Head in the Clouds

Obliviousness to the obvious is an aberration with which we are all faced at some time or other, are we not, Dear Reader?

I have been lucky enough in my teaching career to have worked in three schools. I began in the London Borough of Hounslow, migrated to the village of Brant Broughton in Lincolnshire and finally finished my career in West Vancouver. I never taught in a school where the children did not have an uniform. And, no, not all of the schools were private. In the UK state-run schools have uniforms. Therefore imagine my surprise when, fresh off the boat in 1991, I am confronted with back to school adverts which include clothing. I am all for giving children choices that are safe and productive and stretch their experiences but the old fogey within me suggests that clothing for school should not be one of them. I guess that some of you are thinking that my head is in the clouds and that, while it is up there, it is reaching for a pie in the sky. Personally if any of my schools had mandated that there be an uniform for staff as well then I would have been all for it, after all coaching at school often involved wearing school-logoed tracksuits. The idea that I could crawl out of my pit in the morning and roll into an uniform without having to think about it, is and was appealing. But to me, a school uniform for children is a no brainer. Removing the need to compete on a sartorial level is bleeding obvious. It stops bullying based on what the child is wearing, it almost reduces the ‘cool’ kid to a non-cool level. This, Dear Friends, leads to another thing. (“Oh no,” I hear the sigh and cry!)

I have never thought about myself as being a conservative, either with a small or capital “C”. I think, if anything, I am a preservative. I am a jam to be spread on toast, eaten with indigestible haste and then forgotten about. My mind is a pot noodle, add hot water, eat it until full and 30 minutes later seek out something that is healthier and more substantial. I like new ideas, initiatives and innovation but am not a fan of them being imposed on something which has been there for a long time and remains so obviously better. ‘Tried and tested’ needs to hold the hand of the inchoate, the great idea which is taking its first tentative steps. So this harvest of Davidson likes and dislikes may come across as self-indulgent. You, Dear Reader, may feel that you are being used as a catharsis for some addle pated old guy to get stuff off his chest. But I do hope my side swipe of reasoning does give some pause for thought.  On with the rant.

I don’t like ‘cool’. I find the idea of ‘cool’ restrictive; it gets in the way of innovation; it thwarts taking healthy chances; it condones an attitude which often measures only as skin deep. Maybe this smacks of sour grapes because I was never a cool person in my own schooling and ‘cool’ certainly did not accept me. But rightly or wrongly I consider now, some way down the road from my own early education, the absence of ‘cool’ in my life to have been a boon. Sadly if I hear a stranger being described as a ‘cool dude’, my first impressions are likely to be coloured with a biased antipathy before we have ever met. But, friends, I do work hard to overcome that particular prejudice and I do have friends who could reasonably be described as cool and they are wonderful people. Enough of the negative, what does Davidson actually like?

I greatly admire victims who, through sheer force of will, have become victors. For example, if I time my walk for the early evening, I will run into a gentleman in his late 50s who is travelling along the path on two crutches. His legs do not work at all, barely a support for him. His progress looks extremely uncomfortable and precisely slow. I spoke to him one day about my admiration for him. He explained to me that he had been thus crippled all of his life and his determination was there merely to stave off further deterioration. What a marvellous man, what an inspiration.

 Just in case you think my age is going to start me moaning about the ‘youth of today’, Friends, then let me say that I have the utmost admiration for many of the students whom I have taught. Some have come to live with their diabetes, their learning issues, their difficult starts in life. Many have overcome these issues to be major successes whilst their more ‘capable’ peers have fallen by the wayside. (How often do we see almost superhuman efforts, ordinary people doing extraordinary things overcoming seemingly insurmountable barriers?) They have faced up to whom they are and faced down their issues to lead happy and productive lives with courage and grit. And, it has to be said, not many of them have ever been ‘cool’. Yep, had to get that wee dig in!!

I admire background dwellers, those people whose success should justifiably leave them standing in the limelight bowing before standing ovations, hooting and hollering in honour of their aggrandisement. “Always in the limelight’ is a terrible cross to bear, I feel. Instead I like it if one rummages through the audience, the rapturous, cheering crowd and finds at the back of the auditorium, in a dark niche, the true hero quietly contemplating their finger nails with a knowing grin on their face. Unsung heroes have a special place in the Davidson heart.

OK, let me mention hugs. My brother has a colleague who introduces himself politely and makes clear that he doesn’t hug and doesn’t accept hugs. I sort of understand that and throughout my life have made a point of thrusting out my hand for a handshake as an incoming, horizon-hued hug is coming my way. Occasionally I do hug when a special event is imminent or a person is in a bad spot or there is no escape and it would be churlish to refuse. But it is still very awkward for me. My daughter in London hugged me when I arrived and when I left but was surprised that I didn’t hug my brother when I said goodbye to him. It was something that neither he nor I had considered. Hugging is not really a Davidson tradition.

Humour in all its forms is a joy to me, I have to be careful because I have a tendency towards gallows humour which I know can be hurtful. Sarcasm and irony have a very large place in the Davidson life.  I see the funny side in the most dire of situations. For example, my initial frustration this last June when I ran out of gas 6 miles short of a gas station was soon changing to a wry smile and a chuckle at my own stupidity. That hike up a main road in the hot sun has become a fond memory.

I have rediscovered the relaxing joy of writing with a fountain pen and, in the process, writing ‘snail mail’ letters to people. I enjoy the feel and flow of my pen over the paper, the whole process of finding and addressing an envelope, the walk to the post office and the thought that this missive is going to flop through a friend’s front door many miles away. Irene and I bought our daughter in London a skookum baseball cap which we posted on the Friday and received news back that she was wearing it at work on the following Tuesday. That little pleasure made my whole day. But really it is the flow of pen over paper that is the highlight for me. This time of year, of course, is handwriting heaven as I send out Christmas cards often with accompanying letter.  It is all tinged, however, with the angst that my script may not be legible to the recipient. By the way, there is much good research out there showing the benefits of teaching handwriting to children. Subject for another day perhaps.

I grew up in the UK which to this day has a variety of vernaculars so I am no stranger to English usage in different parts of the world. So I do understand that our spoken word is always changing and developing its new traditions. It is, therefore, a fault of mine that certain phrases grate on the Davidson mind. I can feel the cringe as I write this next phrase,

“Where are we at?”

Apart from the obvious fault of having a preposition at the end of a sentence, it is totally unnecessary. “Where are we?” suffices.

“Can I get a coffee?”  Of course you can but may you is the proper question. We all have these bugbears. A friend has,

“Getting off of the bus.” Where oh where does this ‘of’ come from? And don’t get me started on tautologies. ‘A moment of time’. Yikes! “In my opinion, I think……” Strewth!

So we all use them. And there are so many dialects and vernaculars which make the unacceptable acceptable.  I am as guilty as anybody but, Friends, we all have things that we don’t like, do we not? Answers on a post card please? Or a comment on my blog will suffice!

Where do I get these idiosyncrasies you may well ask? Or you may well not. I know that we are all products of our past to some degree even though we may make brave attempts to leave it simmering on a back burner. The final paragraph may go some way to explaining the weirdness of Davidson.

“The cessation of strife will wither and wear the hopes and aspirations of a vigorous race”

was attached to an impressionist painting which I saw three times every day in the dining room of my boarding school growing up. I have never been able to attribute this quotation. But there is a consistency in this because the Millfield School motto which was two words under the school badge of a windmill was “Molire molendo” which means, ‘to grind by grinding’. Great motto for a windmill but for an educational establishment, maybe un petit peu de harsh! A smidge worse, Friends, than my junior school motto which was “ad maiora vocati’, ‘called to greater things’. I mention these three pieces of ‘advice’ or ‘messages’ by way of explanation because they laud hardship and self-sacrifice for something bigger than oneself. Nothing wrong in that. But may there  be a more subtle way of getting the message across? Hopefully these might explain that I am not scarred for life by an experience I didn’t like much. But we are none of us entirely free of our past, there are still abrasions, wee knee scrapes which are still worthy of a scratch on occasions, don’t you think? So thanks for daubing some Aloe Vera on my old wounds by reading this. Now that I have got these bugbears off my chest I feel a lot better. You, Dear Reader, hmmm, well, maybe not so much.