A unique insight on the history of post-war British education, telling the personal journey of Philip Vennis, a man whose journey took him from a scholarship at Dulwich College to Principal at Itchen College, over the space of almost fifty years.

A Lifetime in English Education is a reminder of how important a good school can be in providing pupils from all backgrounds with a rounded education that can only strengthen the bonds of society. This unique insight on the history of post-war British education, tells the personal journey of Philip Vennis – a crusading educationalist, whose long career started at Dulwich College, after which he spent a short time at Bletchley Park as an intelligence officer. Following his degree from Cambridge he taught for nine years at East Ham Grammar School for Boys, became a Deputy Headmaster at Ounsdale Comprehensive School in Wombourne, and then a Headmaster at New Mills Grammar School, Derbyshire, finishing his career with almost twenty years as Principal of one of Hampshire’s premier Sixth Form colleges at Itchen College, Southampton. As his career develops so does his conviction in a belief that a wide ranging education should be provided by the state for all. Philip’s career spanned the post-war education acts, and the rise of the comprehensive system, right up to the cultural changes of the eighties. His belief in public service, his passion for the arts, and his conviction in the power of education to help people transcend their backgrounds is completely different from the primary experience for most current Heads, that of managing a budget and making schools more cost-effective and running them like a business. This book, written by his wife, Diana Vennis, should be an inspiration to all progressive educationalists. In a contemporary environment where the co-ed, comprehensive, open access philosophy seems to have lost out to a market-led educational system, this book is a timely reminder of the journey British education has taken in the post-war period.

In this collection of 32 narrative essays, scholars and teachers of English and English education share their excitement as they reflect on their professional growth over the last 30 years. The firsthand stories in the collection represent "a study of theory and applied theory, grounded in personal experience and academic study over many years." The essays are: (1) "Facing Yourself" (J. Tompkins); (2) "Surprising Myself as a Teacher in Houghton, America" (A. Young); (3) "Becoming a College English Teacher--More by Accident than Design"" (D.C. Stewart); (4) "On (Not) Being Taken In" (H.T. McCracken); (5) "How Do the Electrons Get Across the Two Plates of the Capacitor?" (D. Bleich); (6)"Teaching as a Profession" (A.S. Bayer); (7) "Going Back" (S. Hudson-Ross); (8) "I Did It My Way...With a Little Help from My Friends" (P. Smagorinsky); (9) "Illiteracy at Oxford and Harvard" (P. Elbow); (10) "Disrupting the Transmission Cycle in College Teaching" (G.M. Pradl); (11) "Out and About in English Education" (R.E. Shafer); (12) "Beyond the Obvious" (V.R. Monseau); (13) "My English Education" (S. Hynds); (14) "From Reading to Writing, from Elementary to Graduate Students" (S. Stotsky); (15) "Living with Tension: Doing English, etc." (J. Milner); (16) "What's A Story?" (M.C. Savage); (17) "Two 'Women's Ways of Knowing' Teaching Writing" (R.C. Grego and N.S. Thompson); (18) "The Teaching and Learning of English in the College Classroom: Creating a Unified Whole" (B.M. Greene); (19) "On English Teaching as Poetry, 'or,' Samuel T., You'll Never Know What Organic Unity Did for Me" (M.L. Angelotti); (20) "Learning to Love Being a Second-Class Citizen" (W.R. Winterowd); (21) "Falling into Narrative" (P. Donahue); (22) "English in Education: An English Educationist at Work" (H.M. Foster); (23) "Downshifting to Fourth" (T. Fulwiler); (24) "Connecting the Teaching of Reading, Writing, and Speech in Programs for Developmental Students" (J. Entes); (25) "Reuniting Grammar and Composition" (J.L. Collins); (26) "Confessions of a Teacher Who Has Not Learned about Teaching" (R.L. Larson); (27) "Teaching and Learning English: Two Views" (C. Moran and "College Writing" Students); (28) "The Way I Was/The Way I Am/And What I Learned in Between" (L.L. Meeks); (29) "Collaborative Computer Encounters: Teaching Ourselves, Teaching Our Students" (G.E. Hawisher and C.L. Selfe); (30) "Ideological Crosscurrents in English Studies and English Education: A Report of a National Survey of Professors' Beliefs and Practices" (C. Dilworth and N.M. McCracken); (31) "Interpreting the Reflective Stories: The Forces of Influence in Our Essayists' Lives" (R.L. Larson); and (32) "Interpreting Stories: Rebels in the Professoriate" (H.T. McCracken). (NKA)