Interview with Miss Wadey, RS and Philosophy Teacher at Putney High School
Miss Wadey‘s lessons indicated that she would be an interesting person to interview. We spent a fascinating 20 minutes discussing how she landed in her job, her passion for the environment, the significance of what she teaches and the importance of cooking.
We began by talking about the start of Miss Wadey’s career as a food critic after her degree at Cardiff University in Religious Studies and Music. While she enjoyed this job, she confessed she felt uncomfortable with the element of mostly taking and not much giving to it. “I wanted to do more,” she says and, like many, she had always wanted to teach, but by the end of the interview I understood that her reason for teaching goes much deeper than that. For her, teaching Religious Studies is about “developing an understanding of tolerance” and for this reason, she strongly supports religious education in Key Stage 3. “There are lots of cultures that are religious,” she says, and we must be understanding of this. This, she said, will prepare us to work all over the world. Despite the rise of atheism, an understanding of the principles of the different religions we may encounter is important for her to leave her students with, as well as the morals that underpin them. But most of all, she wants to teach students to learn.
“I do strongly believe in education.”
This led us to a topic we wanted to hear her thoughts on: bias in teaching about religion. She asserted strongly that it is important to “include all beliefs” in teaching, especially when you do not know what faiths there are in the classroom. For this reason, she agreed it is important to present a neutral standpoint. However, for her, this can come into conflict with her passion, which obviously is what enthuses all her students. According to Miss Wadey, passion is what makes a good teacher and always “should shine through”.
This has definitely come through for me in her teaching, so I wanted to know how far her passion goes. Especially within the ‘Morality and Ethics’ unit of year 9, lessons feature amazing struggles to change the world, for example the ‘Bye Bye Plastic Bags’ campaign in Bali. How does she live with constantly teaching about these but not embarking on such a movement herself?
“Life is all about the cogs. There are big cogs and little cogs and even the little cogs can look like big cogs sometimes.”
Miss Wadey was eluding to perspective here. Last week, she organised a talk from Amy Peake about her work and Miss Wadey said she does “feel guilty” for not “fixing sanitation in Jordan”, Amy Peake’s speciality. But she feels she is making her impact by educating girls at Putney High School about such movements and exposing us to a breadth of areas that need improvement. Her favourite of these, by the way, is the ethics behind our environment and what is happening to it (she used to work for a sustainability company).
Miss Wadey’s chosen subject is Religious Studies and Philosophy, but you may have noticed her initial degree involved music. If not an RS teacher, she said she “would’ve been a music teacher. At school my passion was music.” So what is it about RS and Philosophy that drew her towards it? “The way my brain hurts when I teach philosophy - I love that. It keeps me on my toes. I like the academic challenge that comes with philosophy and the wider impact it has”. She refers to an experience teaching RS to bottom set boys that were forced to study it as a challenge, as there “should be an element of choice”. But for Miss Wadey, A Level RS was not handed to her on a plate. She had to propose it to the head of her school, as well as convince others to join her. Her school has offered it ever since.
Seeing her passion for the education and enrichment of her students, a large section of our conversation was devoted to what Miss Wadey would change about the school if she had the power. I mentioned food technology (not included in the curriculum due to facilities) since I had a vague idea it had been mentioned before and the response was a firm “put it down [in my notes]”. While she concedes there is a danger of “pigeon-holing women back into their stereotypical roles”, she also says “if you can’t cook for yourself, if you can’t survive, that’s pretty bad.” She suggests we should include nutrition education, but pitch it differently to avoid insinuating that an all-female student body requires such a class for traditional reasons. She also said that while she enjoys being in central London and everything this gives her access to, she wishes “we had more environment around us”. Finally, she considers the PPE lessons given in year 10 “absolutely fundamental” and she “would like to see it further down the school” for the breadth and scope it brings to education - something she always strives for.