Feel The Lesson

So, Robin Hood. There he was. A wronged, but, generous character in my young, impressionable mind. From England, my mother’s birthplace, so he held a certain extra raised status in his value (apparently). He obviously possessed a strong sense of honour and loyalty, as the stories would have us believe. Seeing that greed of the rich was not good, that greed of the church was even worse and loved by the poor masses. Of course I would be impressed. So I mention him only because of the thing I did wrong next. Wrong, but for all the best of intentions and more importantly, the lesson I learnt from someone, which involved no physical punishment, no mental punishment and generously, no financial punishment to me. But it left a much more lasting, and sincere impression on me.

I had a teacher when I was around nine years of age. A Mr Walsh. He taught me in my last two years of primary school. For those of you in foreign countries, primary school went from about 5 years of age, to around 11 years of age. Depending on your skills, you may have been sent up an extra level of learning, or not. Since we could read before we went to school, we jumped the first few levels much quicker than others. So by the time we got to the last two years of primary school we were younger than other children in the class.

Mr Walsh was a gentle spoken man, with a wonderful sense of the love of learning. He understood that questions needed to be answered and would take the time to do just that. He also understood that one question should lead to another. This was the underlying nature of true learning. Many of the teachers I had had, prior to Mr Walsh, and unfortunately many after him, had simply taught. There is a real difference. The nuns, for example, had especially their own way of getting you to learn. Basically, drumming it into you. Not encouraging you to learn, but drumming the same things they were taught, into you, the way they had been shown. Repetition of information, without actual learning of the facts, or, understanding of the lessons. Stifling the inquiring mind. Yes, I could parrot most of what they had shown me. But I also learnt a lot about bad behaviour (by them) and I still question the true moral behaviour of what some of them put me through in the name of their religion. There were teachers who thought it important to talk down to children. That was also frightening. Then there were the teachers who couldn’t communicate, but just insisted that you copied the lesson from the board as they wrote it. Word for word, verbatim, and ……..pointless. No engagement with the pupils, no engagement with the subject they were meant to teach. And so they taught, but didn’t seem to care about the outcome. I am sure we have all had such teachers.

(Continued tomorrow)