I hadn’t thought of Colonel Hill for years. I’d forgotten how much I owe him. A chance encounter with the phrase “silly arse” brought him back. He taught geography at Emanuel School near Clapham Junction, impatient, irascible and sentimental. Anthony Powell wrote in A Writer’s Notebook about the mystery “that men, who could have made a fortune merely by walking across the stage of a music-hall, should have preferred to eke out a livelihood by teaching little boys”.
Colonel Hill was in that company. “What are you doing down there you silly arse, having kittens?” He threw chalk and occasionally wooden-backed blackboard-rubbers at restless pupils and was a pretty decent shot. And one day in my first year, when I was ten, he set us a homework that terrified me: make a model of a hill showing the contours in colour. The concept was fine but the practicalities were beyond me. I panicked and didn’t do it. There were recriminations and a letter to my parents.
So next time we had written homework I went to town. It was about geological layers, a subject I knew from my fascination with fossils. I supplied the required diagrams of different kinds of geological faults – and I also wrote about geology in general, the discovery of stratification and in particular, the 18th century pioneer William “Strata” Smith.
These four additional pages came back unread, with a diagonal line across each one and the single marginal comment “not asked for”.
One of the vital stages in everyone’s advance towards maturity is the first time you realise that a grownup is not just mad but wrong – totally and cosmically in error. Those four diagonal lines were a rejection of the love of learning: of learning for its own. Well, as I thought even then, sod that.
I have spent the rest of my life learning, often enough stuff far beyond what was asked for. There’s a word for it: ultracrepidarianism: the practice of not sticking to one’s last. I’m currently writing my third book about plants and I’d better get back to it; how wheat works, why roses need human hands and why leylandii are such buggers. School-teachers influence our lives – not always in the way they intended.
He should have stuck to the stage
I remember him too, a couple of years after you. Perhaps explains why the subject never got to the top of my list of interests. Fortunately your books about being a bad birdwatcher did – thank you.
Strange how someteachers never get the idea of education. I remain grateful to the good ones, though.
You nailed the crucial moment. Thank you for transcending it. I ran a middle school for decades and told my teachers to honor the going beyond. They did.
At school I had a similar experience, carefully researching an essay on pollination for botany A levels, my work came back with ‘irrelevant’ written over most of it, and ‘too verbose’. In spite of it all I still love flora although as a career I chose fauna and became a vet.
Great stuff! Thanks Simon
How interesting, Simon. I particularly remember the biology teacher I had who lost no opportunity to criticise me, in spite of (or somehow because) I was top of the his class There came a point when he did a character assassination of me in front of my
parents – the result of which was that I was so distressed was that I got a poor result in A level biology. It pushed me towards taking a Chemistry degree, which fortunately I did not do, but my knowledge of chemistry as a subsidiary degree subject has been invaluable in shaping my career and research: so as a lecturer, I founded the Chemical Entomology Unit at Southampton which was then the only such lab. this side of the Atlantic, and I was invited all over the world to discuss the research we did (carrying a folding butterfly net with me always)
Very much agree. We have become obsessed by the self and lost the thrill of learning.
Love this comment on our so-much-lauded educational system and the lifelong effect of teachers for good and ill.
That’s a lovely article Simon…. I opened it here in my school in Donegal in Ireland just now and I laughed at the name s**** a*** ! God forbid we used that nowadays although I think my parents used it from time to time ! (I wasn’t traumatised ! )
I get what you are saying about how important it is to embrace all sorts of learning and for someone to criticise your hard work like that is unforgiveable. Like yourself I’m passionate about the environment and try and instill a love and respect in the kids for our gorgeous planet. My uncle lived in Norfolk till he retired 20 years ago and was an avid birdwatcher and still gets the magazine – Birds – every month and passes it on to me and even though I don’t have time to read all the articles I always have to read yours – your passion, directness and knowledge knocks me every time – we need more like you – well done Simon and keep it lit
Thanks for kind words, S|heila, and God bless all the good teacher. I have a great friend in Donegal — perhaps it’s time for another visit
I am *Passionately* in sympathy, -(and empathy(!)), – with this.
Suffice it to say, ‘I relate’!
YFN. x.
There was also the odd good teacher — the ones whjo opened doors for you to walk through.
Spot on! Teaching a love of learning is No. 1
I too had the blackboard rubber thrown at my head. Teacher in question must have practised at home, with a mirror! She was that good!
All the teachers who told me….that I was no good at subjects, would see me at 65 as proving them so wrong..
Well done Simon!
And there are the good teachers, the ones who opened doors…