The Teacher

The Teacher ©

By Michael Casey

Now as I start this talk I’m not decided as to where to take you, I only picked the title because I sent an email to a “teacher” whether or not he replies I just do not know. So that’s why you have this title today 6^th Oct 2019, I’ve added the title just in case the “teacher” does in fact reply. Yes, I’m as conceited as that, just in case somebody goes through my papers in the Future and says this day marks the day that, and so on and so forth etc etc, just as the King in the King and I used to say in Thailand, or was it Tie Land the retail store where the “teacher” used to buy all his ties from Mr King.

So shall we remember our school days and the teachers then. I’ve just remembered Mr Skullian the teacher from class 6 was it, and did I pull his sideburns, did he teach us I am a Merry Ploughman back in 1967 or 1968. That was the last of my clownish behaviour. In the Summer holidays I cried because my next teacher would be Mr Gallagher who went drinking with my dad. In fact he looked like Milo O’Shea from Barbarella or Mi Mammie, he was a hard tough man, but my parents were happy because fear of him did change my life.

I started to read bigtime that Summer holidays, I still got 4 of the pump on backside for not knowing my Times Tables. 4 of us were the clever ones so we were expected to know them, Mr Gallagher kept on putting off the test, and finally I was not up to speck so I got beat. Yes, I did know them the next time the test came, and I know them to this day 50 years plus later. I did get revenge in a way, Mr Gallagher tickled me as I was sat at my desk, so I rocked my head back in reaction, and hit his nose causing it to bleed. All very innocent fun back in those days, and no I was not punished for it. It was the 1960s and those may have been the best years in everybody’s lives.

Later as I was top of the class due to all my reading I was put downstairs at a desk and given some special books to learn from, a kind of receptionist in the hall outside the school hall and the head teacher’s office. I seem to remember being there for a long time. That’s when I read the Outline of History by H.G. Wells. I also remember Mr Marshall and his motorbike and him falling off his bike. He tried to trick me and test me on The Outline of History, so maybe God punished him for that.

I can also remember Mr Roe in his cords, my mother forced him to give my brother proper homework from a book, and it must have worked as my brother got into grammar school, the 2^nd in the family to do so. I in turn ended up in grammar school, the same one as my 2 elder brothers had gone to. So the Latin teacher Mr Hanney who was 5 feet zero insisted on calling me Casey Minimus, as major and minor has preceded me, so I was Minimus. Nothing is Minimus about me nowadays, nothing at all.

Our French teacher was Mr Long who was behind the Lines in WWII, it was his last year of teaching, and I was failing at French. But God and Luck came along. Mr Notzing was my next French teacher for 4 years at grammar school. We could have gone forward a book or started on an easier book, so we resumed French, Mr Notzing believed in testing, so every week for 4 years I had a French test. And thanks to Mr Notzing je continue a bavarder bien, which means I can still chatter in French.

It was him and him alone that made the difference, he also did make-up for school productions, we were probably the last generation that did that at school. He sat Edwards in a chair and turned him into an old man by using face makeup. Mr Notzing was really skilled, I don’t know why he showed us this skill, otherwise we just hated him for all the French testing. Sadly he died on a train station platform, aged 56 or so, he had a heart attack and died, and there but for the Grace of God could have been me too back in 2015.

Mr Rogers was my Physics teacher, it was because of him I passed, he was enthusiastic and young. The Abbot was the huge science book we had, my brother had read it cover to cover but I was not as disciplined as my brother. I was good or even very good at school, but I could have been even better, I enjoyed my rugby and tv too much, tough I did listen to masses of Radio 4.

All in all a teacher can make a difference, I’ve even been an Esol teacher myself. As you know I got Excellent, Excellent and Exemplary for my External Assessment, why, because I am an entertainer when I teach. But if you misbehave I’ll just throw you out, 7 or was it 9 was my record for throwing out people. There has to be testing with learning, Mr Notzing was the best teacher ever, because he didn’t trust us to learn it, we had to prove to him and more importantly to ourselves just what we actually knew.

In Faith they say it’s what you do that matters, not the bluster and the lies you speak, just as in Politics, it’s what you actually do that counts. So as a Parent we have to set an example and have a friendship with our kids, don’t farm them off to babysitters, or to electronic devices. We are all our kids first Teacher and we actually live with our kids, so as parents as our kids teacher, we should be like Barry White, the first, the last, the everything to our kids.