I was dwelling nostalgically (do you believe me?) on my teaching days this morning, when I happened to listen to Ewan's talk about bebo-boomers and the way teaching methods must change. And there we were: his parents, featuring this time as an example of how things were in The Old Days, when teachers put on their work persona with their lippy (no, not the men) and removed it again when they arrived home. I suppose this is retribution: payback time for all the occasions on which I used the evolving infants McIntosh in anecdotes to illustrate this or that phenomenon in a lesson - or simply because it amused me to do so. Heaven only knows what he'll come up with next.
The nostalgia arose because on my early-morning visit to the pool I had met two of my former pupils, boys from two successive (and very successful) all-male S-grade classes. One had always been an agreeable (if sexually rather precocious) chap, the other a complete pain in the neck. But both in turn hailed me with great friendliness, asking how I was doing and was life agreeing with me, making sure I knew what they were doing with their lives. This is one of the great things about living in the community served by the school you've worked in for years; you see your former pupils as adults who seem to remember you fondly, you see their children growing (very aging, that), and you see what good adults they turn out to be. It's an experience the growing number of "boat people" - teachers who work in Dunoon but won't commit to living here - will never have. Their loss, I'd say.
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