Mr Prothero Gives a Lecture

The space pullulated with expectant energy. They’d all been arranged into groups, just as Mr Prothero had asked. “We’re not to be siloed,” he’d insisted. “I want collaboration but not colla-bore-ation. You know?” At these last words he’d angled his head and smiled knowingly. Evidently Tess had got the message.

Many people, he knew, would have been terrified to walk into a room like this. There were professionals in there who’d been doing things a certain way for years. You could spot them. They sat back in their chairs with complacent ease. Some were staring ahead in solemn, stony silence. Others were chatting animatedly with old colleagues. They all wore bright name-tags. They all knew how a day like today would progress. Mr Prothero was an outsider but he was going to shake things up. He stood at the edge of the room, rocking on his heels. He was nervous but that only gave him fire. This was just the sort of crucible he loved.

He’d made his reputation years earlier as a passionate educator. From the beginning he’d loved the company of the students. He’d studied history at university and in consequence he’d been hired to teach PDHPE, English and Religion at St Arian’s. It was a very reputable Catholic high school in a very reputable upper-middle-class suburb. Despite the unfamiliarity of all three subjects, “Protho” had quickly created a classroom that students wanted to attend. He’d done it with sarcasm, laughter and hours of sisyphean preparation.

Very soon the parental complaints emanating from second-hand stories of classroom bon-mots dried up. Once it became clear just how hard he worked for them, and how unoffended he was by their clumsy attempts at friendly ridicule, the students adopted him. Like Christ, who intermittently cropped up in their religion lessons, they affirmed his new status by renaming him. He was Protho no longer. He was now The Chef. This grandiloquent title emerged out of the warning students gave to newbies: “If you take him on you’ll get burnt.”

As day leads on to day, so Prothero had taken on new roles at St Arian’s. For three years he’d been a housemaster. The principal told him, “I want to see you in the role because you’ve got that Arian Spirit we always talk about and I think you’ll do some amazing things.” In reality it was because the kids liked him and the more experienced staff were wise to the demands of the job.

He’d faced down a parade of mothers and remained undefeated. They clinked their pearls at him while defending their indefensible offspring: “My child is not a liar. If she said she didn’t defecate in the basin that’s the end of it. I don’t care what the teacher saw. She didn’t do it.” He’d survived those interviews by staring at the subtle but wholly ridiculous traces of lipstick marking their unnaturally white teeth. This reputation for being a good listener had opened a doorway to be a Curriculum Leader. One hastily completed master’s degree later and he was the foundational principal at the new St Pelagius’ Catholic College across town. 

This school had been opened at the nexus of two ambitious-looking housing estates and one defeatist-looking housing commission. The leadership team had arrived at the somewhat daring plan of making the school cutting-edge. Prothero’s head, now swarming with twenty-first-century skills, growth mindsets and research-based wonderings, was instantly alive to the promethean possibilities of the place. Of the two applicants for the position he was the most on-board the board had seen.

In the beginning he’d declared his intention of drawing a line in the sand for the staff.
“If you’re here to do things ’cause that’s the way you’ve always done them, there’s the door,” he said, gesturing with pontifical certainty. Mr Prothero BA DipEd MAEd glorified in the silence that followed. “This is an exciting time in education and I make no apologies for that. We’re not going back to chalkboards and rote learning. We’re going forward into the twenty-first century.”

As he spoke he marched up and down, parrying with his hands the feeble counterattacks of unseen enemies who, insensible to reason, were determined to take this brand new school back to the age of chalkboards and rote learning. The staff were clearly impressed at the clarity of his message, although one or two were more intrigued by the small flecks of white spittle collecting in the corners of his mouth.

It was around this time that Prothero had earned his growing reputation as a visionary educator. Within six months he’d gutted the library. Despite those recondite pedagogues who thought “kids should sit inside reading all day”, he’d been fearless. “Call me Aleric,” he would chuckle, introducing visitors to the new facility. They didn’t get the reference but they marvelled at the brightly coloured lounges.

“It’s about giving the students permission to access the space, grow with it and actually forge some shared learning for goodness sake! I don’t want a MYbrary, I want a COlaboratory.” The local paper had made much of that quote although the spelling was clearly guesstimated. Actually, inconsistent spelling had quickly precipitated the rebranding of the COlaboratory into the Learning Hub. But that too had passed. And a new school improvement plan demanded it be rebranded once more—this time into an Imaginarium.

A particular vanity of Mr Prothero’s art was to initiate prospective parents into the wonder of his vision. The speech was very quickly ritualised. After the welcomes had been exchanged, Mr Prothero shook the hand of the unsmiling child and made a very gentle joke about hoping they weren’t used to being in the principal’s office. The smiling catechumens then listened to their new creed:

“I’m sorry but I make no apologies for being a different kind of principal. I’m not interested in wasting your time and money by preparing your child for jobs that won’t exist when they finish school. I’m interested in educating our good friend”—here he inserted the child’s name—“for jobs that don’t even exist yet.

“Does that mean we don’t worry about reading, writing and arithmetic?

“No it doesn’t. It just means we make them relevant.”

Those parents from the housing estates smiled and made affirmative noises during the formula and then dutifully shook their heads for the response. Those from the housing commission tended to watch the corners of Mr Prothero’s mouth with unconcealed fascination. 

Mr Prothero, as these new students called him, had certainly earned some attention when he drowned the books. But those who worked closely with him knew it was merely an opening gambit. Soon he ordered all the teachers to flip their classrooms. Then they were to inform the students that those same classrooms belonged in the past. They were to work in Google classrooms. To the students it looked a lot like they were still using their classrooms. To Mr Prothero it looked like future-schooling.

One year, they all returned to school to find that there were no longer any teachers or leaders. Instead there were a large group of teacherpreneurs. To the students they looked a lot like the same teachers and leaders as last year but now none of the men wore ties. But then they weren’t visionaries. They didn’t appreciate that Mr Prothero now hot-desked. They didn’t appreciate that the same irascible divorcée science teacher as last year was now leading from the middle.

For many principals, the fabric of their youthful visions dissolves and acedia sets in. These twilight years see them described as an institution and younger teachers mistake their indolence for strategic wisdom. It was not thus with Mr Prothero. As blended learning had led on to personalised learning, and STEM vaporised into STEAM, he had grown dissatisfied with the whole insubstantial pageant. On the surface he seemed implacably focused. Underneath, he was a maelstrom of activity. It was while rapt in professional reading that he discovered data walls.

No one knew from which hephaestusian workshop he’d plundered this talisman but they all knew that spittle in the corner of his mouth. The data was assembled and put up along a corridor linking the staffroom with their bathrooms. Mr Prothero, who’d since rebranded as a creative technologist, rebranded once more as a lead-learner. For hours he’d stand in front of the data wall attempting to divine its message. Slowly but surely he’d begin to reveal the pattern. String and highlighter would trace out the narrative and a riot of colour would announce the new direction. 

It was therefore no surprise to any who’d collaborated with Mr Prothero when he was finally head-hunted by some representatives from Akin House. Having been swept along in the remorseless tide of his energy for some years, they had often said that it was only a matter of time before he was seconded.

Mr Prothero had almost immediately convinced his visitors from Akin House that he was a perfect fit for them. Their report noted his laser-like focus, his grit, his resilience. They spoke to his assistant principals who confirmed the stories regarding the amount of time he invested in those data walls. As an organisation it was pretty clear they would do whatever they could to get him. Although he didn’t say so, Mr Prothero was relieved to be finally working with like-minded people.

And now Mr Prothero had the crowd exactly where he wanted them. He was perched comfortably on a tall stool. His manner was relaxed. It was that line-in-the-sand moment all over again. That curious mixture of suspicion and apathy that marked all leading professionals had begun, ever so slightly, to give way to openness. They were buying in. Several of the older hands were walking over to peers and sharing their understanding. Mr Prothero, who’d pioneered brain-breaks in his school, was experienced enough to know that these weren’t interruptions. These guys were on-journey with him.

In reality the idea was not his own. It was a term that had cropped up during some of his earlier meetings with his staff at Akin House. Augmented Reality. It had sounded like a clarion in Mr Prothero’s ears. He knew that his audience were familiar with AR but he also knew that they had failed to appreciate its pedagogical application.

“It’s about learning on the go. Our kids don’t want to be bothered by text books and grumpy teachers, they want to be out there, experiencing the world. There’s not ‘my classroom’ and ‘your classroom’. Sorry. There’s just ‘our classroom’. One giant classroom that some of you might know as planet earth.” He smirked as he delivered the line. There was a sporadic outbreak of applause from some and laughter from others. One woman simply responded with an impassioned “Yes!”

It felt so good to once more stalk the borderlands of barbarism, holding off his old foe with his choice weapons, innovation and passion.

“You know, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a train driver. And while the world evolved, in a way I kept my dream because now I’m really passionate about being a change driver.” He flicked his sports coat to mark the pun and smiled warmly. “But today’s not about me. It’s about you. Dream with me for one second. Forget kids lined up and teachers marking rolls. Forget typing notes on boards. My big wondering for today is this: What if we build a complete ‘Three to PhD community’? I’m talking a day-care to grad-care package. What if we stop talking about ‘students in Year Four’ or ‘students in Year Nine’?” His voice intoned parodic punctuation around the words. “What if we just start talking to the whole child?” The textas sped over the butchers’ paper. It was gratifying when they rushed to get down his words.

To the side of the room stood Tess and a familiar-looking woman. She had been at some of those earlier meetings at Akin House but he couldn’t recall her name. He winked at Tess, who motioned that he needed to wipe his mouth.

“In a moment it will be play time because I don’t think anyone wants to hear my voice all day and I don’t want any of you to call the police accusing me of death by PowerPoint.” He smiled roguishly. “But to set it up: our job is to create personalised learning maps, forget lesson plans or lesson objectives or individual learning plans. I see some of you twitching when I use those words! We’re creating personalised learning maps which will allow students to find the learnings using twenty-second-century skills. I’m talking Zoo Burst, I’m talking Aurasma Lite, I’m talking Wikitude and Google Goggles.” He moved through the slides without even looking back at the screen. “Now it’s your turn, explore the space, use the tools and get messy. I’ll be walking around and touching base with each group to see where you’re taking the learnings.”

As he slid from the stool, the noise in the room rose. Even the man in grey at the front of the room, a desiccated-looking specimen who kept looking over the top of his glasses with blank eyes, had turned to his tablemates and was eagerly gesturing with a blue highlighter. Mr Prothero began to walk the room, checking in on groups of stakeholders. 

Standing in the doorway at the rear of the room, the familiar-looking woman was now weeping. Tess was trying to console her. I’ll see that on the feedback sheet, thought Prothero ruefully as he strode past. There’d always be blockers.

Tess put her arm around Caroline. “I know it can be confronting, but your dad’s actually been such a blessing at Akin House. Many of the other clients seem to appreciate the energy of these performances. And the rest don’t really notice him because of their medication.” 

Charles Bradburne is a teacher living and working in rural Australia.