Tower and Town, November 2022 (view the full edition)EditorialI am aghast, again, as I watch them. "These are our students" I think, whilst I also wonder if it is, indeed, possible for pride to burst a person. I think, maybe, I am physically glowing with wonderment; my beaming face spotlighting them on stage. At the end of September, some of our St. John's sixth-form students took part in a literary debate as part of Marlborough Literature Festival: an event which has, over the past couple of years, become the festival's habitual opener. And, as I watched these students - our students - deftly discuss the complexities of 'Othello', I wished the whole world could see them. My role as a teacher is often thus: a state of aghast pride. "I couldn't have done that, at their age" I think, time after time. The yearly opportunity to showcase our students' work, afforded to us by Tower and Town, means that I get to share a snapshot of that feeling. This month's edition boasts a lucid review of George Eliot's Middlemarch; a compelling tale from the perspective of Love; letters addressing fracking, childhood hunger and the media's duty to inclusivity; and a cogent snippet about jealousy in 'Othello', in case you missed that superb live debate in the Town Hall. I hope that you find something to enjoy in these pages and that, in reading them, you might feel some of the astonished 'beaming' and 'bursting' that is a teacher's true dividend. Lauren Sankey |