Two Teachers : 1

Martin

This was a lesson
on the teaching of science
by a man much older than I.
About to retire, or so I'd assumed -
but didn't write that in my book.

I was a student
about to aspire -
though I wouldn't do that,
not really and truly,
until I'd a class of my own.

This class was unruly.
I'd seen them before;
they lived on the apex of havoc,
and knew all the angles to try.
"You'll need a strong voice," I was told.

But I was a student,
just there to observe
and to note all I'd learned in my book.
But what could I write?
It seemed so remote - a mere trifling thing.

With the class on the cusp
he would lower his voice
to the ghost of a whisper - by which
he would kill all the mischief at source.
Not a sound or a movement there'd be.

I thought at the time:
it's the sum, is it not,
of all you acquire
from a lifetime of talk
and facing them down.

But was it experience, that and no more
than the confidence gained
that could let you ignore
all the tricks of the trade
that our lecturers taught?

I made up my mind:
that man was my goal.
I'd have signed him, I know,
had the contracts been there -
his patent, mine own.

And now I'm retired
I think of him often,
when I think about schools:
why something so simple
could not work for me.

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Teacher number 2 tomorrow.