The People Who You Really Learned From

General Chat Chat / Discussions
1

Or should I say “From Whom You, Truly, Learned!”

Taking School Days as the first real part of the great Learning System, I believe we are all given a really great Education.

However, occasionally you might remember one or two teachers who had that “Wow Factor”. maybe they acted out a History scene, with all the noises, gestures & groans, at every step, such that the story became a drama which you never forgot.

I want to class them (pun) as super teachers.

Then, whilst at work, especially if you were building or fixing things, did you come across the occasional Genius, again who you will never forget.

What were they like as people?

Examples:-

I remember a teacher who made us all pick up our chairs, in the Hall, and stand back whilst he rolled out a huge carpet - which was a map - and told us to put our chairs back, on it, and sit down.

Then he asked each of us to describe the part of the world on which we were now sitting.

Next time he did that, we’d read up on it, Bingo!

Any examples out there?

The one who really inspired us.

3 Likes
2

I had an older art teacher called Miss Wilkie. She had more spirits in her art cupboard than art supplies! She dressed in the most garish clothing she could think of - talk about red & green should never be seen, I swear, she wore every colour and pattern, regardless of whether it matched or not.

“Live or die by your own eye” she used to shrill, throwing her arms out expressively, as she wandered around the classroom, with the occasional hiccup. She thought we were all the next Picasso or Matisse, and because she had faith in us, we believed her and tried our very best to produce good art.

She was the one who made me believe that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, so long as I was happy with whatever I did in life. As a teenager, stuff like that really mattered. :+1:

5 Likes
3

Aged 13-16 I was working in a shop at weekends and school holidays. I worked with a very interesting woman who was well in her 60s but we got on so well. Her family were very wealthy and the only reason she worked was to get away from her retired husband and to meet people. She had 2 adult daughters who had been to private schools and both had very good careers abroad.

She wore Tweed perfume and always had a whiff of alcohol about her and used to nip in the pub next door at lunchtime which I thought was very daring! She was hilarious, great fun and taught me so much about every subject under the sun. I don’t think she ate much as she was rake thin but her husband was gigantic. She had travelled extensively and I hadn’t been out of our county so that was interesting. If she went anywhere she always brought me back a little something. All these years later I still have a little Eidelweiss brooch she brought me back from a skiing trip. I don’t think I ever wore it but I think of her every time I see it in my jewellery box. She died many years ago and I would have liked her to know what a big impression she made on a teenage girl despite our age difference. She was probably the first person ever to treat me as an equal and not a child.

5 Likes
4

I think I had pretty good teachers at school but one was just ace - physics was his subject. Then I did electrical engineering and again there was a physics guy who just excelled. Sellars was his name but we called him Peter Sellars.

In my job I had to provide a few training courses for techies. The physics teachers from school were an inspiration for me for those training courses.

3 Likes
5

Wish I had had that teacher was Physics always a mystery to me .

1 Like
6

School gave me a basic knowledge in the usual subjects but life and many of those that have lived it have given me a greater understanding of the real world .

3 Likes
7

The best teachers I ever had were those people I worked with after leaving full time education. Three or four of them were truly inspirational.

1 Like
8

I think that’s very true Tezza. I remember loads of things that people have said to me over the years and which I believe I learned from.

Just the other day I was in a phone conversation regarding a problem with an electricity account. In a previous life I would have argued and given them what for but I just couldn’t be bothered and remembered what an old gypsy man said to me once “don’t let people think you know too much about anything. Better to keep quiet.” So I just said to this guy on the phone “I am hopeless at bills and things like that so can you help me?” (Even though I’m not really). He very kindly sorted it all for me which on previous calls his colleagues had not been able to. :wink:

1 Like
9

I must disagree with you on that point Ted. My early school days (when I attended) were hated by me. I was picked on + punched for being ‘the filthy Yid’ in the class. Later when I was put into another school at almost 9, things improved beyond belief. Then from 11yrs 5months I was sent to boarding school and my life completely changed for the better both personally and education wise. One teacher in particular (Bob Lucas), singled me out for close after class coaching and then everything fell into place so well, I made up ground in leaps & bounds to leave at 16 fully equipped for Tech College :ok_hand::+1:

2 Likes
10

Ah, Miss Macaulay, our English teacher

I don’t know why she never married. We had lots of spinster teachers of her generation in our school. Maybe the lost their fiancés and boyfriends in the war?

Any way, she was a funny old stick.

A terrible snob and very starstruck. We had lots of minor celebrities kids at our school and she was all over them like a rash!

And she was a prude. If we were reading out loud and there was a rude bit, she always read it herself leaving out the dirty words. So that famous line from Romeo and Juliet came out as:

Romeo, that she were, O, that she were

An open- ETC or thou a popp’rin pear!

And she had no time for anyone who wasn’t bright or didn’t understand, she wasn’t a natural teacher, really

But boy, did she love and understand literature and her stuff

And somehow, lord knows how, she managed to get that through to the mouthy, stroppy, hormonal, know-it-all teenager that was me

She opened my mind to Shakespeare, poetry drama and literature and gave me access to a lifetime of pleasure and delight and learning.

It’s been so much part of me that I honestly don’t think I’d be the same person today if I hadn’t had her as a teacher

I read that she only died in 2015, at the age of 99, and after retiring from school teaching she was an Open University tutor for many years. She would have been good at that

My best memory of her is her reading us this Thomas Hardy poem and being so moved by it she cried. Some of the class laughed and wow did she put them round the corner!

I went by the Druid stone
That broods in the garden white and lone,
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows
That at some moments fall thereon
From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,
And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders
Threw there when she was gardening.

  I thought her behind my back,

Yea, her I long had learned to lack,
And I said: ‘I am sure you are standing behind me,
Though how do you get into this old track?’
And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf
As a sad response; and to keep down grief
I would not turn my head to discover
That there was nothing in my belief.

  Yet I wanted to look and see

That nobody stood at the back of me;
But I thought once more: ‘Nay, I’ll not unvision
A shape which, somehow, there may be.’
So I went on softly from the glade,
And left her behind me throwing her shade,
As she were indeed an apparition—
My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

3 Likes
11

At primary school they thought I was very slow and made me sit in the back row with the children that dribbled and twitched. That pretty much destroyed my self confidence, but there was one primary school teacher who seemed to find something special in each child, and she tried to build me up again. She did this for so many damaged children over the years, and I remember her with gratitude and love.

At secondary school, ( a comprehensive with a bad reputation) I had several inspirational teachers who generously bestowed their gifts on me.

4 Likes
12

The French teacher hated me and picked on me all the time . At last I ( and 4 others of her least favourite students ) were removed from her class and sent to another . I don’t remember the teachers name but he was fair and explained everything so well suddenly French held no fears for me . All of us who were removed did well and passed our O level French with no problems at all ,what a difference a good teacher makes .

2 Likes
13

I can’t think of a single character who has had a significant influence on my progression through life. I think I have been my own inspiration, and the only person to whom I owe any gratitude for what I am today is myself. So, to myself, I say, thanks a lot. :angry:

2 Likes
14

Maybe your mother or your father possibly?

1 Like
15

Yes, I suppose they must have had some influence. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
16

The Guys on the Picket Line.