TEACHERS, TAKE A BOW!

In recent weeks there have been numerous articles and posts detailing the great lengths schools and teachers are going to ensuring that students continue their education as smoothly as possible during the current Covid-19 disruption. A theme often used was how this crisis brought out the very best in teachers as they exemplified outstanding professionalism in very trying circumstances. I was again very proud to be counted amongst the members of this noblest profession.

I was reminded of a recent interview I heard with Sir Peter Ratcliffe, Nobel Laureate, with two others, for Physiology or Medicine in 2019. In a wide-ranging conversation about his life and career he spoke very plainly about the course of his working life. On two occasions he took the advice of mentors to make important decisions. First, when strongly advised by his headmaster (an educator) to study Medicine rather than anything else and secondly, after graduation, when advised that he should look at working in research on the liver, not the most glamorous option at that time, but one to which he and others have made an outstanding contribution. Their work centred around how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.

Quite apart from the fascinating story of his life of research, what particularly caught my attention in the interview, however, was his response to the final question put to him: ‘What would you say is your personal sense of achievement’?

His response was immediate, offering as an aspiration what he could achieve as a laureate and as a catalyst, given his enhanced status. He replied: ‘I would like to make a contribution to Education’. Citing his newly born granddaughter as an impetus, he noted that, now, she knew nothing of Science or the Arts or Humanities or Technology and so on. How crucial then is the task of bringing her to a place where, as a child, as a teenager and as an adult she can interact with the world in a positive, informed and relevant manner and make sense of it all. He voiced concern about the underfunding of education and called for a rebalancing of resources to recognise and promote teaching and learning as an integral component of a mature society’s endeavours.

This, of course, is a formidable task, embracing not only how his granddaughter, amongst so many others, will deal with academics but also emotions, aspirations, disappointments, successes, her place in an interconnected world, her response to change, to difference, to discernment in an environment where knowledge overload is the norm ……..

Teachers, and so many others, who share the oxygen of learning, in these challenging times and at other more mundane times, take a breath and take a bow! Your task remains crucial, unenviable, tiring, exhilarating but increasingly central to the holistic development of not only Dr Ratcliffe’s granddaughter, but all of the youth of this young century, those who will influence so much by 2050.