Probably the best teacher I ever had
This is a slightly amended version of the third ever posting of my Warts and All blog, the blog I've hidden from public view for reasons I won't bore you with again. I've redone it because I have the urge to post something and reach out but can't settle to write anything new, and I'm currently nostalgic for The North. Nostalgic? That's code for, I miss being able to call a spade a spade. I miss the crap-cutting, eye-winking, luv-calling, bum-slapping, unpretentious, patriotic, woke-antithesis North. I'm not quite feeling nostalgic for Arthur Scargill but, heck, anyone and anything is preferable to Leviathan Lynch.
When I was eight years old or thereabouts (so long ago I can’t remember exactly) I attended the local junior school in the heart of a West-Riding-of-Yorkshire mining-cum-farming village. The community was homogenously white, so when we were introduced to a new trainee teacher, who was Asian, our jaws dropped (that, I do remember). Up until then my Sis and I had been the exotic ones, having moved from Cumberland, but this teacher was something else.
Whether he was Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or what, it mattered not to us. All we cared was that he was more heavily tanned than anyone we knew, spoke with a funny accent (funnier than West Cumbrian, according to my best friend), smelled funny (it must have been garlic - something none of us ate back then) but dressed 'normally'.
I can’t remember his name, only that he was softly spoken, very patient, approachable, and held our attention with his wonderful oratory and clear explanations. He also made us laugh (phonetically, that’s laff not larf). I haven’t any recollection that he portrayed himself or his community as victims or victimised, or that his pupils and our families were privileged or ignorant. In 2023 he would probably consider that sort of attitude and language counter-productive and divisive because he was all about enlightenment, common ground, respecting differences, and leaving a peaceful, positive footprint.
One favourite memory I have of his time with us is a school trip to what to us was the mega city of Huddersfield, where he pointed out the different styles of dress of the Asian ladies – the saris, the salwars and the colourful, dreamy fabrics. He took us to his local supermarket and talked about the foodstuffs we never saw in our Co-op. I pointed at some funny-looking potatoes and asked my friend if she knew what they were.
“These are yams,” said an even darker skinned lady with a broad, white smile. “We eat them in Jamaica. They are delicious.”
“How?” I asked.
“We peel them, boil them and mash them.”
“Why don’t you just eat potatoes?” I asked innocently, not meaning to be rude.
The lady laughed, grabbed several yams for her basket and proceeded to the next tray, full of a green vegetable that was also beyond my comprehension. It might have been okra.
After 'our Asian' had finished his stint at the school, we didn’t immediately forget him like we did other trainee teachers. Sometimes we would ask each other how he might have handled a certain situation or explained some tricky sums.
I was far too young to understand at the time the significance of his presence at our school, and too much detailed memory has been lost for me to analyse it properly today. But the fact that I am today dwelling on this short episode is sad, even if the memories are happy.
Memories are funny things, especially when resurrected and re-considerred in a totally different culture/environment.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely recall my first asian teacher, also in primary school, for me the novelty was he was not as dark as the gollies on Robinsons marmalade or the jungle natives in Tarzan.
I recall seeing on TV that our RE teacher a Reverand and been arrested for paedophillia with his choir boys, how many parents must have questioned their young sons attending my school, this was unusual back then but only in the "not in my back yard" sence of the way, sadly this behavious was well entrenched. The third school teacher enlightenment came in the 2nd year of my senior school, it was quite ground breaking for a small private school in Huddersfield in the 70s, pervie priest re teacher aside, we had an Asian science teacher, a quietly spoken, polite keen man who just could not maintain discipline. The only two Asian pupils were brothers 4 years above me, they were also quiet and kept themselves to themselves, they made headboy and deputy head boy, do they still have those or is it head and deputy gender neatral?
Anyway, this was before Positive Action crap so my guess is their parents endowed the school well. And finally, our English teacher who was a keen amateur dramatist, she could ellicit performances out of the quietest of pupils excelling Brendon Frazers pathetic cringe inducing typical "luvvy" display at this years Oscars, FFS man show some dignity, grow some balls. Our English teacher, shehad balls and then some, when a new Music teacher joind us a couple years later the rumours began to fly and when she and our english teacher brought their son in, well, this set the qhole school ablaze with chatter. But we were just curious, thats all, no bias, prejidice, just curious.