This is a Thinking Aloud Podcast from the BBC and for more details in our terms of use and much,

much more about thinking aloud. Go to our website at BBC.co.uk. Hello. My first teaching job was at a brand new comprehensive school in South London.

As far as I could tell, all the staff who decided to work there were

thoroughly committed to this new comprehensive ideal. They talked

enthusiastically about having it last moved on from the bad old days of 11-plus

selection and ability streaming.

This would be a school where students who possess different talents and

came from different backgrounds would happily mix together.

Well it was impressed upon me that a similar comprehensive

ethos should exist among staff. History and English teachers would share

break time, morning coffee, and afternoon tea with chemistry and physics teachers

in the large open communal staff room.

Well when I arrived I think only one term had passed but already a small side annex

to the main staff room have been commandeered by the English department.

Here nearly everybody smoked aggressively, talked disparagingly about colleagues from other subject

areas, told risque jokes and swore loudly and collectively when the bell rang for lessons to resume.

And on the wall, I can still remember it, there was a poster demanding peace in Algeria and on the central table

copies of the male and the mirror and very individualized

T-Mugs.

It was no longer a staff room or an annex to a staff room, it was a home.

Well altogether it was a development that it would, I suspect, have seemed natural and perfectly

predictable to my first guest today.

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