I remember a nurse coming to our school to show us how to brush our teeth, demonstrating with a very large set of plastic gums & gnashers with proportionally large toothbrush. This was for the P5/6/7 classroom (early/mid 1970s). Shared classrooms, those were the days! My favourite teacher taught us parsing & analysis, deviated continuously from the subject in hand (much to my delight) but she was once presented with a turd by one of my classmates. Not very well mannered of him.
I went to law school in the States. Regarding what they considered the best legal movie ever made, most law professors I knew didn't state the obvious i.e. "12 Angry Men", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Anatomy of a Murder" etc. Almost all said "My Cousin Vinny". My evidence professor even used to quote lines from the movie in his lectures.
My English teacher back in 1955 was the wife of a German farmer from South- West Africa, asked by the Brits to go home. Thank you Brits, without her, my life and career would have been dramatically different. Stefan.
With Herman Munster portraying the judge. His accent was pretty good for someone who was not a native Alabamian.
Perhaps it's a lack of situational awareness. I recall pulling my 2 boys aside in their early teens and acknowledging that, while with their friends, they would use language, gestures and cover subject matter not meant for polite society. I simply reminded them to 'pick their spots' and revert to civilized behaviour in the presence of women and children. Pretty much the same speech I'd been given at the same age. When I see young men now, even into their twenties, who are routinely dropping the F-bomb and spitting on the ground without regard for their surroundings, I wonder who forgot to deliver that message. My father delivered it to me and if he hadn't, any older man would have put me straight. As a Toronto policeman noted, "We are dealing with a generation of kids for whom, if we say NO, are the first people in their lives who actually meant it".
when i was 15 going to work on the bus i always gave my seat to a woman. do that or open a door for them now and your a sexist pig!
My Administrative Law lecturer advised watching Yes Minister to understand the workings of Government. Oh and, if you want to delay doing anything about a problem in politics, hold an enquiry. If you never want to to solve it appoint a Royal Commission!
A Dutch colleague and good friend asked me a few years ago why I always said please and thank-you, and ‘you are welcome’ if someone thanked me. My answer was ‘good manners cost nothing’. He now quotes this to other people. Unfortunately, I think good manners have been largely replaced by purposeful ignorance and boorish behaviour, generally and I see it promulgated by people in responsible positions that should set a far better example. Although at school in 60s and 70s, my senior school education was at what was then a very shiny new ‘comprehensive’ school. No secondary or grammar schools, unless you bussed into Newcastle. My teachers were virtually all ex-grammar school teachers. We wore uniforms and had prefects. It was a good school, where I did some O levels and some CSEs (subjects where I was likely to fail the O level) and thereafter on to A levels. Teachers were called ‘Sir’ (for a male) or ‘Miss’ (for a female) to their face and by ‘nicknames’ (that is the polite form) when they were not present.
I was in school in the late 1960s-mid 1970s and sampled secondary modern and grammar and a comprehensive school when the merged the two in my town. One aspect of teachers was their WW2 experience. My father taught in a secondary modern school after service in the RA and AEC. My form teacher, in a different school knew my father from teacher training in Nottingham University in 1948. (He said that 1970s student japes were nothing compared to pranks delivered by the commando trained. Moving a car to a roof was child's play). These were also teachers who knew about leadership and gaining respect among young people. Ex NCOs and Officers also knew how to win the battle of wills between the person at the front and a class with different ideas about how to spend the next 35 mins. A lot of these teachers ended WW2 with a vocation to deliver a better future. The Beveridge report, 1945 election and the profound experience of WW2 brought a generation of young teachers into the school system. The fact that by the 1970s many were old and cranky should not reflect badly on their original intent. All the military services expect their Officers and most NCOs to be competent trainers and motivators. Everyone of any seniority has been taught "methods of Instruction"
Yes indeed a chap taught at my secondary school who was a Blenheim gunner, shot down and taken prisoner in June 1940 Wrote a few books including Blenheim Boy and Moving Tent.. A great teacher.
Moving a car to a roof was, indeed, child's play! How did you know? Teachers - or should I say Masters - had it back down again in no time at all.
I've caught grief here in this forum due to me addressing those many years older than me as "Mr.," particularly the veterans. It is the expected courtesy in the southern US and I would never consider deviating from that. They've earned it. I work in a software production office on an USAF airbase. When engaged in any official conversations, whether in a formal meeting or not, and in email or other written work, we always refer to other men as Mr. Surname and women as Ms. Surname. I've taught my daughters to change the tires on their cars, in the event they are forced to at some point. However, I expect whatever man who might be around or who might be passing on the highway to stop and change the tire for them. They should know how but should never actually have to do it in the absence of extreme circumstances.
