The best teacher I have ever had was not very interested in sticking to the notes he would have received from the government, in the form of dry instructions.
He interested himself for everything else and a day in his class could range from the introduction of electricity in our home town, through the best places for trout fishing to how bank loans actually work. I’m sure that his class was the first where I would raise questions about subjects that I already knew well , and in my seeming discovery of the answer appear more interested than I was in school. I had a habit of reading through the textbooks at the start of the year and picking out the best parts. Unfortunately I then had to wait until the interesting sections turned up in class again. I often read anything else rather than read the sections we were actually supposed to. A habit which I have only solved by reading everything
He knew most of our parents well enough to establish a personal relationship with us and to make jokes about their jobs or hobbies. I don’t think I ever saw him push this humour too far with anyone that couldn’t deal with it. His delight at his own jokes was apparent and infectious and the air of mischief about him made each class new. We engaged in constant struggles to pose some question that would engage him and lead to an interesting talk, not part of the curriculum but probably just as good for us. An ideal time was 20 to 25 minutes before break, lunch or the end of the class. Like old friends engaged in a poker game both parties knew what the other was trying to achieve but still played the game. His interest in local history and his obvious enthusiasm for storytelling led me to finding out a lot about my local town and these nuggets of information were often the reports that got back to my parents, especially my father, who was also a history fan.
We learned why certain streets were so named, what civil engineering bench marks signified and where they were to be found, what legends or myths were attached to local landmarks, why certain trees grew in some parts of the national park which semi-surrounded the town, and not in other parts. We heard of abandoned roads and the reasons why they were no longer used. In time we hiked these old tracks into the mountains, our footsteps echoing the daily traffic of 200 years before and imagined the power of a landowner who could shut down a public thoroughfare to make a hunting preserve. We knew why the bridges had been demolished and were able to date the potato ridges in the abandoned farms that marked the desolate hills, natural foolscap pages of agricultural and social history. In a rocky gully we searched in vain for the carved graffiti of a British soldier, who had served at a time when cavalry still rode horses and Ireland was not counted as a easy posting. We never did find the inscription but I had found something more interesting and longer lasting, The realisation that every place is saturated with history and this history can be read by those who are interested enough to gaze beyond the everyday and look for the faded pages and yellowed notes that those who have gone before have left behind. To this day I take great delight in knowing things, to walk down a street and know why it takes a hard curve at the end, why certain older buildings stand as they do and why others are new and foreign to the neighbourhood. Why the street has changed names, why the official name has never been accepted and the more popular unofficial nomenclature has lasted longer. He told us of recovering old bottles, abandoned in the lakes before a local hotel, whose pointed bases led back to a time when they had to be stored flat for the cork to remain wet, swelled and airtight.
This type of information is now not as important as it used to be. In a broader sense our ancestors, whether hunters, farmers, tradesmen or traders, had to have an intimate knowledge of their surroundings. They needed to know where roads went, how long they took to traverse, whether a horse could negotiate them with a heavy load or in the dark. Where did the weather for the fields come from, which signs could not be ignored, when was what to be planted and when to be harvested ? How did local conditions affect what people bought and how much were they prepared to pay for it ? I no longer need this level of information and so my interaction with me environment has become limited. I must master the artificial surroundings of public transport and tax, traffic regulations and special offers. However to know about where I live and why certain events occur when they do or why certain landscape features look as they do links me to the earth in a fundamental way and anchors me somewhat. As modern life creates more and more situations where we drift and float on the cluttered surface of the day it is a comfort to know how far beneath your feet the seabed starts and what it is made of. This is his legacy and of greater worth than anything else he taught us.
How must it be for a good teacher to look back at a life spent educating and to hope that at least some of those pupils took some lesson for life, some lesson that went beyond mere grammar or mathematics ? Did any of us thank him for doing more than his job ? We should have and now it is too late. Perhaps if we can pass on this interest in the world to others it will be some small token of repayment.
