Today is the 91st birthday of the greatest teacher I have personally known.  I was not a pupil of John Morris, but a colleague at a school in Sydney.  I learned more about teaching from John than from any book or course.

John Morris, left, and this blogger

So why was he so great as a teacher?

Firstly, he was an enthusiast and loved spreading knowledge.  The way he spread knowledge was mostly by encapsulating a lesson and its aims within stories.  Everyone loves a good story, and none more so than young people.  If any teacher wants a class's full attention, just tell them a story that highlights your point.  Granted, there are subjects where story-telling seems impossible to use, e.g. Maths and I.T., but these are rare exceptions when it comes to worthwhile subjects.  'History' is a gift to teachers of it, yet far too many history teachers manage to transform an already compelling story into something dull and meaningless.

Secondly, John told stories in a comic-dramatic way and knew how to create suspense.  Pupils would not let him go to lunch until he had finished the tale.

Finally, he was so encouraging of his pupils, so interested in them as people, and made schoolwork such a pleasure, that his pupils shone and many still stay in touch with him.

John's effect on his pupils is best summed up by the mother of a boy he taught.  I bumped into the boy's mother in a shop one day, many year after he had left the school, and asked her how her pleasant (but academically average son) was doing.  She told me that he was running his own eye clinic in Sydney, having become a brilliant ophthalmologist.  Then the mother said: "Before John Morris, there was nothing.  After John Morris, everything!"

Happy Birthday, John !

'Private education is unfair', said Alan Bennett last week, stating the bleedin' obvious.  England has a greater variety of school models than any country on earth.  This is good for some, but not for most, and in that sense the system is unfair.

Private schools are often referred to as 'good' schools and state schools mainly 'bad'. In truth, they are all bad, and the real unfairness is that so much potential is squandered by them.

I must add that my argument is centred on schools in the West, especially on British schools.

When girls in Afghanistan demand to be educated, school and education then overlap considerably, if not become synonymous.  But in the West, 'education' has become a class-ridden, divisive, anti-educational business. 

There is now a condition called 'schoolphobia'.  To me, this means the natural reaction of a healthy child to school.  Too many pupils see school as a kind of boring prison.  Indeed, in prison they would have far more rights.

At this point I feel it is worth repeating a story I heard years ago.  Apocryphal or not, it speaks volumes:

A British soldier, captured by the Japanese during World War II, was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. One day, he saw an old school friend coming through the gates of the camp,  and he yelled to him: 'Humphrey, come on in!  This place is much better than Charterhouse!'

I want to assure readers that gradually my blog will present positive ideas and alternatives, and not just be a weekly rant and rave - unless, of course, readers want that kind of stuff.  Let me know.

'British Values according to the gospel of St.Michael Gove', a subject that stirs so many thoughts and comments that I shall resist studying that gospel, for the time being anyway.

Instilling values is always most effectively done by subliminal means.  I would doubt that any private school pupils are told in plain terms that they are members of a powerful, superior elite.  It is assumed that they take on that message by the very values that need not speak their names.

Ivan Illich talks about the 'hidden curriculum' of schools, in his brilliant little book Deschooling Society.  He dismissed the idea that we go to school to learn subjects like Maths, Languages, Science etc. and maintained that we go to school to learn the values of obedience, conformity and subservience - all taught subliminally by the very system itself, put into place by authoritarians, mainly for the misuse of authority.

A friend of mine, an Englishman, once remarked that he believed that Hitler and Al Capone would probably be admitted to the exclusive clubs of St.James's, because they were well dressed, but that Gandhi and Jesus would be refused as a couple of scruffs!  He's probably right, but what does that say about British values?

I am only interested in civic and human values - those of tolerance, equality of opportunity, and justice. Any society that practices those, I approve of, and those that don't, I despise.  I'm sounding sanctimonious, so I'd better go.  Speak to you next weekend.

"I never let my schooling interfere with my education", the brilliant Mark Twain said.  I have decided, after a lifetime of teaching, that school is the antithesis of education - as you can guess from my blog name - and a lot of my blog will be putting my case forward - with a good deal of humour and anecdotes.

The derivation of the words school and education deserve to be re-visited. School derives from the ancient Greek word skhole, meaning 'leisure', and educate from the Latin 'to elicit or draw out'.  How far we have come from their original meanings. Leonardo da Vinci said "You really cannot teach anyone anything; you can only draw out what is already there".  What a shame he isn't alive today and Secretary of State for Education.

When teachers are asked "Why did you become a teacher?" they usually answer that they want to help young people learn, which is a noble ideal.  I have to say that my motivation for teaching was both that and because I selfishly derived a huge amount of enjoyment from the job, almost always because of the students.  I occasionally, after some hilarity, would say to a class: "Why should I pay for expensive West End shows when I get paid to come here and be entertained by you?" They were never sure whether that was a compliment or a patronizing insult.

They are my thoughts for today.  Speak to you next weekend.

School v Education

Today I awoke with an urgent desire to start a blog.  I kept a diary for years, until I started noting down the latest specials at Sainsburys.  So why, twenty years later, should my diary be any more interesting than Grimsby bus timetables? 

I can't guarantee that it will.  But as a retired teacher, I have much to say about the present state of 'education'.  My views will usually be supported by anecdotes.

There's always something in the news to trigger a weekly blog.

So today is by way of introducing myself and to express the hope that my readers will feel challenged and entertained by my weekend blog.