Product reviews for Tiny Voices Talk

#TinyVoiceTalks is an extraordinary movement that started on Twitter. It hinges around giving confidence and opportunity to the many unheard voices in education to find their voice, to have their say and pass on what they have learned. It hinges around the importance of active listening so that we learn from other people’s viewpoints and experience; the importance of being tentative about what we know, recognising and respecting other ideas. What is obvious from this collection of essays is that we have more than enough experience in the profession to raise everyone’s game. If only we were better at sharing, listening and learning from each other.

Twitter can be a scary place. Strident voices and bragging egos boom with certainty and we have all seen what can happen if someone puts out a view that is unpopular. This sort of aggressive posturing is destructive and Twitter is too often like a corrosive virus. Toria Bono set out with #TinyVoiceTalks to provide a respectful, safe space for professionals to share their experiences and ideas, to listen with generosity to different viewpoints – and, perhaps, to learn from each other. 

The book is a collection of essays from tiny voices and covers a range of topics. The insights are often surprising. Again and again, I found myself thinking ‘Ooh, that’s interesting.’ The longest essay is 10 minutes but most are a 3-minute read; a smorgasbord of teaching nuggets. I found myself digging into subjects that I know little about and many that are perhaps just not relevant to my role in education but nonetheless fascinating. 

The book is as much about kindness as it is about education. I suspect that many of the teachers in the book would agree that the main aim of education is to develop kindness – towards others and ourselves. We work in a profession where the job is never finished and is often unsatisfactory. We have to be sufficiently resilient to care for ourselves, our colleagues and the children. I found the experience of reading the book rather like opening up a little treasure box, packed with intriguing stories of teachers’ lives and what they have learned. There are gems to be found in sharing the reality of our professional lives.

The book is broken into sections, starting with being ‘that teacher’ – the special teacher who saw something in the child and changed their life. Sections include inclusion, teaching, professional and personal development, the importance of telling our story and finding our voice to quietly and confidently contributing to the general movement in education. Again and again, the golden thread of kindness runs its rich seam through the articles, exploring the importance of being professional; this means learning to ask for help when you need it, lending an ear to colleagues when they need it, being generous with sharing your ideas and thinking, complimenting others, learning that it can be OK to say no so that you do not become swamped, being compassionate and a good listener – and most of all, learning to look after and love yourself. You do deserve a treat! It is OK to have a night off! It is OK to have a home policy of ‘no work on Saturdays’! 

I’ve no doubt that there will be other volumes in which so many more tiny voices find their voice and share their practice. There is no doubt too that between us we can make schools wonderful places, if only we were better at valuing what everyone brings to the table, the different views and approaches, opening up our classrooms and sharing our experience without fear that we will be knocked down by the biggest ego in the room. The voices may be tiny but their messages are potent with possibility. How lucky we are to be part of this generous movement.