One of the things I regret having to delete from ‘Kat’ is the name of my brilliant fifth year English teacher at Williamwood High School in Glasgow. If you happen to know him, will you pass on my regards and let him know that he is probably the teacher I have spoken of most from my school days? He might be surprised; I’m sure some of my classmates will be as he didn’t have the cuddliest of approaches. My goodness, though, did I learn from him or what? (Rhetorical question – I know I’m far from perfect!)
He started our first lesson by telling us we were one of two top classes in the year who had got A’s in our O Grades. Egos bolstered, he then told us Highers were a whole new ball game, a million miles away from O Grades, and that he’d be marking our work against that standard from day one. I wonder what proportion of pupils thought we’d “show him”? Me, being a sassy, arrogant little **** at the time, thought he was talking mince (a good Glaswegian word for rubbish). I’ll never forget the day he handed back our first essays. No one had passed. The best mark was a D. He’d given most of us an E or F. Horrified looks and disbelief went around the room like a Mexican wave. We’d, gulp, failed? Was this some sort of joke? It became some sort of obsession for me to get an A from Mr Slesser. When it finally happened, I swear I walked on clouds the whole day. More than that, though, he taught me a love of literature, how to look beyond the words to the meaning, how to make prose flow and to never apologise for using your imagination. I don’t always apply his teaching as well as he’d like, but I will always remember the man who challenged the teenage me. Thanks, Mr Slesser.
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