Dot, dot, dot #6

 

… Confronting the challenges of teaching every day as a school leader and going home to sleepless nights in despair broke me.  While some tried to convince me that my aspirations were too high, I couldn’t understand why they didn’t properly grasp the scale of teachers’ responsibilities.  Part of me wanted to shake them by their shoulders and ask, ‘What if these were your own children?!’  Last week, a student who has had an especially negative experience of school told me that he didn’t blame teachers because they don’t have the resources they need.  His remarkably magnanimous and mature reflection echoed the larger part of me that similarly realised many teachers are doing the best they can in impossible circumstances, dealing with the immense pressure of their role even if it means letting down some young people; others are simply in survival mode.  With hindsight then, it doesn’t surprise me that, as those pressures dangerously crushed me, no-one noticed the warning signs, only telling me too late they’d thought I hadn’t seemed myself or that something was wrong.  Like that student last week, I don’t blame colleagues whose capacities were already max’d-out for their lack of support – nor even those whose lack of empathy and instinct for self-preservation drove them to pile on more pressure with harsh criticism.  I left my role with depression and now fear that a return to teaching would kill me.  That’s not just hyperbole.  When you train to teach, they don’t …

Dot, dot, dot #5

… We want our children to have the confidence, understanding, abilities and imagination to build a bright future for themselves; while far from alone in this, good teachers give them the best tools.  Despite this unshakeable belief of mine and the respect I have for serving teachers (many dear friends among them), I myself have fallen out of love with the profession.  The realities of classrooms, schools, the communities they serve and the broader education system make it impossible to be as good as children and young people (and wider society) need teachers to be.  I’ve been told my aspirations are too high but I can’t look at a class of children and sanction compromising on the future of any one of them.  Our broken education system is failing; children are paying the price and in the long-run, we all will.  Confronting … 

Dot, dot, dot #4

 

Teachers are my heroes.  Miss Gentry, Mr Graham, Miss Edworthy and Mr Dudding were extraordinary people and I have very fond memories of my time in their classes (year one, year four, year seven and my secondary school English teacher respectively – not that year groups were labelled that way back then).  They shaped my life: I credit them with my love of English and my commitment to learning; they inspired me to line my teddies up at the weekend (my hapless little brother on the end), call the register and teach them Maths and, of course, eventually to properly follow in their footsteps.  It wasn’t long into my teaching career that I developed the strong belief that every child and young people at school deserves teachers of heroic stature, that society needs teachers of that calibre and that teachers ought to have that status.  As we applauded the very real heroes of the Covid pandemic from our doorsteps during lockdown, I imagined those doctors’ and nurses’ own lists of the teachers who inspired them and set them on their paths to successful careers.  We want our children to have the confidence, understanding, abilities and imagination to build a bright future for …

Dot, dot, dot #3

 

… research has even been carried out into the happiness of chimpanzees with remarkably similar outcomes.  For me personally, the even better news is that the average low-point on the happiness curve (for humans, at least) is the age of forty-eight and right now, yours truly is the grand old age of … forty-eight!  I have everything crossed that I don’t buck the trend and that around about now, I am turning a corner and am on the way back to a happiness-high!  The podcast on which I first heard about the happiness curve explained that for many of us it is understandable why rock-bottom would hit at about this age: for parents, it’s when children might be flying the nest; many of us are confronting significant family bereavement; we might lose the companionship of a first pet; we could be far enough into a career to be questioning it; we may be experiencing new and unwelcome physical challenges.  It’s obvious really.  Suddenly, the verve of youth seems a shockingly distant memory, the term ‘middle-age’ has shocking relevance and the prospect of our own mortality – while still disturbing – comes as less of a shock.  Crisis?  What crisis?!

Dot, dot, dot

 

If anyone read my previous ‘Dot dot dot’ post, you may have reached the ellipsis at the end and thought it remarkably well timed!  I have a confession: that first post was contrived to end just-so.  Think of it as an introduction.  This time, a fifteen-minute timer is running and I have no idea how much I can write with that time limit or how far I will get.  My heart is actually racing!  Friends who know me well may be familiar with my recent obsession with the happiness curve – and they are probably now rolling their eyes!  I heard about it on a podcast several months ago and it resonated with me because it helped to explain my negative response to that turmoil in my life to which I referred in my last post.  It also chimed with my intrinsic sense of optimism, which I am proud to have retained in spite of everything.  As I recall, researchers have ascertained that we experience a happiness high somewhere in our late teens then our level of happiness declines steadily over the following decades until it reaches rock-bottom.  The good news and cause for optimism is that their research then shows a steady increase in our level of happiness until it returns to a high-point that is similar to that of early adulthood.  Another striking thing about their findings is that it doesn’t matter where in the world the research is conducted or with which demographic group or what the background is of the people who respond, the results are almost identical.  Apparently, research has even been carried out into …

Dot, dot, dot

A wise friend recently suggested I should once again make time to write.  In the age of podcasts, Tik-Tok and Instagram, it could feel anachronistic but I enjoy writing in the same way I enjoy baking and probably as an artist enjoys sketching and painting.  Putting words in black and white – capturing them in a lasting way – pays homage to the power of words, which I believe in strongly in a world where powerful people fail to understand the significance of the words they use and treat them with such disdain.  Writing takes effort, thought and time but results in something considered and polished.  It lacks spontaneity, I know, but spontaneity can get me into trouble and it’s not as if I only ever communicate in writing: there’s room for the spontaneous too, whether that gets me into trouble or elicits laughter.  I think my writing also reflects something of how rammed-full my brain is of thoughts and ideas and arguments that ricochet through my mind.  I think that is something I had in common with Dad, together with his confidence to hold an opinion, however controversial.  I like to write to make sense of things.  I like to share some of what I write not because it’s particularly good but because it shares a bit of who I am and I want to test some of my ideas and thoughts, opening them up to scrutiny and challenge.  Be they spoken or written, I think words carry a charge that draws them to an audience, without which they’re just cerebral fluff – albeit fluff that feels like it might cause my head to explode if I don’t get some of those words down on paper (so to speak).  'Dot dot dot' is an experiment: an attempt to satisfy that need of mine to write.  The title reflects the turmoil of my life in the last couple of years – not knowing what comes next.  It could also be a trailing off, because sometimes that’s all there is.  Who knows: maybe it will also stir some anticipation.  It’s an experiment that has to be manageable too so every time I write (at least a couple of times each week, I hope), I’m going to set a timer and be strict with myself so when the alarm sounds … 

Dad

 

As a much younger man, I was dreadfully unfair to Dad.  Everyone here surely knows how infuriating he sometimes was and he certainly had his flaws.  Unlike many of us who can make excuses for or hide our own flaws, he could wear his like a badge of honour with stunning self-assurance.  In my younger naivety, arrogance, impatience and embarrassment, I failed to appreciate his qualities, the efforts he made, the example he provided and even his love.  This isn’t a recent epiphany, by the way; he lived and died knowing how much respect, gratitude, pride and love I had for him.

He provided a happy childhood for me and Chris.  Sunday mornings always began with a walk to the newsagents and seven pence each for sweets.  As we returned through Heavitree Park, there were three points at which he would start Chris and me in a running race.  I suspect Chris, like me, could run the exact same races today, Dad’s ‘Ready!  Steady!  Go!!’ echoing in our heads – the only difference being that these days, Chris would win!  In beach games on holiday, rickety DIY-built cupboards, wonderful Christmas celebrations and drunken neighbourhood parties, I formed happy memories.

I didn’t know then just how hard he worked but thanks to him, through our early childhood, we had our brilliant stay-at-home mum and the best, most loving start to life any children could have.  Perhaps his work ethic should have become clearer to me on Saturday mornings when Chris and I would pillage the Westward Freight and Warehousing premises while he continued working in his office, or when we accompanied him on weekend visits to customers like Fyffes, leaving him to deal with the fallout when their warehouse filled with the dry powder discharged like a bomb from one of their fire extinguishers.

As teenagers, we knew times were hard, especially when Dad’s business folded.  His pride must have been shattered and it must have been hard to know which way to turn, but when I accompanied him on his pools-round or delivering catalogue-packages from the back of his car, I saw first-hand how he threw himself into whatever work he could find to ensure we kept the same roof over our heads and to shield us from the challenges he confronted.  Eventually, when he retired from his more-than-twenty year career in the cardboard industry, I think it was as much a celebration of his resilience and of how he had turned failure to opportunity and so successfully adapted to a new career.

The most surprising thing about my grief is that Dad might finally have turned me into a Liverpool fan – a feat he long-since gave up on in life, despite taking me with Mum and Chris to Anfield on two occasions.  Recently, I told someone about how we had been at the 1989 Championship decider between Liverpool and Arsenal; with some awe, he replied, ‘Oh my God!  You were at that match?!’  I’m afraid I was too busy reading ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ to remember anything of what I gather was a truly historic occasion.  Maybe that’s when Dad gave up on me showing any interest in his beloved Liverpool, or maybe – after taking me to see two losses – he decided I was a dodgy talisman!

Football may be baffling to me, but I couldn’t fail to respect Dad’s loyalty to the greatest football team in the world, represented by his collections of shirts, mugs and calendars, nor to smile at his exuberant joy as he exploded from his chair with an ear-splitting cheer with every goal scored.  His loyalty extended far beyond Liverpool though and those four letters YNWA carried a deep, spiritual, existential meaning to him, and through him to me.  When I wear a Liverpool shirt later today and in the future, it will be a reminder of Dad’s loyalty.

Finally, Dad was a hoarder.  Mum despaired of wardrobes bursting with decades-old clothing and God knows what awaits us in the loft and garage.  Much of it carried sentimental meaning to him but he delighted in junk too.  Beyond the junk, he hoarded knowledge – a mine of useless information and the perfect pub quiz compere.  Christmas won’t be the same without round after round of Dad’s quiz, complete with his convoluted rules, not-so-subtly designed to tip the balance in his favour!

Above all though, he was a remarkable hoarder of names and memories.  On many an occasion, we’ve rolled our eyes at his stories of Fanny Orchard, his infants’ school teacher.  There was something very touching though about his visit in the last few months to Mike Ounsworth, one of his teachers at Heles.  Dad never forgot the people who made a difference to him and the events that shaped him.

He loved giving too.  Last Christmas, even at the age of seventy-four, I could sense his growing excitement as, with a Santa-like twinkle in his eye, he brought stack after stack of presents to the lounge for us all to unwrap.  On the day I was born he gave me this bear.  For my fortieth birthday, he compiled an album of photographs spanning my four decades, pictures I’d drawn at school, even a loving note I’d written to mum aged six or seven.  It was a surprising and very special gift, and I didn’t need telling of the many, many hours he’d spent preparing it.  Through the stacks of presents he gave at Christmas, the delicious cakes he baked for each of us, as a New Year’s Eve party host, or in the time he gave to guide, help or for a good chat, I learnt a lot from him about generosity.

I think people might dread writing a eulogy and think it must be so difficult.  As I sat with my laptop, notebook and pen to write this one though, I realised that I’ve actually been writing it my whole life.  It has been the hardest thing to write and the easiest; the saddest and the most joyous; certainly the most important.  It has solidified memory, shown me how Dad shaped the man I’ve become and helped me begin to understand his legacy.  I’m glad I’ve been able to share it with you today.