I got this letter in the post yesterday. I could tell from the emblem on it that it was from my old school. I thought "oh shit, this isn't going to be good". Inside was an invitation to join their alumni club. There's no way in hell I'm joining that. School was shit for me, and I don't want to be reminded of it. Donald Fagen and Walt Becker summed it up for me: How do you feel about your old school?
I had no issues in school, I viewed it as a necessity evil at the time, I didn’t really take school seriously I did what I had to but not much more, my grades were good but not great, looking back I don’t think studying would have made any difference “I didn’t study” in my career choice. I’ve gone to a HS reunion as has my wife, we both found it was interesting to see how some of the kids turned out, some may surprise you.
It's been quite a while since I attended school. Since then the school has seen a lot demolished, re-designed, the school field sold off and become an academy. The change in the place seeing it totally different. I've not kept in touch with anyone (although in my defence a few decades have passed since) My memories of the place being good ones but, too much time has gone by and sees any reunion too unlikely
Their is little doubt that my secondary school science teacher who went on to become a good friend to the family until he died was the man who shaped my entire life. I still remember the day when the engine of his bubble car had problems and my project for the day was to strip it down and rebuild it. Although his doctorate was in marine botany, his knowledge of physics and engineering was amazing. He designed the WW2 south coast radar defence systems. My music teacher was another amazing character who rather than teach me to bang a few drums, taught me piano and violin to orchestral standards, along with forming my great love of opera. It is a little known fact today that thousands of German Jews fled Germany to the UK prior to the war. In 1939, being German citizens, they were rounded up and put in prison camps. However, Churchill realised the stupidity of imprisoning people who were more anti Nazi than we were. They were soon released and many of them were offered jobs as teachers. My teacher was formally the conductor of a major German symphony orchestra. He went on to become one of the founders of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra that still exists today.
For me it was my Junior school teacher (1967-1970) He encouraged me to Challenge injustice, Engage with others to enable dialogue and gain understanding of other cultures, and with Creatively imagination employ the basic principles on Conviction and Conscience - and to ....."Keep ones' feet on the ground whilst one reaches for the Stars"
The more that I think back, the luckier I think that we both were when it came to schooling. My teacher during my final year in junior school was a retired merchant seaman who had survived the Atlantic convoys. He lived and dreamed the sea and concentrating mainly on English. He based his teaching on poetry and novels concerning England and the seas surrounding our coasts Every morning started with a poem and I remember several of them to this day. Oh to be in England, Now that Aprils there......And whoever wakes in England sees some morning unaware. I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky......And all I need is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. Perhaps my favourite. Earth does not have to show more fair.....Dull would he be of soul who could pass by a sight so touching in it's majesty.....The beauty of the morning, silent, bare. When I mention these poems to any of our children or their friend today, they look at me as if I am crazy and cannot believe that I knew them off by heart and can still recite them 63 years later. The one exception was a 19 year old girl who I was working with a few years ago and almost every poem I started, she would tell me the next line. She was born and educated in India. I tried to catch her out. "A cold coming we had of it" and she replied immediately "Just the worst time of the year for a journey...and such a long journey.... The ways deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter. To say that I was gobsmacked was putting it mildly. I strongly feel that the problems started a few years after our school days, when the government introduced the B,Ed degree and made it mandatory for teaching. Students leave school, prop up a bar stool for a few years in the university union common room (the academic requirement of a teaching degree is simple). Then go straight back into the classroom teaching, without ever having left school in the first place. Our daughters partner has a first class PhD can lecture in universities all over the world, but would need to return to university as an undergraduate student for 2 years before teaching in a UK school. In a word, Barmy.
Too much emphasis on how to Pass Tests, Exams and Theoretical Thinking than to Learn a Subject:- Only in the Arts are Imagination and Creativity encouraged. Poetry being a standard bearer of opportunity of Expressionism, 'It' should always be a key element of Education, lest we lose the concept of true purpose, an 'IT' becomes the norm - IMO
