On Becoming a Teacher

I became a member of the world's second oldest profession because of a history teacher. In Standard 4, Doug Clark held us 11 year olds spell-bound as he described General Wolfe leading his troops in the dark up the cliffs of Abraham in order to capture the city of Quebec from the French in 1755. To make it even more vivid, he was a superb artist as he drew in coloured chalk on the blackboard the red-coated British infantry scaling what appeared to us to be 90 degree cliff face.  I was disappointed to read recently that it was only a 53 metre high slope – but ‘cliffs’ sounded much more exciting to an 11 year old. Without the aid of an overhead projector, smart board or video, he imbued a sense of adventure in a bunch of little boys - at least one of whom would have a life- long love affair with History. (1 & 2)

General Wolfe, who was mortally wounded in the battle on the plains outside the city, was then immediately given the honour of joining the eleven year old Richardson pantheon of heroes and his name was immediately added to those of Robin Hood, Biggles, Battler Briton, Douglas Bader, The Hardy Boys and Graeme Pollock. I fervently, and without reservation, gave my total support to the 'good guys'.  How could I not?  Doug Clark had held us spellbound with the last words of General Wolfe when, lying mortally wounded on the ground and hearing a soldier shout: ‘They run! See how they run!’ opened his eyes and asked who was running. Upon being told that it was the French, he turned on his side and said, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace"   - and obligingly did so.

That was better than television!

Skilfully, as we grew older, Doug Clark started posing questions to us. He recreated a minute by minute account of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. One hour of the battle would take us a week to discuss and dissect. At breaks, we would discuss with one another with the most advantageous positions for cannon, cavalry, infantry. We bored our parents at the dinner table with the defensive and offensive positions of both commanders -  with the salt cellar acting as la Hay Sainte and the side plate as Hougoumont – both crucial British defensive positions.

'Where would you put the least experienced troops in the battle line -up?' Doug Clark would ask us. The merits of that discussion inspired us during many breaks at school – and even on one occasion, while we were waiting to go in and bat during a cricket House match.

He sewed confusion in our minds when he proceeded to look at the battle through the eyes of all the protagonists  -  Ney,  Napoleon, Picton, Wellington, Blucher.  Something was wrong - it seemed that they were ALL good guys - even the Frenchmen!  Yet he managed to show us their common humanity and that they all had their own personal hopes, aspirations, fears and weaknesses. They even had their own families he told us  -  and probably had sons who thought that their dads were fantastic.  That was an interesting discovery – you mean the enemy had families who loved them??

History for this teenager was starting to take a less predictable line.  We never imagined that those ancient figures from history, or even literature, could be human and have the same emotions, foibles and desires.

Some years later, the film 'Waterloo' came out. I saw it at least a dozen times. It exacerbated my frustration. Just WHO were the good guys? The  courageous but limited Marshall Ney who kept charging at the guns to impress his boss? The lonely and friendless Napoleon portrayed brilliantly by Rod Steiger?  The arrogant Wellington seemingly so much in control?

In the film, I loved the line by Christopher Plummer who in one scene portrayed Wellington on his horse watching the progress of the battle with General Picton.  This short vignette temporarily took me back to the age of unquestioned heroes.  Displaying the stereotyped sang froid of an upper-crust  English officer while under fire,  Picton remarked to Wellington, 'My God, Sir! I have lost my leg!'

Wellington deigns to look down and says, 'My God, Sir..... So you have.'

That was better.  Heroes should not feel pain – or show unnecessary emotion…..

Rex Pennington, later to become Rector of Michaelhouse, took us for Latin for a number of years. An unashamed admirer of Hannibal, he could be readily side-tracked from Friday afternoon Cicero and Caesar translations.  After taking part in the Italian Campaign with the SA 6th Division in the Second World War, he used to describe to us how, after he stayed behind after the war, he retraced the footsteps of Hannibal through the Alps.

He held us spellbound as he told us Hannibal’s vision; how he had planned and prepared meticulously to tackle this vision and how he had ensured that his army officers bought into this vision. He compared it to the war he had taken part in as the Allied army in Italy attempted to strike Hitler in his ‘soft underbelly’.

Little did Rex Pennington know that these chats would be absorbed and banked by one 16 year old - who at the time immediately added Hannibal to his list of heroes from which the Hardy Boys and Biggles had been recently removed.

On course I had no inkling at that stage that running a school one day would not be dissimilar to persuading reluctant African elephants to walk over snow-covered Alps.....

Sir Wilfred Robinson, Grandson of Sir JB Robinson of Diamond Fields fame, was my History teacher in my senior years at school. Himself a decorated World War Two hero,  a Captain in the Regiment parachuted behind enemy lines at Arnheim and a survivor of a prisoner of war camp, it must have been difficult for him, after fighting a war to keep 'the world safe for democracy', to steer his classes impartially through the minefield of South African apartheid history.

He warned us that political leaders didn't always get it right and that true leaders considered the welfare of all - including the disenfranchised and the voiceless. We needed this type of liberal thinking in South Africa in the 1960's.  He urged us to question the status quo and he continually reminded us that contrary views were always valid provided that they were backed up by facts and careful consideration.  ‘I doubt that there would have been a Second World War,’ I remember him once saying to us, ‘if the German populace had been more critical of their leaders.’

He didn’t say it, but the inference was that the same could be said of the then Apartheid government.

Perhaps we should even be saying it of our leaders today.

One of our Standard 9 class, Grant Pollard, had recently had a run-in with an officious prefect and was keen to explore this matter further and enquired in the history class whether the same principle applied to pupil leaders.

It seemed it didn't. No need to rock the boat too close to home!

Wellington would also have thoroughly disagreed with this free-thinking modern sentiment. 'Scum of the earth,' he remarked about his own soldiers. 'I don't know what they do to the French, but they frighten the hell out of me!'

He should have tried running a school!

History is one of the finest vehicles to learn these lessons.  When stripped of emotion and personal agendas, it provides a safe house for discussion and critical debate.  ‘Why are you teaching History?’ enquired David Cooke, my supervisor in the MEd degree for which I enrolled some years later at Exeter University.

‘I want to change the world…’ I said immodestly – and now, years later,  I can imagine Doug Clark, Rex Pennington and Sir Wilfred choking in the background if they had heard me say that.  The decades since then have taught me the unlikelihood  of my changing the world and therefore my aspirations are currently much narrower.  My present aim is to send 150 Wynberg boys into society every year as critical, questioning but considerate adults.  Perhaps then, there will be parts of a future world that are better places.

Teaching History is a real privilege.  Intelligently taught, it does not insist on pupils being repositories of facts, but rather it instils age-appropriate real life lessons. Through History, pupils are taught to be anthropologists of their own lives.  History teaches pupils to initiate conversations and thus set vital thought processes into operation.

Mark Twain tells the story of meeting  St Peter at the Pearly Gates and enquiring of him who was the world’s best general.  ‘He is,’ said St Peter pointing to one shabbily dressed man. 

‘But he was only a labourer,’ said Mark Twain.

‘Ah, yes,’ said St Peter, ‘but he had the potential to be the best general. It was just never tapped.’

Warren Buffett once said that he was the luckiest man alive because he did what he wanted to do every day.  So do History Teachers  -  they are creating environments for pupils to grow and, in time, giving them the opportunity to realise their untapped potential and to make a difference in the world.