When I was first married, twenty something years ago I was a very tradional young wife. In the world that I lived in my husband went out to work and I looked after the home. Everyweek I would make a shopping list and go to the supermarket.

Every week I bought so many toilet rolls, so much washing powder, a bar of soap and all of the stuff necessary to maintain a young couple in a small flat. After a few weeks I realised that I had a lot of toilet rolls in the cupboard. I had several extra boxes of washing powder and enough soap to start a bathhouse (if we had a bath – it was a small flat so we only had a shower).

I realised that the list had a two way purpose. It served for a reminder for me to check what I was running low on and needed to replace as well as a reminder when I got to the supermarket.

This week in New Zealand, teachers will be having Teacher Only Days. They will get cautiously opening the doors of classrooms to see if the cleaner has done the carpets. Some people will be hauling out the curriculum documents and the school’s schemes and doing their planning – because their senior teacher needs it next week, or ERO are coming this term, this year or because that’s what they do at their place.

That’s why the Artichoke‘s latest post The Edublogger and Matthew Arnold is so important for teachers who are returning to work this week. The curriculum, the scheme, the planning is only as important as it is made to be. What is important is the teaching and learning, the thinking and doing.

Back to my shopping list. If you get stuck on the relevant documents you’re in danger of having too much soap and too many toilet rolls. Of kids ‘doing’ space every second year of their primary school lives. Of Auckland kids learning about volcanoes without ever setting foot on Mount Eden or picking up a lump of pumice at Takapuna with Rangitoto in the background.

Artichoke says,

“I think it means that what is authentic in you is the desire to learn.”

She talks about teachers being keen to think and learn in the own time – to even (shock horror) talk about it in their own time. Imagine that. Imagine if it caught on and the kids did it too?