because the comparison has been made recently by members of the government. The nature of teaching as a profession has been the subject of intense debate for many years, driven by the developments in digital technology, both in terms of the technology people use in everyday life and work (such as mobile phones, Facebook, the internet etc) and the technology now available to support teaching and learning (again, mobile phones, Facebook, the internet etc). These developments have raised fundamental and new questions about the role of teachers in general (for example, do we need them at all?), and have simultaneously created a wave of new possibilities in terms of learning activities and classroom organisation, which teachers

are expected to learn how to use proficiently. At the same time, accelerating globalisation is increasing the cultural diversity of student groups, enriching the resources available to teachers but also creating challenges in terms of expectations and assumptions. This article is intended to be a contribution to the debate stimulated by these and other developments.

Craft as an attitude The fact that ‘craft’ is used in relation to many and very different human activities suggests that rather than being a distinct category which includes some and excludes others, the idea of craft is more helpfully understood as an attitude: as something referring to the manner in which we approach an activity or discipline,

or to the way we value it – the way in which we see it as ‘worthwhile’. The idea of craft, from this perspective, puts the spotlight on the human agent, the craftworker themselves, their motivation and dispositions, rather than on the particular activity involved, and still less on the objects or outcomes produced by that activity. The key to craft, and to teaching, I suggest, is not so much what the craftworker or teacher specifically does (though this is, of course, very important), but the kind of person they are. The first task of craftworkers, from this perspective, is to produce themselves. So what does ‘the craft attitude’ involve?

I think it has six key aspects: attitude to quality; to practice; to learning and teaching; to the workshop (the craft environment in

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c Richard Olivier