Chapter 1
What have I done?
Memoirs and anecdotes from a lifetime in
teaching (and learning)
by
Stuart Fernie
Before I forget, and am forgotten ….
Foreword
Countless reports have been written
offering advice on content and evaluation of lessons, and strategies to drive
them. I once attended a meeting chaired by members of Her Majesty’s
Inspectorate of Education (HMIe) in the course of which some ten elements were
proposed as representing excellence in the classroom - presentation of learning
intentions, differentiation of content and evaluation, use of ICT, evidence of
progression, summary of key elements at the end of a lesson etc. – all very
admirable and worthwhile, and all rather “mechanical”.
We were then asked if there was anything
we thought had been omitted and would be worthy of inclusion, and it struck me
that something that underpins all elements of good teaching and learning is
relationships between teacher and pupils, so I put forward that point. The
Inspector chairing the meeting looked at me, somewhat bemused, and asked if I
meant discipline or good order. I agreed, but suggested there was more to it
than that, involving why pupils were willing to work with a teacher, the
atmosphere in the room and the rapport between teacher and pupils.
The Inspector continued to look bemused
and it was clear that this element had not been factored in to the official
perception of excellence in the classroom at that point. However, it is
precisely this element that made the job viable and worthwhile for me. If I
hadn’t been able to get on with my pupils, have a bit of banter with them and
just plain have some fun at the same time as teaching and fostering learning,
my time in the classroom would have been unbearable.
I feel I was never very good at making the
work itself fun, but I often found myself injecting touches of humour in order
to engage the attention of my pupils and enable them to enjoy the process of
learning, at least to some extent.
Of course, this is a two-way process and I
am eternally indebted to my pupils who were willing to “play the game”, i.e.
produce the work of the class while indulging my desire to amuse and engage.
Beginnings – being an assistant in France
When I was at school and university and I
was asked what career path I wanted to pursue, I always said I was unsure but
the one thing I didn’t want to do was teach. This response reflected a lack of
guidance and direction combined with a considerable lack of self-confidence on
my part. It may also have been based in good part on my perception of the
experience of some of my teachers. Several did not have a pleasant time with
some of my classes at school and I was none too sure of how I would cope with
some of the challenging and at times downright awful behaviour I witnessed from
certain classmates.
How, then, did I become involved in
teaching?
As M.A.(Hons) students of French at
Edinburgh University in the seventies, we were expected to spend our third year
in France and we were encouraged to apply for an English assistantship in a
French school (assistants are usually native speakers who provide linguistic
and cultural support in modern languages classes). I can’t say I was very keen
as I was very unsure of myself and how I would cope, but my application was
successful and, at the age of twenty, I spent the academic year of 1978 – 1979
in Le Havre at the Lycée Porte Océane and I have to say that although I was
initially apprehensive and anxious, it was one of the best formative
experiences I could have hoped for.
Le Havre is hardly a beautiful city.
Strategically important in the Second World War, it was virtually razed to the
ground by the Allies and was rebuilt after the war. It is very “practical” in
feel with everything carefully placed and planned and there is a great feeling
of space and openness while the roads are nearly all straight, long and at
right-angles to one another. It doesn’t feel like it has evolved and grown
because it hasn’t – it was carefully and deliberately rebuilt after its
devastating destruction. It is France’s second port and has an enormous
industrial complex on its outskirts. Having said all that, I found the people
warm, caring, friendly and welcoming, and in the end, it is the people who make
a place.
Porte Océane was a fairly large upper
secondary school (for pupils aged fifteen to eighteen) with approximately 1,200
students and about 80 staff. As an assistant I was contracted to give 12
classes per week, though my timetable varied from week to week to ensure I saw
as many students as possible within the English department.
The greatest (and first) lesson I learned
was the necessity to “throw yourself in”. I had to cast aside inhibitions and
“perform”. I had to lead classes, plan activities, deal with any problems (in
terms of linguistic questions and/or behaviour), and I had to try to engage the
interest of the pupils.
Of course, I wasn’t a teacher as such and
so that allowed me the freedom of developing a more informal approach and style
within the classroom.
I quickly realised that my youth (I was
only three or four years older than most of the pupils) and the fact that I
wasn’t a “real” teacher worked in my favour when dealing with pupils. Since I
didn’t share their language or their culture I needed some way to break down
barriers and engage with them, so I set out to be friendly, share experiences
with them, “make a spectacle of myself” as one member of staff put it, and
ensure I didn’t adopt a tone of superiority. Several assistants I knew tried to
act as teachers, insisting on certain standards of discipline and formality,
but I discovered pupils reacted well to humour and self-mockery and as a result
there were few problems concerning good order or engagement.
I tried to incorporate less formal
strategies of language-learning in my lessons such as songs which could be
translated and discussed (usually played on cassettes!), extracts from books
(one of which was a series of comic observations by Ronnie Corbett), discussion
of topics of interest to them, and I chatted about my experiences in their
town. I also invited and offered correction of language, emphasising humorous
interpretations or misinterpretations of words and phrases which allowed and
encouraged pupils to relax and contribute where otherwise they may have
remained silent.
I should say that the teaching staff were
all warm, approachable and encouraging. Each (there were five of them) had
his/her own style with varying degrees of discipline and different ways of
engaging with pupils. They were all supportive, helpful and happy to invite me
to social events which helped build my sense of belonging and self-confidence.
Of course, I wasn’t the only assistant at
the school. There were three of us – me, a German called Joseph and a Spaniard
called Julian. Both were older than me - Joseph was in his late twenties while
Julian was thirty-seven, married and had three children. We each had a poorly
insulated and soundproofed room (with hardboard walls separating us) on the top
floor of a block of flats attached to the school, built specifically to house
school staff (a common practice in France), with my room in the middle, Joseph
to my left and Julian to my right.
Joseph was quite a gregarious character.
He wore NHS-style glasses, had long dark hair, was confident and direct to the
point of being abrupt and in a loud, almost booming, voice, he was not slow to
express his thoughts and opinions. He was fond of playing music loudly into the
wee small hours of the morning and would accuse me of behaving like an old man
if I dared complain about the noise. We may not have been great friends, but we
got along and even attended a few social events together, and it is for one of
these events that I particularly remember Joseph ….
As I already indicated, the staff at the
school were exceptionally welcoming and sociable and one evening they were due
to meet a former colleague who had fallen ill, and whom they had not seen for a
considerable time, in a restaurant not far from the school, and the three of us
were cordially invited.
We arrived at the very ornate and fairly
busy restaurant where we met our colleagues and were introduced to several
guests who were unknown to us. Introductions involved shaking hands with all
the male guests and kissing (once on each cheek) all the female guests, a
process which took several minutes and which was repeated as each further guest
arrived.
We took our places at the large table set
aside for our group, to friendly and understanding looks from other patrons,
and set about drinking aperitifs while the other guests arrived.
About twenty minutes later, the guests of
honour arrived (their former colleague and his wife) and they proceeded to meet
and greet each and every guest with a handshake or embrace, but this time with
not just one but two pecks on each cheek, thereby at least doubling the length
of time already spent on simply saying hello and significantly delaying the
start of our meal.
This all got a bit much for Joseph who by
this time was rather hungry and had downed a reasonable quantity of wine, and
who couldn’t believe the sheer amount of meeting, greeting, embracing and
especially kissing that was going on. He stood and in his usual direct, bold
and very loud manner, he asked everyone in the restaurant in his vaguely
Germanic but perfectly clear French, “Mais, combien de fois est-ce qu’on baise
en France?”, which translates roughly as “But how many times do you screw in
France?” !
(This is an easy mistake to make as the
verb “baiser” originally meant “to kiss” in the dim and distant past, but has
gone on to have a MUCH stronger meaning in present-day French, a fact of which
Joseph apparently remained blissfully unaware).
Reaction was rapid, widespread and amused.
Several mouthfuls of wine narrowly avoided being spat on the floor and there
was much gasping followed by polite and understanding laughter, while it was
left to Julian and me to explain to Joseph what he had in fact said rather than
inquire about the number of kisses the guests had shared, as he thought he had
done.
Julian was something of a rarity – a
ginger-haired and ginger-bearded Spaniard. He was very kind, human and a lot of
fun. We became very good friends to the extent that six years later he drove
all the way from Seville in the south of Spain to Tain in the north of Scotland
to be the Best Man at my wedding.
We helped one another and shared many
trips and adventures. We toured the local area in his car, went further afield
to Lille, Brussels and Bruges, and were even invited together to colleagues’
homes for dinner, forming a sort of double act as our hosts apparently found us
entertaining.
One evening we had been invited to the
home of a friend of a friend and, perhaps because he was missing his wife and
three children and was upset at the thought of spending another five months or
so in Le Havre without them, he got particularly drunk before we even sat down
at our host’s table.
We made a start on our entrée, French
Onion soup which contained Mozzarella, a type of cheese that goes very stringy
when heated and which appeared to stretch almost infinitely as we dipped our
spoons into our soup and raised them to our mouths. Unbroken thin cords of
cheese clung to the spoons and refused to break free from the motherload of
molten cheese hidden under the surface of our soup. The bigger problem was that
as we put the spoons in our mouths these cords of cheese simply transferred
their grip to our lips, thereby creating the effect of a virtual rope bridge
consisting of strands of cheese between our mouths and their apparently
never-ending source in our soup-bowls.
The other guests were unhindered by this
problem – clearly there was some technique whereby it was possible to eat the
damned soup without establishing visible and unbreakable connections to it, but
no-one informed us of what it was.
Somewhat embarrassed by our predicament,
we began to giggle at our inadequacy, but Julian had an even bigger problem
than I had. The cheese strings attached themselves to his beard and appeared to
be multiplying at an alarming rate as he tried to disentangle the cords,
succeeding only in spreading them ever further.
We shared knowing looks and giggles, made
worse by the fact our hosts and the other guests steadfastly and politely tried
to ignore our situation.
I don’t know if he simply wanted to break
the grip of the cheese strings or if he acted out of devilment to see how far
they would stretch before snapping, but Julian started to swing on his chair,
going ever farther back, giggling increasingly and in disbelief as he was ever
more impressed by just how far the cheese cords would stretch before giving
way.
Well, Julian’s ability to maintain his
balance gave way before the cheese cords as all of a sudden, he hurtled
backward toward the wall, his head ending up at a 45° angle between his
shoulders and the skirting board, the cheese strings intact and Julian giggling
uncontrollably but managing to utter the odd “Merde!”
We were not invited back.
Spending a year on foreign soil brings
with it many advantages in terms of language, personal development and
professional experience, but also in terms of development of cultural knowledge
and awareness. You tend to accumulate such knowledge without really realising
it – you simply adapt to your circumstances and environment, and assimilate. I
do, however, clearly remember my introduction to “Le Trou Normand” (The Norman
Hole) and Calvados, a strong brandy made with apples.
During my stay in Le Havre I opened a
Lloyd’s bank account and became friends with Michael, one of the young ex-pat
managers. One Saturday evening, he and his wife Hilary kindly invited me to a
gathering in their home.
Everything went well and a good time was
had by all. About 1 a.m. it was time to leave, but as I was about to set off
someone in the group mentioned “Le Trou Normand” and asked if I had heard of
it. It was explained to me that this is a tradition in the north of France
whereby if you have enjoyed a hearty meal and would like to indulge in a little
more, but feel you have insufficient space for an extra course, you drink some
Calvados.
Calvados is an exceptionally strong brandy
produced from apples and is offered after a large meal (in a thimble-sized
container and in a single shot) to burn its way through the food already
consumed, consequently leaving room for more – The Norman Hole.
So, at the end of the evening with
Michael, Hilary and their guests, I was offered a Calvados largely, I think,
because they wanted to see what effect this strong brandy would have on the
young fresh-faced Scot before them.
I accepted their kind offer and consumed
my thimble of Calvados in one go. Maybe it was because I had eaten well or
maybe it was because I was already merry, but the emphatically strong Calvados
had no effect on me.
Visibly disappointed, Michael, Hilary and
their guests insisted I should have another before setting off on my mile-long
journey across the city to my flat.
I downed the second Calvados and this time
I did feel some effect, a slightly increased wooziness and merriment, but
hardly the effect my hosts clearly hoped to see. Still, they were satisfied
their “digestif” had produced some effect, so they let me go.
I made my way down the stairs from their
flat to the street below, and as I opened the door onto the street the cold air
hit me, and so did the Calvados!
Suddenly I was energised! I felt dynamic
and vibrant! No wooziness, no lack of clarity – just a desire to run!
I was off – the first part of the journey
was downhill in a quiet (it was 1.30 a.m.) suburban area, and I negotiated the
twists and turns of the streets with no problem and with no shortage of breath
– I was a running machine!
I then came into the city centre and so
had to negotiate zebra crossings, wide roads, and a not inconsiderable amount
of traffic (city traffic never stops). I was thoroughly enjoying my return
journey and felt like my upper body was sitting astride some kind of automated
travel machine which my legs were driving like pistons and my feet were the
wheels. I was particularly taken with the fact that I was overtaking motor
vehicles which had to slow down and stop for traffic lights while I simply
waved at the drivers and was able to weave my way across junctions and
crossings, and between stopped cars, all at a steady speed!
I arrived at my flat with no
breathlessness, no fatigue or light-headedness, and with absolutely no desire
to go to sleep!
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