The problem of 'Passion' in teaching
If ever a concept has had its meaning pounded pallid by overuse, it's 'passion'. In education, it's everywhere, being dragged out in any number of contexts as a magic ingredient in successful teaching. Witness John Hattie's lauding of 'passionate teachers' at the LFE a couple of weeks ago, and the liberal sprinkling of references to passion throughout Visible Learning . Daniel Willingham in Why Don't Students Like School? asserts that many teachers join the profession in order to enable their students to 'feel the excitement and passion for learning' that they felt in their own education. And at the recent Guardian Innovation in Education conference, we were given the following prompt for discussion: 'Think back to when you first started teaching: what made you excited and passionate? How can you rekindle the joy of teaching?'. Frankly, all this passion talk is beginning to get on my nerves, resonating as it does so feebly with my own ex...