Hey. Winnie here. Excuse me "poking my snout in where it don't belong" as Danny would say, but I've noticed that he and G are back with a vengeance. I'd rather they were just back, and left the vengeance behind. However, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and you can't teach a cocky cat anything, so I guess I just have to be the balance here. The blog needs balance. Dan can't give it that, because his definition of balance is "being able to walk the whole length of the fence, without slipping off and catching a serious splinter right up your arse". If you look up "uncouth" in the dictionary, you'll see a picture of Dan there.
Anyway, G was checking his e-mails this morning, and he and I were catching some quiet squeeze time whilst "the cat who is too hard for this planet" was venturing out into the garden for the first time in days - as he doesn't like wet and windy weather. G received one of the 'Simple Truth' e-mails, and it made him reminisce. After watching it, he was telling me about the effect that teachers have on people, and teachers he has met. Some great, some really bad. I didn't quite understand the concept, as we pretty much have to fend for ourselves from a really early age, but I do understand good memories. I feel them when I'm padding-and-purring his chest when we all go to bed. The 'ard one does it too, but don't let him know I told you so. G gets really wistful when he talks about people he's known in the past, he has the Moon in Cancer in the first house forming a grand trine with Neptune in Scorpio and his Sun in Pisces in his tenth house, so he can't really help it he says. It meant nothing to me, but I liked hearing about his people anyway.... and I always love the way he fiddles with my ears when he goes back in time...
The first teacher he ever had on his first day at school was a lady called Mrs Kimber. He remembers that she very quickly calmed the new intake down by distracting them with all of the pictures and words on the walls. While she did so, she mangaged to work out who was best to partner up with whom, and ensuerd none of the children felt isolated. She ensured they all got to know and look after each other from day one. It amuses him that it's the first thing people do on adult education and training courses. Introduction, distraction and ice-breaking. You're like us, still kittens inside no matter how many years you live.
The headmistress at the time wasn't as nice, or as mindful of the feelings of young children. She would seperate and humiliate any child who stepped, or spoke, out of line. She always seemed to be in a bad temper. He remembers that she had an enourmous bosom on quite a small frame, and being the early sixties, her bosom was squeezed into a conical pointy bra. He is certain looking back that she was in severe pain bosom-wise, and that's why she was such a cow. He hopes that she never heard of Rigby and Peller, and that all her bras were ill-fitting for the rest of her life, and that her bosom dropped far enough to tuck into her knickers by the time she was 30. He can be as vindictive as Dan sometimes.
At junior school he fell in love with a teacher called Miss Bungy because she was beautiful and smelt like an angel. I asked what an angel smells like. He said like Miss Bungy. Sometimes it's best to just let him blather on and not ask too much. He stole some money to buy her some After Eight mints that to him were the height of decadent luxury because usually you were only allowed to have them at xmas. She blagged him up. That was his first taste of suffering for love. He got over her quickly though, because Miss Fairlee came to be a student teacher at the school, and she blinded him to any other woman. She was a dirty little Jezebel who should have added a foot to the hem of her dress rather than show her pink frilly knickers to the world - or so his mum said. He didn't actually get involved with her, because he says she probably wasn't into 8 year olds, but boy were they all into her! He thinks she went off with the PE teacher Chris, as she was a pretty female, and he looked like Jason King, so it would have only been natural really.
The headmaster there was a man called Ian Hague. G says he has yet to meet such a charismatic and compassionate gentleman as he. Mr Hague never belittled the kids. If they did wrong, he disciplined them quickly and efficiently, but ALWAYS explained exactly what had been done wrong, why it was wrong, why there was a need for rules, and he always ensured they left having shook his hand and knowing he still loved them, but had to punish the behaviour. People make money writing books about how to learn that now. He was deaf in one ear from being an artillery man in WW2. He said he used his deaf ear when it suited him. He attended every school football or netball match, and was passionate about fair play and teamwork over winning. G employs many of his behaviours to his own management strategies to this day.
Mr Hague chose good teachers. Ones who cared with a burning passion. Mrs Glassey came to the school as a music teacher. She taught them Negro spirituals, and protest songs by Dylan and Baez. G listens to them now. She was the first to teach him about John Newton, the master of a slave trader ship who repented and wrote Amazing Grace. It was played at G's mum's funeral. You might want to watch this video with the great Wintley Phipps, you'll understand what Judith Glassey taught G with her passionate soul. If you are a musician, you will see the light of the "slave scale" in the black notes. Get a tissue, you'll need it. You might notice Bill Gaither and his family in the background. G isn't a christian, but he watches their Gaither Music shows on RuralTV even now. All because of Judith Glassey. Her legacy lives on. http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1312
He went to senior school, and his education stopped. The teachers there in the seventies didn't understand that the word "Education" comes from the original Latin "Educare" meaning to train, to bring up, or to stimulate to learn. It doesn't mean indoctrinate with religious bigotry, or restrict the natural creativity in the thinking of a child by enforcing the need to learn specific subjects of little use in real life. Except for two of them. Mr Fitch was an Art teacher who stimulated the creative juices of any kid who chose to trust him. He found some form of artistic expression in every child, even those who couldn't draw a thing you'd recognise. G can't draw to save his life, but got a grade 1 in Art just through being nurtured to express his frustration through image and form.
The one who really made the change though, was Ivan Harwood. He saw through the attitude, and insisted on only dealing with the person inside. He taught G to see beyond the facades in people. He also taught him the basics of Graphology, and G can still know a lot about a person from their writing or signature now. He introduced them to "A day in the life of Joe Egg" to show them how a family can struggle to deal with abnormality, "One day in the life of Ivan Dnisovitch" by Solzhenytsin to teach them the value of freedom, and "Animal Farm" to warn them of the people they'd meet with their hidden agendii in their futures. Mr Harwood let them do the Willis Hall play "The long and the short and the tall", and anyone who knows G or the play will smile when I tell you that he played Bamforth, the barrack room lawyer who wasn't always right, but never backed off. He also taught him the power of words and promises. G let him down once after a final plea from Mr Harwood to be the best of himself rather than the worst. When he told Mr Harwood what he'd done, the tears in the teacher's eyes hit G harder than any fist ever did, and the words "I cannot believe that you of all people could let me and yourself down so badly. I expect so much more from you" still sting him today. The man was loved, and the school wasn't the same after he'd left.
Later in life, G loved a very beautiful, vibrant and talented young lady who was going to become a teacher. They lived together for a while, and her natural ability to engage a child of any age, and draw them in by becoming a part of their world left him in awe. He has yet to see that in another. She was once asked what she was going to do. "I'm going to be a teacher" she said. The querant asked "and what will you teach?" She replied quite simply "Children." She knew what he meant, but to her the subject was less relevant then the commitment to forming young minds to be minds of their own. She sparkled as a person, but was positively radiant in the presence of young kids.
Some of his teachers left scars that he shrugs off, and some left a legacy that he passes on. The young are his favourite people and he believes that every one of them has a gift that needs to be found, and can only be found with care and nurture. You can't delegate that responsibility to the schools for two reasons: one, they just cannot have the time to commit to each and every individual in the way they need to be nurtured, and two, it isn't their job! Bad parents are the only people he goes to war with quicker than bad teachers. Teachers have excuses. They got stuck with whatever gang they found in the classroom, parents made the decision to create and nurture a life, and they should honour it - come what may (it's all in "Joe Egg" you see ;) ).
Perhaps you might like to look at the Simple Truth link too, and think of the teachers that made a positive difference in your life, and how you might consciously try and pass on that legacy? If you all just took the learning gained from one good teacher, and worked to pass that message on to as many as you could, you might even see "the times they are a changing" in your lifetime, and feel the "Amazing Grace" of people being good to each other too. If the whole world picked up on it, there would never be another Gulag, or another Burma campaign.
A good teacher can change the world, but only with the help of the legacy being passed on by one kid at a time. This Simple Truth vid "The heart of a teacher" sums up the ultimate outlook of the ultimate teacher. It pretty much describes the philosophy of the one he loved. As he watched it he saw her interacting with children that she both knew, and met for the first time. They loved her, but it was always returned with interest - in every meaning of the word. It's many years since they parted, but he hopes she never changed. He hopes that life and "the system" never got to her. He hopes she remained forever "Angel". If this video doesn't touch you, you might want to ask yourself - where have you been all your life? http://www.heartofateachermovie.com/
Luv Win. X
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