Mrs Eddison and I are at Runswick Bay on the North Yorkshire Coast. It is early evening and we are enjoying a stroll along the beach. The tide - like most of the families who were here earlier - has slipped away to put its feet up for a few hours and left us to relish the peace and quiet. It’s good to feel wet sand on your bare feet. My toes are numb with cold, but I suspect the seawater is doing wonders for my athlete’s foot.
I pick up and examine a strange-looking pebble, which was formerly a piece of green glass that has been rounded and made opaque by the action of waves. It looks unusual and feels satisfying to the touch. Already I’m beginning to wonder how I might use it. After all, it’s illegal for primary teachers to visit the seaside without collecting useful creative resources.
In cupboards, drawers and cardboard boxes, in the loft, the shed and the garage, and in countless other places I’ve forgotten about, they wait to be rediscovered. Here are the whelk shells that captured the sadness of the ocean; the dried-out starfish that long for regeneration; the sea urchins bloated with dark secrets; sea horses that pulled the coaches of mermaid princesses; and driftwood snakes lying in suspended petrification.
My seaside resources don’t get used much these days. The tide of learning turned and flooded the curriculum with mundane targets. Teachers caught in the rip unexpectedly found themselves floundering. Every attempt to grab the lifeline of the next set of tick-boxes left them wearier than before. In deeper waters, creativity long ago lost the struggle to keep from going under. I sigh and put the pebble into my pocket.
The tide of learning turned and flooded the curriculum with mundane targets
It’s twilight when we set off along Ellerby Lane towards Whitby, and a famous fish and chip shop. It’s a journey we made many times when our own children were young. They’re grown up now and have moved on, but the sudden recollection catches me in nostalgia’s undertow. When did the slowly unravelling lanes of childhood get widened and reclassified? When did they become breathless motorways and crowded intersections, hell bent on rushing us along the Superhighway of Time?
I wonder if my pebble might one day be more than a lump of sea glass. An uncut emerald from a pirate’s treasure trove, perhaps? Or a fragment of star that fell to earth as a meteorite? Will there be an opportunity for me to pass it around a group of children and see them marvel at its mysterious inner glow? Will I ever get to watch them witness its strange, pulsating force and imagine what miracles it might perform?
It’s dark when we park the car in Whitby town centre and head in the direction of the harbour and the smell of fish and chips. It’s August and the streets are buzzing with holidaymakers. As we thread our way through them, I can’t help but smile to myself. No one knows that this ordinary teacher is in possession of a most extraordinary object. No one knows I have the power to change the world.
Steve Eddison teaches at Arbourthorne Community Primary School in Sheffield
