The recent post - In Memoriam - prompted me to remember teachers I have known and loved. What makes a great teacher? Every now and again the papers interview a well-known person about their teachers, mentors and father-figures - those older people who, through wisdom, love and attention, encourage and reveal latent talents and innate goodness.
This is a perennial theme - the passing of wisdom through the generations - and those who have received it invariably remember the teacher who first lifted the curtain, and they invariably express gratitude for the gift.
I should now like to speak about Margaret Tully. It's easy to do so because I remember her often and because she was most loving. (She has been dead for many years and the cancer which killed her was already apparent when we first met.)
I found myself as secretary in the group which she tutored - a second-year level. From the very first, she emanated love to all. She never said anything memorable that I recall or, rather, the love was so apparent that words took a secondary place. Needless to say, she never lost a student and her classes were always full. People flocked to be near her.
Such open-heartedness has its effect in trust and confidence. People spoke more fully from the heart and all observations were received in loving kindness. At the end of the second year, when we said goodbye, we were all in tears.
A remarkable lady and I feel blessed by having been in her presence.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Teachers - what makes a great one?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
My favourite teacher at school was an art teacher called Brian Kesteven. He used to look at what you were doing and say, "The thing is ... [long pause] ... No! No! I'm not going to interfere. I think that's going very well and I don't want to get in the way"
When he went off, you looked at the picture with a desperate desire to find out what he was about to say about it.
Brilliant.
Brilliant psychology... yes... it's what you don't say that's as important as what you do say.
I wish you had all known Margaret Tully. For her, the School was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her; and so she passed on to every one of her students (each of whom she loved deeply and cared for) the very essence of what a School was, is, should be.
Good to hear her recalled. What she stood for does live on, as you have shown to us, Laura; happily, she's not alone in this.
Post a Comment