“The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility” bel hooks.
I am of the age where I not only remember a British Prime Minister declare his government’s main priority as “Education, education, education”, but the same PM, and a whole host of other people in the public eye declare in a very powerful advert for teacher training, who their best, most memorable, influential teacher was. Reminding everyone in that moment, that our doctors, engineers, lawyers, train drivers, nurses, sports stars and even our politicians, were all influenced and never forgot the one good teacher who changed the course of their lives in the informative years.
One particularly sports star, the former Arsenal and England player, and now football commentator, Ian Wright, had probably one of the most authentic responses to the power of a good teacher when he was reunited with Mr Pidgen, his teacher who believed in a young Ian Wright and helped transform his life from his tough background not only into an accomplished footballer but also a powerful voice for those who need it most in a number of disadvantaged communities.
The known power of educational aspiration, the transformative power of learning and the power of supporting educators who believe in a child, evidenced over generations, around the world, would therefore be a given in attracting new teachers to the profession to take on the baton and light the flame for others. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the 2020s and it isn’t only limited to the UK as education systems globally struggle to attract the very teachers needed for the good of society and the education of children.
This is a serious problem facing education internationally and powerful stories like Ian Wright’s need to be echoed more to attract more potential educators into our noble and essential profession for the future. All professions come from our profession. Societies need to talk up the good teachers, share the countless narratives of hope and aspiration, as well provide the material conditions to make education a prominent choice of career as we want to attract the next generation of teachers. Even good teachers will struggle in a toxic environment where education is treated like a political football, where pay fails to keep pace with decent living standards and opportunities are non-existent unless you swallow the prevailing zeitgeist of the time.
I first met my good teacher, the influence that changed my life’s trajectory as I started secondary school, in Les Jones when I was 11. We were all lined up, waiting for our teacher, in a new subject that we had never had in primary school, called “DT” when all of sudden this Welsh voice boomed “in you go folks”. We got our aprons on and gathered round as he began to go through the project for the 1st term and then he mentioned a bandsaw we would use. I piped up “my dad has got one like that”. Quick as a flash Les replied “I bet he’s got a big bourgeois garage filled with Black and Decker tools as well”.
Les was never stumped for a reply as a rule. He came from the tough coalfields of north Wales to win a prestigious scholarship to read PPE at Magdalen College, Oxford, but after a time, decided he actually wanted to be a teacher in a comprehensive school to give something back to boys like him, boys like me. He wasn’t expecting my reply that day but it has bound us ever since and now as he is approaching 90, I am more than privileged to have this teacher, mentor, friend in my life for over 4 decades as I have taken my path in education as a teacher and school leader.
I replied that day that my dad was on strike as a coal miner and as one of five children in a council house in the former mining town of Madeley, in the East Shropshire Coalfield, times were more than tough after 6 months on strike in one of the most divisive and bitter industrial disputes that was a key moment of the Thatcher government’s 11 year rule. My father stayed out on strike for a whole year and this was one of the most informative periods of my life. What I remember next is that later that day Les came to find my class and gave me a card for my parents with some money to go out and get a meal. They put it straight into the miners’ fund.
Throughout the time I had Les as a tutor and a teacher, he would challenge me, ensuring I read books out of my comfort zone. I was fortunate enough to have many good teachers at my school at that time but it was Les who could relate his experience to mine and show me how I could actually get to university and be the first in my family. That there was a choice in life and education would transform this path. He once inscribed a book to me with the words “carry the flame, defend the weak” to instill in me a sense of duty and to use my talents for a greater purpose.
I not only got to university but then embarked on a career that I could have never imagined as an 11 year old boy, thanks to my good teacher. In nearly 30 years of being a teacher and school leader I have worked with some remarkable people, in fantastic communities, with brilliant students, in the UK and around the world.
Throughout all this time, Les has been there, the one constant, guiding me, making me reflect on the decisions and choices I have made and the person I have become. My family has become his family, my children being influenced by him as well teaching him digital technology, and as Ian Wright referred to on his BBC Radio 4 Desert Island discs interview in 2021, this is about deep friendship and love.
All of us had that good teacher, the one who made us become more than ourselves at the time. Who believed in us. Who passed on a torch and as the famous Dr Arnold of Rugby once said, gave an introduction to the best of what has been said and thought. I got to witness this only this week as my eldest child Evie, was part of the school’s “Equality Group” at a youth conference in Bristol and I know how much Evie does to support others and the values that have been passed on.
Les is still teaching as he approaches 90 this January. He has made classes in Moldova, sing, laugh, hear stories, speak Welsh over the nearly 4 years I have been at Heritage. No one ever forgets a good teacher and it is a privilege to see my students now link to the teacher I first knew in 1984 in a time and place long gone.
Looking back over the often horrific events of 2022 in this corner of Eastern Europe and seeing the transformative power of education, of the brilliant teachers I work with and lead, I think of the quote Les once had in his classroom by HG Wells: “Humanity is a race between education and catastrophe”. We need more good teachers to ensure it will be the former, for all our sakes.
- “A bucket of coal with Les Jones”. Carl McCarthy and “More Teacher Talk” podcast, August 2021.
https://uk-podcasts.co.uk/podcast/more-teacher-talk/a-bucket-of-coal-with-les-jones
- My contribution for a Guardian piece on the 30th anniversary of the strike