Inspirational?

A few years ago, there was an advertising campaign which had celebrities naming a teacher who had inspired them. I can’t remember much about it¹, apart from Bob Hoskins growling someone’s name. There’s also a video on YouTube of Ian Wright meeting his former teacher guaranteed to melt the heart of anyone except the biggest cynic. Take a look below.

I was sitting in the staffroom having a cup of tea early on in my career. I think I was deputy head of maths at this point, but had only just started in the school – basically been there long enough to get a lunch buddy, know where the loos are and where the tea bags were hidden. A colleague sauntered in and declared, across the staffroom “I’ve just been inspirational!”

Now, I wasn’t in the lesson, so he may well have been, but I had been in others of his lessons and they really were not that great. Not bad, but not great. Solid. A safe pair of hands, shall we say? However, I do firmly believe that it is not my place to judge if I have been inspirational – that is down to the students to decide, and them alone. It’s not even for your line manager to decide, although they can use words like ‘excellent’.

What makes someone inspiring? What makes a lesson inspiring? This could easily descend into pages of academic waffle about ‘opportunities’ or creating ‘teaching episodes²‘, but that has never been my intention with these posts. Instead, lets talk about what inspired me.

My old maths teacher, Mr Bob Childs, was awesome. I went to a boys school, that was a little bit rough, and whilst I was there, the mines were closed, and so unemployment went through the roof and students suddenly had no future. Mr Childs took me for maths from year 9 through to the end of sixth form. He was calm, kind, a little bit scary – mostly because he was about six foot four – and clearly knew his stuff. He took absolutely zero shit from anyone. He might not have ignited a passion for maths in me, but he taught me exceptionally well, made things look easy and made me realise I could do it. He didn’t call anyone by their first name until sixth form. I was always ‘Watkins’ and my brother ‘Watkins with the glasses’.³ Because of him I went to University to study maths. Because of him, I got a degree. Because of him, I decided to become a teacher. I hope I have been half as good a teacher as him.

I’ve learned a lot from colleagues, been inspired and driven to be better by them, but this particular journey started because of Mr Childs. I don’t think I’ve ever told him any of this, but I hope he knows the effect he had. My whole life, my wife, my kids, my home are all down to him being good at his job.

And now I have something in my eye…

Anyway, how about you? Who inspired you?

1. That’s irony, Alanis. ↩︎
2. It’s a lesson. Call it a fucking lesson. ↩︎
3. I’m a twin. Also, we both wear glasses now, so would he be able to tell us apart now? ↩︎