Learning from Morley College

This chapter delves into Virginia Stephen’s lack of preparation for teaching at Morley, her volunteer status, Mary Sheepshanks’ mentorship, and her students’ influence. Virginia Stephen lacked knowledge about the working classes and London’s diversity, and because early twentieth century institutions assumed teachers needed little professional training, did not receive much pedagogical guidance from Morley. Mary Sheepshanks, competent, hardworking and intelligent, had many things in common with the younger Virginia Stephen, but because she interacted with the teacher through a philanthropic rather than an intellectual viewpoint, their fraught attempts to discuss Stephen’s teaching led to Stephen’s defence of her methods and criticism of Morley’s. Sheepshanks taught Virginia Stephen about institutional constraints and Stephen’s pedagogy, however, both of which affected Virginia Woolf’s essays. Based on her letters and diary, Virginia Stephen learned the most about teaching (and writing) from her students; they gave her evidence of both deprivation and potential, showed her how to reach them, enlarged her world and sense of audience, and demonstrated the power of a classroom space to momentarily cross class barriers. Virginia Woolf would later work to create essays that functioned like Virginia Stephen’s classrooms, a place where writer and common reader could learn together.