Sunday Express Skeleton 24Th November...
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What Were Your Teachers Like?
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Some are such nasty pieces of work aren't they:
I was lucky I don't remember a bad or nasty teacher from any subject, Art, History, maths, geography, science and everything in between. I was fortunate to have amazingly good and knowledgeable teachers. They taught me so much and I call on it all the time. Though at the time I had no idea how good they were or the relevance of what we did. I often hear people say that they never utilised what they learned at school and I wonder what sort of school they went to, I use it all the time.
...and yes I went to a state school, not even a grammar.
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I had excellent teachers in all subjects and they stood no nonsense - particularly remember the English teacher who bellowed out Shakespeare, the Art teacher who taught me that, when painting, hills and fields are not totally green and the music teacher wo obviously thought I could sing and kept putting me in Gilbert & Sullivan school operas. What I also remember is how patient they were trying to improve my rubbish attempts at science and maths.
Most of my teachers were old school and quite strict in this country. The only nasty one I can recall was one when I went to school in Australia for a couple of years. One day he smacked me with a ruler for no reason so I gave him a kick in the leg and walked out of school and started to walk home. I was only ten at the time. Got about half way home before my father and couple of others found me. I didn't get into any trouble for it but don't know what happened to the teacher. Didn't have a class with him again. The sort that puts children off going to school.
I was punched in the head by the music teacher. Caned on the bottom and hands several times by various instructors. Had plimsolls hitting my bare neither region.
chalk erasers bounced of my cranium, threatened, intimidated, humiliated, and made to feel worthless.
I encountered one English teacher that proffered encouragement, I responded accordingly and came top of the class. I do not resent school life, but it did nothing for me.
All the teachers I had were well worn has-beens and gibbering idiots . Every term there was a teacher turn around. I had about five French,3 Maths and 7 science, 4 Art,2 RE,2 Geography and 3 History. The Headmaster was evil and named Ansell Savage.Savage by name and by nature.He would give you a lashing for a bum burp in Assembly. I still have bad dreams about that one.I don't think any of the staff could stand him either as he would descend on a class without warning and takeover the lesson and waffle about anything except the lesson subject and that is why he couldn't keep the staff. The only decent teacher was a gentleman called John Newmark who,together with his brother George, wrote a book called 'To the Zoo in a Plastic Box'. A personification of David Niven and very interesting man.He took over from the Geography teacher ( Taff Evans. Lay Preacher) who replaced the Reverend Dowd who was a chain smoking alcoholic. He got sacked because he always rolled up drunk for assembly. I could write a book about each and every one of the misfits that masqueraded as teachers.One of the French teacherswas a ex Legion estrange and not long finished a tour in Algeria (Monsieur Lambert). Could hardly speak a word of English. I hated that school. No continuity in subjects. I learnt little.
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Infants school, cannot remember,it was 5 years to 7 years.
Primary School,7 years to 8 years,they just tried to fill us with facts,regardless of whether we wanted them.
8 years to 16 years I had a scholarship(vocally) to The Choir of the Chapel Royal Hampton Court.
As there were not many pupils,as far as I recall about 12,we often had a one to one lesson with a teacher.
Which was great.
My singing was really great,but I don'think I ended up more intelligent otherwise? LOL
Now all I sing is flat!
I remember almost all my teachers, some excellent, some not so much. The thing is, I remember my first infant school teacher most of all. She was a sadist!!
I was five years old and she saw me looking away from her. She dragged me to the front of the class and held my arm out then proceed to hit me over my fingers with the edge of the ruler, drawing blood. Later, at home for dinner my father asked what had happened to my hand. He was a big burly man but a very quiet man too. Not this time though. He hit the roof! He took me back to school for the afternoon lessons and confronted her. She denied hitting me until the other pupils, out of innocence I think, said 'yes you did miss'.
Although all that stays with me still, I have no other memories of her.
there must have been less rude ways to say that, but all the same, if a teacher thinks a pupil has no chance it's better to say so, that's what teachers are paid for. If you're going for the sort of job where your face is fortune, you need to know if your face won't fit.
And of course they do sometimes get it wrong, as this one seems to have done; but who hasn't occasionally made a mistake in their job?
jno: "There must have been less rude ways to say that, but all the same, if a teacher thinks a pupil has no chance it's better to say so," - not like that and not to pick on them for ever after.
"that's what teachers are paid for." - no they are paid to teach and turn out useful members of society. Not discourage and trash their dreams before they start. I don't expect them to lie or even hide their opinions but there are more tactful ways. None of my teachers ever said we'd never acheive.
"If you're going for the sort of job where your face is fortune, you need to know if your face won't fit." - isn't though is it? There are performers in the arts of all shapes and sizes and degrees of beauty and ugliness.
It's like Mr Wetherspoon who once told Sir Tim Martin that he was useless at everything and would never amount to anything.
Most were sadistic. Seemed to enjoy assaulting underperforming pupils physically or mentally. Scorn/ridicule frequently applied. One stuck in my mind after my spending hours on an essay - respone from teacher "Lacks imagination", no suggestions as to how I could remedy it. And this was from a pratt who was immensely proud of his ridiculous enormous handlebar moustache which seemed to be the most important thing in his life.
Only one teacher took any care whatsoever, and that was a maths techer who turned me from a mathematical dunce into a high flyer in the subject.
One RI teacher used to bring a reel-to-reel tape player along, set it running on a weekly radio tuition programme he recorded and just left us to listen while he took a coffee break in the staff room - no discussion or questions at the end of the lesson. Most of them had taken up teaching to avoid conscription in WW2.
I can't remember ever having had any problems with any teacher - apart from Miss Nodder, at Junior school - who was unjust. I was absent for about 4 weeks (pneumonia) probably in 1958 and when I returned there was one afternoon a couple of days after, when we all had to stand up and recite a poem. We had apparantly been told to find and learn one a couple of weeks before. Not having known about this, I recited one I'd learned the year before, just to get by. Then another teacher told Miss Nodder that I'd said that one to her and Miss N. had a good go at me in front of the class. I'm still angry about it!
Otherwise at Grammar (good Northern) most of the males had seen military service, one had a metal plate in his head after being shot down - Bodmas, maths teacher, dad of a friend of mine. All, male and female were knowledgeable and inspirational - and so kind when I tried and tried in Maths and Science, to no avail. (I was top in English etc.!) Strict, of course, but acceptably so. I loved school & was a prefect, athletics captain and house dep. sports capt. as well as running the library & charity tuck shop for a few years.
Funny - I broke down and cried the first week at Grammar, it felt so alien (but I had only just turned 10)!
Some nasty and sadistic bas...ds at our school, the maths teacher in particular. He had what amounted to little man syndrome and took out his frustrations on us kids. Another was our ex-marine geography teacher. On one occasion, he slapped me round the head so severely, it split my head open and I had to be taken to hospital to have six stitches in my head to close the wound. I was still expected to go to school afterwards.
Some of our teachers had been in the war; there was the story about stabbing a german with a frozen carrot. Only one sadist; he'd take you in the cupboard for a beating with a retort stand and ask if you wanted the thick end or the thin end. The music teacher tried to inculcate Irish tenor techniques and was young and handsome, but a Christian Brother, so was frustrated and brutal. The best was tough and fearsome but well loved and fair; he only ever whacked you with a bare hand, so that it hurt (so he claimed) him as much as us.
I remember one wet lunchtime in about the 4th year (year 10 now) when we were in the classroom and a teacher came in and asked the boy sitting in front of me what he was doing, the boy answered 'homework sir' at which point the teacher shouted 'homework' and then absolutely whacked him right across the face with some force. How times change, today that would make the Daily Mail.
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