Play scores top marks

Ask A Hundred different teachers to explain the nature of their job in just a few sentences and you would get 100 different explanations. Teaching is a job like any other and teachers receive specific training to do it, like a plumber or a bus driver.

But our 100 different teachers will all do their job in 100 different ways. There might be only one way to mend a leaking tap, but there are hundreds of ways of teaching.

Mrs Lintott is a traditional history teacher and she sees her job as primarily passing on facts in an organised and undramatic way. She teaches history, not histrionics. Mrs Lintott achieves outstanding examination results.

Mr Hector's teaching methods do not follow any set path and are never concerned with the mere presentation of facts. Mr Hector has no interest in teaching towards exams which he regards as a waste of time. He wants to teach his students about experience and emotion, and he has his own unique way of doing this. Mrs Lintott thinks that Mr Hector allows his personality to intrude too much into his teaching.

Young Mr Irwin is enthusiastic and dynamic and believes that teaching should be all about entertainment and show. He teaches his students to question facts, not just to sit back and accept them. Mr Irwin believes that argument and analysis are an essential part of teaching. Nothing should be taken for granted and a teacher must make his students take an active role in what they are supposed to be learning.

Mrs Lintott, Mr Hector and Mr Irwin are all key characters in English playwright Alan Bennett's brilliant stage play, The History Boys, which has just enjoyed a two-year, sell-out run at Britain's National Theatre in London.