Perverse, All Monstrous, All Prodigious Things

by Philip Pullman

In the full text of his closing address to the 2002 NATE Conference, Philip Pullman develops the ideas he outlined in a controversial article for the TES. Beginning with an exquisite excoriation of the language and intent of government initiatives - including the National Curriculum and the National Literacy/Key Stage 3 National Strategy - Pullman argues that successful and pleasurable English teaching arises out of the creative lives of teachers and that teachers need more leisure time. He advocates the virtues of 'mystery and chance and silence' and rejects a scientific approach to the teaching of reading in which 'effects' on readers are to be considered uniform and measurable. Acknowledging that education ought to be concerned with 'the basics', he asks us to decide just what these basics are.

25 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". In a 2004 BBC poll, he was named the eleventh most influential person in British culture. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to literature.
Northern Lights, the first volume in His Dark Materials, won the 1995 Carnegie Medal of the Library Association as the year's outstanding English-language children's book. For the Carnegie's 70th anniversary, it was named in the top ten by a panel tasked with compiling a shortlist for a public vote for an all-time favourite. It won that public vote and was named all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" in June 2007. It was filmed under the book's US title, The Golden Compass. In 2003, His Dark Materials trilogy ranked third in the BBC's The Big Read, a poll of 200 top novels voted by the British public.