ABSTRACT
It wasn’t so long ago that arguments abounded about the artistic genius of Tracey Emin’s My Bed (1998). Could an unmade, soiled, crude-looking bed be truly worthy of a Turner Prize nomination? Many argued that it wasn’t art. That to call it art would be to compare it to the greatness of van Gogh or Monet. The point is this though, not to argue what’s great art, but to illuminate that what’s considered exemplary, magnificent and even mind-blowing art is subjective and that this subjectivity is celebrated, venerated and encouraged. How does this relate to teaching? Well, it’s the same principle, or at least it should be. If, as Gage (1978: 15) proposes, that teaching is an art that ‘calls for intuition, creativity and improvisation’, surely we should be celebrating, awarding and encouraging unique, personalised, diverse teaching practices? We should, but we don’t! Instead we have a system that is attempting, through lesson observation, to pigeonhole teaching practices by formula and rules to create uniformed ‘good teachers’ and ‘good teaching practices’.
