It’s 8.15, it’s Sunday and I have just finished looking through my emails and the WP comments. It’s what passes for social interaction in what I refer to as “my life”. When summarised in a single sentence it isn’t much of a life. No editor has been in touch overnight, no Lottery win has been communicated and I have, as yet, not interacted with another human. (Julia is still in that Sunday morning phase where she is grunting from inside a cocoon of duvet, in case you were wondering. Not human. Not interaction).
I have had inspiration for some haibun prose since waking this morning, and I had a very peculiar dream about something. I can remember it was peculiar, but as time passes, I can’t remember anything other than that. Dreams are like that.
On the subject of teachers, however, I seem to have a set of superpowers I did not know existed. I can remember nearly every teacher who ever taught me, and I can remember something good about nearly every one of them. I won’t bore you with a list, but I was amazed how, once I started, I couldn’t stop remembering them. It would be better if I could remember everything they taught me, but that, unfortunately, is beyond me.
I’d have liked to have been a teacher, but it was not to be. My mother wanted to be a teacher too, but it didn’t happen. Same with my paternal grandmother. It’s a small enough ambition but my grandmother was told she had to work on the farm, my mother was told she had to get a job to help support the family. I was merely told by the careers teacher that people always said teaching when they couldn’t think of anything else and I should find something else.
When spoke to Julia about this she said she’d been told to consider a career as a waitress or hairdresser, because she would no doubt get married and stop work to raise a family. Fifteen years later she completed a part-time post-grad diploma whilst number one son, at the age of two weeks, slept on the seat next to her in the lecture hall.
We used to have a saying when I was in sales – “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.”
You could say the same about life – “Nothing happens until somebody teaches something.”
And with that, I will leave you. It’s 8.46 and I am hungry.
Ha! I just remembered the name of a history teacher that had been eluding me.
I don’t remember most of my teachers….Kind of sad
I didn’t think I remembered most of mine until my Sunday morning epiphany – it may be an age thing . . .
😉
I took part in a school debate when I was a pupil and the headmaster walking by afterwards asked me in passing, “Why were you so bad at that?” Had I given him the correct answers, “Because I have been so badly taught,” I would have been given a severe thrashing. I don’t have any kind recollections of any of my teachers. I tried to be better than them when I became a teacher but it is a hard job and the highest praise that I can recall getting was, “You were not the worst.”
I was clearly luckier than you with teachers, though the one that regularly used to shout and shake me at the village school in Lincolnshire eventually got 4 years penal servitude for his activities with female pupils.
Not totally lucky then.
It could have been a lot worse.
Like you, I remember every teacher. And I liked most of them. I never had the patience to be one, at least not to kids. I did teach adults graphic and prepress software for several years when I was younger. Those school councillors were pretty useless back in our day.
Careers masters were always cynics that they wanted to remove from the classroom – not the trained professionals you would hope for.
I can see you as a teacher. You have taught me many things – most of which I thought I had little interest in (poems, medals, coins, scones). They are all fascinating to me now.
🙂 Good to hear it. It may not have been appreciated in formal teaching though . . .
Adults have no idea. I was once told by an 8th grade gym teacher not to try so hard, I just didn’t have the ability. The following year I started running, and went out for Track & Field. I still hold the school record for the 2 mile run.
Ugh! That 8th grade gym teacher makes me furious. So glad you showed her! And congratulations on your running record! I’m a runner, too, but I hold no records except my own.
:-)I was a 400m runnmer – though not a good one. I needed a distance where acceleration ddin’t matter too much but ran out of steam on the 800. I am a greta belever in the AAA certificate scheme which you got points for different evenets. I won several one star certificates and the year I got to two starts they discontinued the scheme. I wasnn’t god, but it did make me try and it made me set targets.
Oh, wow – I used to run the 800! And yes – any little competition is good for setting targets. Yesterday, I had my first (non-virtual) race since covid began, and I had a definite time goal in mind.
I retired from running many years ago. Started rugby training about ten years ago and had to stop due to plantar fasiitis and a bad knee – that was just from training – never actually got back to playing.
🙂 Well done – not so much the running, but for doing it after being told not to try. 🙂
Absolutely!
🙂
Yay, Lavinia!
Gosh oh gosh. My extremely smart but poor father was given similar advice. I have a few words in mind for terrible advisors, but none of them are nice.
Ugh! How do they not know that their words carry weight ?
people like this did do me some good – itmade me careful with my own kids, who are both more sporty and more educated than I am.
Yes, I think they did know.
🙁
They were intent on keeping “the wrong sorts of people” in their place.
Some of them still are. ;-(
Sigh.
I’m sure you remember the slogan “No-one Forgets A Good Teacher”. Scope for lots of poetry and blog posts in those memories, I would have thought
So much to do – so little time. 🙂
I’ve just been browsing local history sites instead of writing – so many sidetracks too . . .