アンディ・シードの学校小説に見る教員の日常 : 教育者・文学者・家庭人のワーク・ライフ・バランス<人文・社会科学>

This paper aims to spotlight Andy Seed(?- ), the author of All Teachers series(2011-2013) set in the Yorkshire Dales like Teacher series(2004-2022) by Jack Sheffield(1945- ) and Dales series (1998-2021) by Gervase Phinn(1946- ). While the latter two ex-teachers have gained fame as best-selling novelists, Seed, though a successful and notable writer of educational books for children, has remained rather unknown in the world of literature for adults. Although Seed’s orthodox style and reserved narrative might not be so eye-catching as Phinn’s Irish wit and Sheffield’s Scottish poetic sentiment, in fact Seed’s understatement is not only characteristically and charmingly English, but also an important factor of his main theme: mental health in a teacher’s daily life. In Seed’s school novels, this typically English mental attitude, constraint, is found to be quite effective as a survival skill to make every trouble less dramatic or traumatic, making it easier for a teacher to keep calm and carry on. Seed’s novels are carefully planned to outline a teacher’s consciousness in his titles, subtitles, contents and plots, and to display a teacher’s emotions in various occasions: lamentation, admiration and senses of achievement, powerlessness and liberation. Seed’s stories are thoroughly interesting and instructive examples of real and ideal work-life balance for a teacher, and in that sense complement his respected precursor and rhyming pair, Miss Read.