How long have you been in the education industry?
I’ve been working in this industry for 40 years.

How have you noticed your teaching style change over the years? Why do you think this is?
Following 10 years of teaching and authoring Humanities titles, I joined the educational publishing industry as a Publisher where I mixed with a huge range of teachers and was introduced to a wide range of learning styles. We introduced concepts such as Multiple Intelligences and Big Ideas to the general teaching audience. With each new project you hold on to what works well and add in new ideas and concepts that are proving successful in education. Working with classroom experts using learning ladder rubrics on the Good Humanities series has been fascinating.

What is the importance to you of good educational resources?
Great educational resources help teachers to engage students and break down what the curriculum is asking for. They must also be succinct to help teachers deliver sometimes impossible content and skill coverage in a meaningful way.

What has been your favourite part of writing an education resource?
For me it has always been the engagement of students. Learning doesn’t begin until the student is interested to learn. The best comment I ever received from a student was “Mr Van, this is almost interesting!”