My last post talked about me moving to West Germany in 1978 to teach the children of British Forces serving in that country during the Cold War.

In this post, I want to consider the question of what kind of teacher was I? Looking back, I see that there were certain patterns I exhibited teaching across this age spectrum and, if truth be told, for most of my career in education.

Up to that point, I’d had one year teaching in a primary/elementary school in Sydney and three years in a London college – a big difference in ages. This stint in a secondary school was between those two extremes.

First of all, I wasn’t good at being “firm, but fair”

I remember being told many times that to be a good teacher you needed to be “firm, but fair” with your students. We were warned about the perils of being “too soft” or too friendly with our students because they learned best in a disciplined environment. You needed to be “tough” and keep your distance.

Alas, I wasn’t good at being “tough”. Although I didn’t want to be their friends, I was curious about my students’ lives. At Queen’s School, I mostly taught in the Upper School (15 to 18 year olds) so I had the oldest students. They had formed opinions, life stories, goals and dreams which I enjoyed hearing about.  

I discovered that, in most cases, taking some interest in them as individuals did help them to learn. If for no other reason than they wanted to please me!

I was always aware, though, that I needed to like not only the popular, outgoing, engaged and bright students but also, perhaps even more importantly, the quiet, unpopular ones who were different from the rest.

Sociology

My teaching subject, Sociology, made it easier for me to have this approach compared to other disciplines.  We could examine their lives and the lives of others from different sociological perspectives, including talking about current issues and debates in society. And I could subtly – and perhaps not so subtly – lean them to the left as we could examine the inequities of social class along with studying racism and sexism.

One result of this way of working with the students was that I was generally liked – and I will confess that that fed my needy ego.

Talking with other teachers, I discovered that not all of them were fond of their students. That was a real surprise for me. In fact, one of them told me that she had always thought that not liking the students was just part of the job. She shared with me years later that hearing me talk positively about students actually changed her attitude towards teaching and students and teaching became more pleasant for her! Who knew?!

Being Funny?

Another angle I took in developing a good learning relationship with my students was to try to be fun and funny. I do know that my humour included laughing at myself and being somewhat self-deprecating which seemed to work. But, thinking back, I realize that some of my humour including using sarcasm – which I knew wasn’t good if I didn’t use it carefully.

Maybe I should have used less of it. Going through my old papers, I discovered this gem which I’d completely forgotten about: a list of quotes I had made in my Lower Sixth Sociology class over a few months. I had no idea that students were keeping track of my bon mots! They proudly presented the list to me at the end of the year. If you can read it, you’ll see that some of my “wit” wasn’t all that “witty” and tended towards sarcasm. 

Being (Somewhat) Cool

Perhaps because I was younger than many of the other teachers at the school – and also single – I think I perhaps appeared somewhat cool in comparison to the other teachers. But, given that my knowledge of popular teenage culture was quite mediocre, it meant that I could easily be caught out by the students if I attempted to try to be a bit cool – like getting names of bands wrong.

That’s where they helped me.

Being the School Minibus Driver

Very shortly after arriving, I got a special driver’s license which enabled me to take students for trips using the school’s minibus. When my Sixth Formers heard that, they started asking me if I could please drive them to band concerts that were taking place in nearby Düsseldorf and Cologne. They would decide which concerts to go to and, if I was available, I would say yes because I enjoyed an outing with them. At the same time, they taught me the ins and outs of the rock/punk/indie music scene along the way, of which I was woefully ignorant. Disco was my only area of expertise!

Just look at this list of concerts that I drove my students to over my three years at that school: Rock, synth-pop, new wave, hard rock, ska, gothic rock, punk-ish, pop – I saw it all. Interestingly, unless they were very good at keeping it from me, I have no memory of any drugs or alcohol being consumed by these teenagers on the trips. 

My transcribed diaries from that time reminded me of all the concerts I went to, allowing me to have fun searching for their logos. 

I will add here that, with friends and colleagues, I also went to see during my time at Queen’s: 

But, besides being a bit funny and the minibus driver, what kind of results did I get?

How do you measure results – or what were later called outcomes? If you go by marks, they weren’t that bad but not that great. Over my three years there, I had 18 students sit the A Level Sociology exam. Of all those students, only one of them got an A. But I guess there is kind of a bell curve here.

• 1 A
• 3 B’s
• 5 C’s
• 6 D’s
• 2 E’s
• 1 Fail

All this won’t mean much to those of you who didn’t go through the English schools system, but, fyi, you needed at least C’s (the average grade) in your A Levels to get into a university.

You will be surprised to learn that their grades were determined solely by how well they did on just two 3-hour final exams – graded by an external examiner. Any work they did during their two years of classes with me counted for nothing.  Outrageous, I know, but that was the norm for the time.

Here they are – my Sixth Formers

Here are my three groups of A-level Sociology students that I had over my three years. 1979. 1980. 1981.

I was with each group for five hours/week for 2 years. That’s whole lotta time together.

Did I mention the classes were very small? The sixth formers also didn’t have to wear a school uniform and had extra privileges and their own common room. You’ll notice a pretty consistent female to male ratio. 

The Textbooks

I don’t want to be that worker who blames their tools, but the Sociology textbooks at the time were certainly hard to plough through for 16 to 18 year olds.

Their covers may have tried to be attractive (with a play on social class and touching race) but inside they were hard going.

What Did the Students Say?

Because of the marvels of search engines and because my name is somewhat unique, some of my past students were able to find me decades later and here’s what some of them very sweetly said:

• Gregg – you were my Sociology teacher at Queen’s School and I just wanted to say thank you for teaching left ideas in an Army School. So important. And for your inspired teaching. I haven’t forgotten the David Widgery article you handed out for us to read. Or learning about Weber. Thank You . Take Care
• I think we always thought you were much younger than 30 – about 25ish – you obviously behaved younger!
• You always were such a trail-blazer at the time
• Definitely cool and because you were much younger, we probably had much more in common with you than other teachers, who would have been nearer our parents’ ages
• I’m not sure Queens had an academic culture – the few who worked hard did well.
• My Sociology mark was better than my other subjects!

But I’ve always wondered if I could have done better for them. And then I tell myself to stop wondering.

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My Home Room Class: 4GBl and 5GBl

Each teacher had a home room class. Mine was 4GBl (for Gregg Blachford – get it?) that became 5GBl the following year so we got to know each other very well. I hadn’t taught students at the low end of that age range before but quickly learned they seemed to respond well to me being friendly.

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Modern Studies Class – 5th years

Besides O and A level Sociology, I also taught “Modern Studies” to the younger students. In bigger classes. And uniforms.

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How Humiliating

I’ll sneak in here that I was less successful with one very large Third Year History class – the only class I taught in Lower School. Chaos often reigned. So much so that a stricter teacher had to come into my class at times to quieten them down. How humiliating. No photo of them. Just to say that I wasn’t good with the younger ages. They didn’t get my jokes. I should have been “firm but fair”. 

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Leaving in 1981

Despite being offered a promotion, I decided to leave at the end of my three year commitment. I’d enjoyed the experience but it was time to move on – as had been a characteristic of my life up to that point.

The Principal made a kind speech saying that the thing he would remember most about me was watching me teach the students dance routines as a choreographer for the school plays. I guess that’s a good thing!

The staff did a whiparound for a goodbye gift (which, sadly, I can’t remember what it was) but there was cash left over. I remember in my goodbye speech saying that I planned on using that money to buy a membership and make a contribution to CND – the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. This did not go down well with some of the more conservative staff members, one of whom I later overheard say that she wouldn’t have contributed to my gift if she had known that was where some of the money was going! Since I was seen as one of the staff “lefties”, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to them!

And below is the staff’s goodbye card to me. You do keep all your goodbye cards, don’t you?

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To end this post, here are some photos of some of my extra-curricular activities. Clicking on the smaller photos will enlarge them.

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1. I was the choreographer for school plays – this one is Dandelion Time.

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2. I was the choreographer for “Annie Get Your Gun” in 1979. “There’s no business like show business…”

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3. I would on occasion take students on outings or over to my home for special events

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4. I loved taking part in the annual Queen’s Summer School in the Eifel Mountains in the Ardennes department of Belgium. I led the cycling group. By the way, I’m doing the same thing now with my fellow McGill Retirees!

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5. I would be happy to supervise some of the school dances

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The Last Post

My next posts will tell you about my gay life and being gay “in the army”.  Did I come out at school? How did my teachers’ union react? Did I have boyfriends and/or a sex life while I was there? How many/how much? Did it help me to learn German? All will be revealed in the next two posts.

Can’t wait, eh?