One of the things to remember when teaching is that as teachers we have a great many more life experiences than the students we teach... in most cases.
When we talk about places, for example, we need to remember that we have probably seen more of the world than the young people we teach and therefore have more reference points.
We have been alive for many more days and had a wider range of experiences.
We have visited places numerous times.
Our mental map is more developed, and there are places we have been to which they will never visit. The past is another country.
We may also have lived in more homes, so that when we even start by teaching about their home perhaps as the basis for their lived experiences, we have perhaps lived in more than one home and also spent longer there. Others may not have a permanent home - they may have a house where they do not feel safe, they may have been moved on several times, they may not feel that they belong in the place where they are living, they may also be asylum seekers, or have fled conflict and be missing the place they really feel is home... They may also be here as an overseas student, living in a boarding house, or with guardians.
I am by no means well travelled, but my 'places I have called home' experiences include the following places:
- Warren Road, Wickersley, South Yorkshire - a new build house on an estate, in a village to the East of Rotherham, with a garden, shed and a lawn for playing football. My dad laid some crazy paving where I could ride my go kart, and I played football in the garden too. The house cost just over £2000 back in the 1960s and would now be classed as suburbia for the nearby town of Rotherham, and is a sought after suburb as it is close to the M1/M18/A1 for travel to other parts of the country.
See the image at the to of the page to see the house as it looks now. My bedroom was eventually on the front left above the front door.
- Bawtry Road, Wickersley, South Yorkshire - this was a larger stone built house, which used to belong to the owner of one of the sandstone quarries in the village - it had a large garden with an orchard, where we used to keep hens as a child, and an area where a lot of the vegetables and fruit we ate were grown, and large lawns for football - I returned to it after my University studies several times for short periods and remember the distant view towards the M1and the hills on the edge of Sheffield and my room at the back of the house which was where I studied for exams
- Tunnacliffe Avenue, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire - an old terraced property which had a small rear garden, and overlooked the city - student accommodation - cold in winter, and only £9 a week back when I started my degree and my first time living away from home - I lived there for two years - in a shared room to begin with, and then a single room in the second year - an old property which was cold in the winter, and had communal facilities - put the immersion on if you wanted a bath, and don't dawdle in the freezing cold bathroom...
- Athene Drive, Huddersfield - Ashenhurst, West Yorkshire - student accommodation which I went into for the final year of my degree - there was a nice view across the lawns from my room, and I managed to get some work done - a long walk up the hill from the town centre of Huddersfield as well; up through the trees behind the houses was a large estate with shops, although we tended to use the local corner shop and a rather fine fish and chip shop in Newsome
- Park Avenue, Hull, East Yorkshire - after a year back at home studying Computer Science, I started my teacher training at the University of Hull and found a nice room in a large house in an area of Hull called 'The Avenues'... this gave me a taste for living in a nice Victorian house with bay windows overlooking the tree-lined street below, particularly on dark winter evenings. A short walk across the park took me to Beverley Road from where I got the bus to the schools where I did my teaching practice.
- Crich Lane, Ambergate, Derbyshire - after some supply teaching, I got my first teaching job, at John Flamsteed School, Denby - I had a room lodging with the school secretary in a house by the canal running along the Amber Valley, with Crich on the hill above. A very pleasant place to live.
- Gaywood Road, King's Lynn, Norfolk - I lived in several flats close to the school where I got my first full time job, along with several on the estate near the hospital - this was a Victorian villa which had been subdivided into flats, and backed onto allotments and the River Nar. I also spent a lot of time at my future wife's flat which was closer to the hospital, on a more modern estate.
- Station Road, Snettisham, Norfolk - the first house which I started to pay a mortgage on, and moved into a week after getting married - this was a very nice Victorian house with a bay window and very large garden, made from the local carrstone and we grew a lot of our food there, and had our children there. We could cycle to the beach.
- my current house, Norfolk - a modern house with a small garden in a conservation area of a small village in Breckland
I've also spent many nights in a number of other locations which were those lived in by student friends (Bent St. in Huddersfield was closer than my own house) and several properties on the Springwood estate in King's Lynn, along with houses in most South Yorkshire towns and cities, particularly Meadow Bank Avenue in Nether Edge, Sheffield where I spent many nights while working for the Geographical Association.
Add to that the hundreds of hotels I've stayed in for one or more nights, and decades of self catering cottages in coastal resorts around the country.
So when the word 'home' is used, is that Yorkshire or Norfolk (where I've lived for over half my life)
How many homes have you lived in?
Where do you call home?
How do the places where you have lived help shape your identity?
How can we best discuss the idea of 'home' with young people?
What things do we need to be cautious of?
How much is our home a reflection of privilege (in various forms)?
Image: the first house I lived in, Google StreetView.
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