Everyday Stories

Abstract

Chapter seven, ‘Everyday Stories’, argues that teachers turned the log books in which they were supposed to keep a basic, factual record of their work into vivid stories about the communities in which they worked. Acquiring and sharing intimate, textured knowledge about local communities and the people who inhabited them was central to teachers’ sense of professional duty. They opened up dialogues between and balanced the frequently competing desires of local communities, state officials, and private do-gooders. Teachers’ mediation ran both ways. They enforced state policies, albeit in a selective manner which took account of local circumstances. However, they also represented to policymakers the flaws that they saw in those policies, the difficulties they faced in their everyday work, and the particulars of the local culture and economy. Teachers moved back and forth between acting as servants of the central state, local advocates, and independent professionals sometimes occupying more than one role at once. They sought to affect significant changes, but to do so carefully, slowly, and by working through rather than against local cultures.