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So, the Chief Inspector of Schools’ wants a ‘crackdown’ on boring teachers?

Putting aside the problems of a centralised curriculum, an obsession with testing and league tables, and the squeezing out of all innovation and creativity (not that I have an axe to grind on this topic),  does Christine Gilbert have a point? Here’s a wholly unscientific, statistically unproven test to ask your children about their schools.

How many teachers have a nickname?

As they run through the list of form tutors, Heads of Years, pastoral leaders and subject teachers, if everyone is Mr, Mrs or Miss this is not right; this is not how things should be.

Consider this cast of characters from my schooldays 30 years ago. None of them at all boring:

Big Jim: a small English teacher with a passion for theatre and  an oversize check jacket. For six years, he looked like a man on a sympathy vigil with the first year boys who didn’t yet fit their blazers.

Splonk: tall, thin, slightly stooped, in mustard-coloured corduroy. A real gentleman who taught history and  lived with his mother, waiting to inherit the manse. A bit like Prince Charles.

Mickey: maths teacher and Head of the Upper School. A man’s man, we thought he’d been thrown out of the Desert Rats for being too terrifying. His wife also worked at the school; she, of course, was called Minnie.

Deep: Head of the Lower School, his nickname was his initials. Like Inspector Morse, he never revealed the meaning of the Es.

Archie: the world’s most patient-but-explosive French teacher. Then again, he was given one of life’s short straws in trying to get me through ‘O’-level. Rumour had it that he had fought in the French Resistance; that would have been easier.

Jesus: Head of RE. When two teachers share the same surname, one gets nicknamed after his subject, and ‘Differential Equation’ was too long.

Bendy: a Games master who spent just a little too long talking rugby tactics in the shower after a match. In hindsight, he was just one of life’s enthusiasts – but try telling that to a fourteen year-old fighting puberty.

Charley Farley: I think there might have been a Charles somewhere in his name, but we were never really bothered. A physics teacher who achieved cult status by sending a boy home to grow his hair because it was too short.

Crutch: the oldest teacher in the world to have taught anywhere, ever. Lessons on the Industrial Revolution were news reports from the front line. Had been a close friend of Turnip Townsend.  Once posited that a national fixed wage should be introduced to pay a pound a week for each year of your age: that day, there was a run on the banks.

Billy: an economics teacher of Bunter proportions. Moved to a very prestigious public school where he would listen to pupils telling him of summer holidays in Barbados or Martinique, then report on his fortnight visiting parents in Wolverhampton.

Knocker: German teacher with a white DA and pencil moustache. Slightly less scary that Mickey, but it was a close run thing. A pipe-smoking cricket obsessive who could get through two bowls of Old Holborn in an over.

Ducky: Head of Art, with obligatory goatee and neckerchief. Gave the best assembly presentation on record when he explained Picasso’s ‘Guernica‘. Introduced First Year boys to ‘Just A Minute‘ and ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue‘. Now that’s teaching, Ms Gilbert.

KP: Head of English, bachelor, avid skier and proud possessor of a sauna that he built in his loft. Once had a letter read out on ‘Stop the Week‘, answering Robert Robinson’s question “What are you doing while listening to the wireless?” As he was sitting in his steam room, KP explained that his knob had fallen off.

Buller: my form tutor, and founder member of the Virginia McKenna Fan Club. Allegedly taught Geography; actually taught Life. The word digression only appeared in the OED the year after Buller entered the teaching profession. 35 years on, and I miss him dearly.

The nickname, of course, is not just a sign of affection or insult. It can also be  a tiny effort at insubordination, a not-so-secret attempt to undermine authority and to make its subject more vulnerable, more human.

These men were scary (we did have women teachers, but they didn’t need ’softening’ in the eyes of 12 year-old boys). They were giants. And they commanded (rather than demanded) respect.

Most of all, they were interesting – not just interesting teachers, but interesting people. As acne-ridden teenagers we didn’t know it at the time, but it was certainly part of the school’s ethos.

People like that can still be found in the teaching profession. The Big Jims and the Charley Farleys are still there – it’s just that we don’t do a good job of recognizing and nuturing them, encouraging variation and initiative.

Instead, we’ve made education a ‘process’ as homogenised as a McDonald’s franchise. Which is fitting, given that it’s where many young people will now gain their GCSEs in  Maths and English.

Which shouldn’t be so boring, should it?

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If you have a couple more minutes, go to What Teachers Make

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