaching is becoming an ever more technical and scientific profession and that increasing numbers of teachers are engaging with research to create the best conditions for learning in the classroom. The result is that teaching is ‘finally coming of age as a truly professional profession’ (p. 78). They highlight the positive impact teachers can have on their individual pupils whilst also enabling social mobility on a wider level. However, they make a point that teaching should not be seen merely as a charitable endeavour nor as separate from the roles and responsibilities of the state (p. 93).
In the third and final part of the book, Hudson and Blatchford make a range of suggestions for how the problems they identify can be overcome. They encourage individual teachers to develop a public voice by writing articles and books aimed at a public audience, as Hudson already does. They would also like the government to do more to increase wages, improve recruitment and to support the teaching profession more generally. They further outline what they term ‘radical’ suggestions. Firstly, that private schools should be abolished to level the educational playing field as it were. Or if this is not possible, then state schools should learn more from private schools, which are free to stick to what they know and aren't at the mercy of government or Ofsted fads (p. 150). Secondly, that trainee teachers should be prevented from coming straight from university, instead being only able to start teacher training after a few years’ life experience.
Must Do Better is a thought-provoking and rousing read for anyone who wants to celebrate and promote teaching. However, if its aim of improving the image of teaching is to be a success, it must be read by those outside of education. There are parts of Must Do Better which some may not agree with. Nevertheless, it opens an important debate on how to move away from ‘those who can't, teach’ and shines light on what the modern teaching profession has to celebrate.
Open access
