Education is tennis is education

Education has been my career since graduating in 1982. In fact that's not true. I passed my first sports teaching exam the previous year. The great thing about becoming a teacher is that you've been exposed to so much of it when you were young. You remember well the teachers you liked.
 

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I am for ever grateful for the education I received. It was a time of activity and discovery, of challenge and of empowerment. Let me take an example.
 

In the UK, at my school in my time, teachers carried at least a double discipline. My maths teacher, an ex Welsh rugby international, who had to be so patient with me in class, would take me onto the rugby field in the afternoons and have the same type of problems. I was a motivated, hard-working pupil, so I was always determined to solve the maths problem however long it took me. On the rugby field I lacked a bit of speed, of wit, of physical courage. I loved the game very much, so I worked hard to cover up my weaknesses.

You might think that my teacher of Maths and Rugby would pull a frustrated grimace every time he saw me. If he did I never saw it. I never felt the slightest frustration even if he felt it. He was immensely constant. He didn't just keep me happy with his patience and solid spirit, he also kept me moving. He set me new challenges as soon as I got close to solving problems, he'd take me further. I was never finished. This meant that I always wanted more from him. He was a teacher I wanted to see every day. All his years of education experience I was soaking up in the space of a few lessons in class and on the sports field every week.

I don't think I was his favourite pupil. He had to work harder with me than with the others. We didn't laugh much. He was a man who knew what I wanted, and it wasn't funny. We were both going to have to work with a sweaty brow.

That challenging childhood

I passed my Maths final exam which was something of a miracle. I enjoyed Maths, but I wasn't a natural. I had to practise and practise endlessly. In my next year I became Captain of the Rugby team, a player with applied strength, speed of foot and mind. Without my teacher this would not have happened. Without the structures and programmes in a school environment this would not have been possible. Without a clear concept of how education should be delivered, the teacher would have got nowhere. Can you see why now I am so grateful?
 

Part of the gratefulness is because I see how schools have changed, and how teachers have accordingly changed. I cannot see anything positive in these changes to education. Maybe I was just lucky that I grew up in a Golden Era of teaching. I had teachers without the brutality, insensitivity and sadism of maybe a couple of generations before. I had a teacher who worked from a solid base. This solid base was that a school is there to teach you. You are taught academic subjects, sports and music and other activities, but also social skills. What a great place schools are! Or should be. Have you established your skills set?