Those who can, do, and those who can't........

In the corporate work that I do, I suppose there’s a lot teaching involved. Bringing people into contact with techniques and principles that hitherto they’ve not thought about, and enabling them to use them to make their own skills more effective.

I don't ever think of myself as a teacher. My vision of teachers is somewhat impaired by a collection of rather uninspiring tweedy sports jackets, dubious beards, and in several cases an affliction to the state of bachelor that made us all wonder just what closet door they were trying to beat down.

In many cases I’m sure that I do teach. Yesterday I spent the day at The Actors Centre showing the skills involved in doing corporate role-play with a group of enthusiastic members of all ages. Indeed I would hope that my book “teaches” in some respects, but I would hope that its wisdom is imparted through experience and anecdote, rather than some dull learning by rote system.  I know that’s how I learnt whatever minimal technique I have as an actor; by watching others and learning as I went.

So this week I spent 3 days in Warsaw suffering from a severe bout of man flu, helping a group of young lawyers look at their pitching skills and their telephone technique.

On my return on Thursday night I was surprised to see a tweet from one @richardhowle that he had had been moved to tears by the programme “Educating Yorkshire”. While sensitive and caring, @richardhowle is not someone who often brings his feelings to the surface, and so I was keen to investigate just what had made him reach for the tissues.

There may be some who say that the title of the program is indeed a necessity. I can say that from my only too frequent visits to see Mum in Rotherham, South Yorkshire's heartland, one is all too aware that this is not the headquarters of Mensa. Yet you will be hard pressed to find a more welcoming spirit in people anywhere in the country. Yorkshire is full of heart, and it’s open with it too.

And that’s what “Educating Yorkshire” had - Heart! In spades!.

A year eleven pupil, Musharaf had a stammer that made Colin Firth in “The Kings Speech” seem like a chat show host. His stammer made it almost impossible for him to get words out at all.The staff were incredibly patient with him, biding their time until he could get his thoughts to form a word. The major stumbling block for Musharaf was his English GCSE, in which he required at least a C grade to proceed to college. 20% of the mark of the English GCSE is based on spoken English, and quite rightly too in my opinion. As a Yorkshire grammar schoolboy, we held a spoken English competition every year. I have to say by the final year, most other pupils in my year had given up in their attempts to beat me, and it became a personal target each year for me to retain the trophy. Indeed in my last year at school, I was lucky enough to win the National Schools Public speaking competition, the final of which was held in the town hall at Dewsbury, not  a million miles away from where Musharaf was now trying to form his words in Huddersfield.

In year seven, Musharaf had wanted to  change schools, bullied as he was by fellow pupils for his inability to speak properly. The staff had persuaded him to stay and had done everything in their power to help him.

Enter Mr Burton, his English teacher. The first we saw of Mr Burton didn’t inspire confidence. An inability to tie a tie correctly, or communicate with his barber meant that he had the look of some strange character out of his namesake,  Tim Burton’s, films. But Mr Burton had a passion. His passion was teaching. He was determined that Musharaf would pass his spoken English test. He wasn't a speech therapist. He was just a teacher who really believed in his pupils, and luckily for Musharaf, he was a teacher who had also seen “The King’s Speech” 

Mr Burton plugged his iPhone in and played music loudly into Musharaf’s ears while the boy read a Margaret Attwood poem. The effect wasn’t amazing. It wasn’t an instant transformation, but there was sufficient difference to give hope.

The big tearjerker came at the end of the programme. Leaving day, and Musharaf  was given the opportunity to address his fellow pupils. Standing at the front of the school hall, he donned a pair of large white headphones, and thanked the school for all they had done for him. Tears flowed down the faces of teachers and fellow pupils alike, and down mine as I watched the programme having downloaded it from Channel 4 on demand.

In a week when Nick Clegg has called for all who teach to be qualified, it’s good to take a moment and think how we all teach in our lives. How we deliver messages by example in what we do, and how we all have people who look up to us,  and think that what we do is right and aim to copy us.

Perhaps Nick Clegg should take a moment to think what teaching really is. And perhaps you might want to take a moment and download last week’s episode of “Educating Yorkshire”.

Just have the tissues handy.