Thanks again, JT
A tribute to a great teacher
JT was the English Literature teacher at the college I attended to study for my ‘A’ Levels, the advanced level qualification in the UK that serves as a possible entry ticket to university. He made the subject come alive — so much so that I seriously considered doing English Literature at university instead of my first love at the time, Economics. In the end, I decided that Economics would afford me more career choices. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that a degree in English would equip me only for teaching or librarianship, and I wanted more of a choice.
As well as being knowledgeable, which you’d expect, he had a great sense of humour. For example, I happened to mention to him once that I’d taken to responding to my mother with quotes from The White Devil, by Webster.
“Really?”, he said. “I hope you haven’t called her ‘O, most notorious strumpet’!” and burst out laughing.
He was also open to alternative points of view, and made the lessons really enjoyable. On another occasion I turned my nose up at some phrase or other in one of the Elizabethan verse romances we were discussing at the time.
“Don’t you like that, Terry?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think it’s a really good oxymoron?”
“Not really”, I replied. “I prefer to think of it more as an unfortunate juxtaposition.”
He and the rest of us fell about laughing.
Mind you, the relationship got off to a rocky start. Our first year’s lessons with JT were timetabled for 09:00 on a Monday morning — not the best time for 18 year-olds for whom an early night often meant 3 am.
In one of the first lessons he asked the class a question, and received no response. He was rather annoyed, and said, “It would be good if one of you could actually answer.”
I looked around, and literally everyone in the class looked like their eyes should have been propped open with matchsticks. One was even slumped over the desk with his head in his arms. I burst out laughing.
Boy, did JT get angry. “It’s all very well for you to laugh, Terry, but I feel like I’m talking to myself here. Can you tell me what I’ve been talking about all this time?”
“Well”, I answered. “You started off by saying ‘Good Morning’, then you asked us to turn to page 73, and explained that the author was using a literary technique called litotes to produce the slightly humorous effect. Then you asked the class —”
“Yes, yes, alright!”
When I was around 17 years old I had thought about becoming a teacher. However, I gradually became unsure about it. One day, after the last English lesson of the course had taken place, a group of us including JT were hanging around drinking coffee. “Oh well”, he sighed. “Next year there’ll be another group of students, and I’ll be doing this all over again.”
“Gosh”, I said. “It must get really boring doing the same stuff over and over again, year in year out.”
A look came over him that I’ve only ever seen in films. His eyes shone, and I thought any moment now I’d hear the strains of a Welsh male choir.
“No, Terry. Every student is different. Every class is different. Teaching is a wonderful way to earn a living.”
I decided there and then to become a teacher! I arranged to meet up with him again, after he’d retired and I’d been teaching for over 15 years. I’d got married by then. Elaine and I went to meet him for coffee in Brighton. I wanted to thank him for inadvertently encouraging me to go into teaching, and for having had a wonderful and rewarding career.
I’d love to meet up with him again, because in recent years I have started to make up for all the English Literature I haven’t done while pursuing a busy busy busy career and all the opportunities that come with it. I’d like to thank him for making those English lessons so enjoyable, and for introducing me to some great literature that I might not have discovered otherwise. I’ve tried looking him up, but without success. But I’m glad to have had the opportunity to meet him and thank him thirty years ago.
This article has been cross-posted from my education newsletter, What Now?
What a wonderful tribute. I had a poetry class at the end of high school that transformed how I read both poetry and fine literature. Great teachers really do change lives.