About Understanding

The word from Mr Walsh was clear and simple. He had easily explained what was necessary for a person to be a ‘good’ person. In just one word. Respect. He had not shouted it at me. He had not hit me. He had not put me in a corner and found it necessary to heap derision on me. I had never doubted the images in the nursery rhyme books of my early childhood (when I was really little), where a child was put in the corner of a room with a cone stuck on their head and the word ‘DUNCE’ written on it. It seemed to me it was what some people did. It was what some teachers did. In some ways, it was what some teachers had sometimes done. Memories come to mind of one or two of the virtuous ‘nuns’ staring at this unfortunate, ignorant child, foisted unfairly upon them. And, upon whom it was their duty to educate him and shape him into a passable student. Many of them seemed to think that shaping involved their manual skill at ruler smacking or whipping him into shape with leather such as ‘Muddy Doo’ (See blog  Friday 21^st February 2013).They found a fault in something you said or did, and highlighted it to everyone in the class. They didn’t recognise you as an individual, they ‘identified’ you as an individual they could ridicule. They didn’t appreciate the fact you may not have understood exactly what they were trying to teach, because with some people that takes time. Not everyone understands at the same speed as everyone else. One of those essential things about humans, we learn as we are able to learn.

In some of my classes as I got older, I witnessed very clever students in some areas. Some were good at maths or sciences. Others excelled in manual skills. But that was to do with specialisation. How their brain actually worked once it understood the basics. It was when the basics were being taught that some teachers expected every child was supposed to be as capable as every other. It isn’t a fact. A friend recently began a teaching degree and I asked what she wanted to achieve. She said, “To understand what each child needs to learn”. She was talking more about method, than she was of quantity. An important distinction. Which already put her well above most teachers I had in my youth.

Mr Walsh rose well above every other teacher. He looked to inspire his students and to encourage. I may have disappointed him by what I had done (see blog Wednesday 30^th January 2013), but he also understood my thinking at the same time. He realised I was not stupid. He recognised I was an individual who would benefit more from a sound explanation, than a sound flogging. I had already had several of those (not from him) and had not yet learnt the essential difference in being a ‘good’ person. Not that even after what Mr Walsh had imparted, I thought that would be the end of the incident. I was still expecting to get a sound thrashing from my father and or mother (or both), once I made it home after school.

(Continued tomorrow)