This book provides a broad introduction to the critical work of leading Australian educator Garth Boomer, widely recognised as a significant figure in English teaching. This insightful text provides an accessible introduction to his work, with particular reference to English curriculum and pedagogy, and provides a fascinating account of his journey as a scholar-practitioner, from classroom teaching to the highest levels of the educational bureaucracy.
Bill Green explores Boomer’s huge influence on literacy education, teacher development, curriculum inquiry, and educational policy, and critically asks why Boomer’s insights and arguments about English teaching from the last century have such importance for the field now. This text also focuses on the nature and significance of his curriculum thinking, specifically his arguments and provocations regarding English teaching, the English classroom, and the contexts that infuse and shape them. It constitutes a rich resource for rethinking English teaching in the present day and provides an important contribution to the historical imagination.
With all due consideration of the larger context of social life and educational thought, this text will help any student of English in Education and Language Arts obtain a deeper understanding of Boomer’s vital contribution to the field of education.
01. Introduction and Overview
02. Negotiating the (English) Curriculum
03. ‘Teacher Power’ – On Teachers and Teaching
04. Teaching English? Construing and (De)constructing the Territory
05. Conclusion: Neoliberal Conditions and Larrikin Lessons
06. Appendix: ‘Ten Strategies for Good Teaching’ (1982)
Biography
Bill Green is Emeritus Professor of Education at Charles Sturt University, Australia.
“Garth Boomer and Bill Green are two of the most influential thinkers in the combined fields of English teaching and curriculum inquiry. To read Green on Boomer, in depth, is a precious opportunity to learn from the legacy of a man who died much too early. Educators need Boomer and his work today more than ever, in the fight to retain teacher agency and professionalism. Boomer, as pragmatic-radical, provocateur, bon vivant, bureaucrat and above all, teacher, emerges here, from his written archive, as both elusive and vital. He is a fascinating mystery for those like me, who never met him. Yet a quote from his writing introduces my PhD thesis and he inspires me every day. Green's pedagogical guidance, evocative writing and dialogic commentary keep Boomer alive for us all.”
Lucinda McKnight, Associate-Professor, Deakin University, Australia
“In times when policy is driving an education in English that is increasingly reductive, formulaic and arid, a book on a thinker like Garth Boomer is urgently needed and very welcome. Not that Boomer is easily defined. Bill Green’s excellent analysis of Boomer’s contribution to curriculum inquiry, to pedagogy, and to thinking about English education presents a complex figure and one who himself was at the centre of policy development. Language, learning and their relationship; culture, politics and their connection to curriculum and pedagogy; and particularly the place of teacher professionalism – these were enduring themes in Boomer’s work as he moved between English education and broader curriculum thinking, often with language as a key bridging concept. No one is better placed to write this book than Bill Green, for whom, as Green himself says, Boomer was a major influence. ‘Disentangling’ the author from his subject makes one of the book’s interestingly foregrounded challenges. With its focus on Boomer through his texts – not an easy task since many of these are ‘informal’, or official documents, or speeches, or drafts on the way to publication – the book is a remarkable achievement. It stands as a major contribution to this series on key thinkers in English.”Wayne Sawyer, Emeritus Professor, University of Western Sydney, Australia
