Teachers work across a diverse range of learning environments in an array of different contexts, sectors and settings. The first section of this chapter explores this theme, and provides insight into how classroom management practices are historically, socially and culturally contextualised.

In the second section of the chapter, we introduce some of the theoretical principles and practical issues associated with establishing and maintaining positive, supportive, safe and inclusive learning environments that encourage all students to participate fully in educational opportunities.

Managing the classroom environment, particularly in relation to addressing diverse student behaviours, has been shown to be an area of major concern – often the greatest concern – for many preservice and beginning teachers (Mayer et al., 2015), and this has been the case for many years (see, for example, Veenman, 1984). Managing the classroom for diverse learners is the focus of the third section of this chapter.

In the fourth section, you will gain insight into classroom management frameworks and plans.

The importance of effective communication between the adults in the lives of children has gained prominence in theory, policy and practice, and throughout the different contexts in which children participate. In educational contexts throughout the world, it has been well established that the best outcomes occur for children when the adults in their lives come together to support them.

In this chapter, the concept of communication is explored in relation to the educational context. Initially, the dearth of knowledge in the field of communication is drawn upon to introduce some of the theoretical insights into education-based communication, including some of the facilitators and barriers that might be encountered by teachers when working with children, colleagues and parents/caregivers. Different models of communication are then presented, and some practical strategies for communicating with staff, children and parents/caregivers are outlined and discussed. The chapter concludes by discussing the role of professional reflection in developing and refining education-based communication skills.

Planning for learning is essential for creating environments conducive to learning and to developing student understandings. Standard 3 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL], 2017) specifies the need for all graduate teachers to be able to ‘plan for and implement effective teaching and learning’. Quality planning involves the systematic use of feedback data to design activities that encourage the assimilation and synthesis of information, leading to the creation of new understandings.

Good planning begins with the end in mind and incorporates multifaceted and interdependent elements that demand constant monitoring and adjustments by teachers in response to their ongoing assessment and evaluation as plans are enacted (Cornish & Garner, 2009). Planning, implementing, monitoring and adjusting are part of an ongoing recursive process.

In this chapter, we look at the planning process in relation to all these elements, including: big picture planning, classroom-level planning, learning adjustments to cater for students’ learning needs.

Schools are shaped by political and social contexts that enable and constrain teachers’ work. Consequently, teachers are under increasing scrutiny from the community and the profession. The scrutiny of the teaching profession is often justified because of the moral value of teachers’ work, especially with young people who are considered a ‘vulnerable’ part of the population. Teachers have responsibility for facilitating the cognitive, social, emotional and civic development of children and adolescents, which is often viewed as a moral practice. They are required to demonstrate professional competence and behaviour that sometimes exceeds standards expected of the rest of the community. The expected standards of behaviour and values are described in codes of conduct and codes of professional ethics, which are enforced through registration processes and legislative frameworks. As practitioners in this regulated environment, teachers need extensive knowledge of the codes, regulations and legislative frameworks that inform their work (ranging from copyright law through to common law interpretations of duty of care and negligence).

No two teachers go about teaching in the same way, which is to say that each teacher’s way of teaching is unique. The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) require that teachers not only know the content and how to teach it, but also know their students and how they learn. This chapter introduces the concept of pedagogy and the centrality of relationships between teacher, student and content, as a defining feature of one’s pedagogy. Pedagogy is the most outward expression of how a teacher considers that teaching and learning best take place. Teachers should always base their decisions on ‘how’ to teach on their understanding of how their students learn best. This will involve considerations such as their stage of development (physical, cognitive and social) as well as their individual interests and preferred ways of learning. A number of different pedagogical frameworks are explored in the chapter, which concludes with a discussion of some of the key elements of exemplary teaching and how these are embedded in pedagogy. As you read this chapter it will be important to reflect upon the age of the students and the subjects that you will be teaching.

Magic was part of life in ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt and Palestine, indeed throughout the ancient world; and certain forms of magic – protective amulets, curse tablets, spells for love, and many other types – were so widely used that it is tempting to say that magic does not really have a history, but is everywhere and always the same. But magic does have a history. Changes in the forms of magic may often be hard to trace, but it is easier to see shifts in attitudes toward magic, ranging from broad tolerance to fierce condemnation and repression. It is possible also to detect some differences over time in the sorts of people most likely to use magic or be suspected of using it. And as commerce, conquest, missionary campaigns, and translation projects brought different cultures into contact, magic was one form of tradition often appropriated across cultural boundaries.

This book will approach magic as a kind of crossroads where different pathways in medieval culture converge. First of all, it is a point of intersection between religion and science. Demonic magic invokes evil spirits and rests upon a network of religious beliefs and practices, while natural magic exploits “occult” powers within nature and is essentially a branch of medieval science. Yet demonic and natural magic are not always as distinct in fact as they seem in principle. Even when magic is clearly nondemonic it sometimes mingles elements of religion and science: a magical cure, for example, may embody both herbal lore from folk medicine and phrases of prayer from Christian ritual. Secondly, magic is an area where popular culture meets with learned culture. Popular notions of magic were taken up and interpreted by “intellectuals” – a term used here for those with philosophical or theological education – and their ideas about magic, demons, and kindred topics were in turn spread throughout the land by preachers. One of the most important tasks in cultural history is working out these lines of transmission. Thirdly, magic represents a particularly interesting crossroads between fiction and reality. The fictional literature of medieval Europe sometimes reflected the realities of medieval life, sometimes distorted them, sometimes provided escapist release from them, and sometimes held up ideals for reality to imitate. When this literature featured sorcerers, fairies, and other workers of magic, it may not have been meant or taken as totally realistic. Even so, the magic of medieval literature did resemble the magical practices of medieval life in ways that are difficult but interesting to disentangle.

A healing charm found as early as the ninth century begins with a story about three angels who encounter a band of personified diseases. They ask where the diseases are going. One disease says he is going to dry out the bones, empty the marrow, and otherwise torment some servant of God. The others all have their evil designs. The angels adjure the diseases by the Trinity, the orders of angels, and various categories of saints not to harm their victim, but rather to depart and not return.1 In this formula, the angels themselves are not adjured or conjured; they are the one who do the adjuring. Still, this is an example of how angels might function in healings, as they did in liturgy and other contexts. Prominent already in parts of the Bible and in early Christianity, they richly populated European folklore.

John of Salisbury, in his Policraticus, tells of an experience from his own youth. He was studying Latin from a priest, using the Psalms as the texts for study. As it happened, however, his teacher was an adept in the divinatory art of crystal-gazing, and abused his position of trust by making John and a somewhat older pupil participate in these activities. The idea was to anoint the boys’ fingernails with some sacred chrism so that images would appear reflected in the nails and would impart information. Alternatively, a polished basin might be used as the reflecting surface. After certain “preliminary magical rites” and the requisite anointing, the priest uttered names “which by the horror they inspired, seemed to me, child though I was, to belong to demons.” The other pupil declared that he saw “certain misty figures,” but John himself saw nothing of the sort and was thus ruled unqualified for this art. John goes on to say that almost all the people he knew who engaged in such practices were punished later in life with blindness and other afflictions. He knew only two exceptions, including the priest who had taught him Latin; both of these men repented and entered into religious life as monks or canons, and even they were punished somewhat for their offenses.1

Norse tradition tells of a conflict between two earls of tenth-century Norway in which both the parties, named Hakon and Thorleif, resorted to magic. Thorleif disguised himself as a beggar, went to the court of Hakon, and under the pretense of singing a poem in his honor, recited a curse that caused Hakon to lose his beard and much of his hair, to itch uncontrollably between his legs, and to suffer a lingering illness. In revenge, Hakon invoked the goddesses Thorgerd and Irpa, who aided him with their “trollish and prophetic powers.” They made a human figure out of driftwood, placed a heart inside it, and sent it to Thorleif, who promptly died.1