The Teacher, Literature and the Mediterranean

Book excerpt: At a time when the Mediterranean has rediscovered its own vitality, seven academics from the fields of education and literature look at how fictions set in the region narrate the role of the teacher from the point of view of the students and from that of the teachers themselves. While an increasingly technocratic approach to the performance of teachers focuses on competences, these often highly subjective narratives tell stories of practitioners who refuse to fit into the mould imposed on them by patriarchy or the educational institutions. The writers dealt with in this volume are aware that teachers cannot be solely defined in terms of what they are expected to do within schools and classrooms. This reductively conceives them as simply needing the skills to teach without having the ability to contextualise their teaching within wider historical, social and cultural realities. With its migration flows and intricate web of social and cultural politics, the Mediterranean of the 21st century is an ideal space for reflections on the role of the teacher in an ever-changing society.