ABSTRACT
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it
was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…
This quotation from the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens almost 150 years ago, characterizes the world that many teachers in schools, colleges and universities now inhabit in England and elsewhere. It is a world that for some is bewildering in its complexity, for others challenging in the paradoxes that it seems to offer, and for still others depressing in its effects upon schools, teachers and teaching and learners and learning. Since politicians began to link the state of the economy with standards in schools, the walls of the socalled ‘secret garden’ of teaching, like those of the city of Jericho so long ago, have come tumbling down. In the years since then, there is little in education that has remained untouched by governments in their attempts to raise the quality of educational achievement in order to boost their position in the world competitiveness league. So far four outcomes are to be seen: more work for teachers, increased stress levels, fewer attracted into teaching, and a rise in the numbers of students who are alienated by schools.
