Posted in Rituals

Learning

Posted on by tq1695

Self managed,
self-directed,
self driven,
the contemporary model(s).
Our mathematics teacher would’ve had a fit
as would educationalists with him
from the ark they’d have said
almost, but not quite
the army actually –
an engineer
ended up teaching by accident –
coaching cadets struggling with trigonometry, calculus, algebra.

An easy switch –
army to Catholic boy’s school in the 1950s
stayed on
and on.
Relentlessly good exam grades
ruthlessly tough classroom management
spit and polish, even the small things
“ aaah….I think its just ….. just a point of inflection .. so find the 2nd derivative
well done –
the second derivative WHAT ?
the second derivative SIR.”

Even the other teachers joined in,
if a chancer claimed forgetfulness
the rejoinder was invariably –
“oh yeah … did you forget to do your maths homework?”
Hell no.

 

 

 

Advertisement

Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.