Education

One of the most discussed and controversial subjects you could think of is education. I think I’ll sling in my sixpenneth. (A sixpence? An out of date coin worth about 2 ½ new pence).

I missed two years of schooling just when I should have been learning ‘joined up writing!’ the result was I could never read my own written word. Therefore I didn’t start writing books until I had a laptop, then I could read ‘that what I had wrote’.

I failed to pass exams as a teenager. But did get geography ‘O’ level, which I don’t think counts really. I did travel a lot, maybe that helped with the geography, and I learnt to be polite, always a good thing. Also I was possibly overconfident, so I found it hard to worry when told to do something, just be polite, and then get on with my own thing.

The school rang my parents one spring. ‘Has Patrick got over his illness yet?’ Illness? My mother was confused, I’m not sure what she said but they seemed satisfied. I returned to the classroom after three months of doing my own thing during the day. Well I had learnt how to amuse myself for two years when I was 9/10 years of age, so it was easier at sixteen years of age.

I joined the army at eighteen and got married five months later. Then after three years in the army I was demobbed. It had been a pleasant three years, mostly based in Germany where I had lived for a little time as a youngster. In the Army I had quickly found a niche that suited, I was responsible for organizing the extra food purchases, and drink for the officer’s mess as I could speak a little German; I also ran three mess bars. I had found how to keep out of the way, be well fed, and have sufficient to drink. It wasn’t very satisfying, and they didn’t allow married quarters until you were twenty one. Get killed as a soldier, but not old enough for married quarters!

Then I went into industry working for other people. Four years of that and I’d had enough, so I started my first company. Education did I ever study? Yes, night classes in French, sculpture, and careful attention to good wines. Also to plumbing, electrical installation, farming, the last three by experience and books; and when I was sixty one years old I wanted to pass an exam in General Horticulture with the Royal Horticultural Society for my personal satisfaction,. After three years study I passed.

My mother used to read classics to us as children, and we learnt to read very early, so I enjoyed books. Conversing with adults was easy, in my teens I had had only adults to talk to for almost two years when living in mainland Europe. Spelling and grammar sometimes confuses me.

School teachers I always seemed to get on with. I didn’t pass the exam to go to the grammar school, but because of having missed two years schooling they gave me an interview. My forte, talking to adults, I was in. I do remember encountering the two headmasters from my grammar school (they changed over halfway through my time at the school). It was just before I started my own company and by then I was a Senior Security Advisor to a national company, and frequently gave talks on security. Therefore as a young man I also was an after dinner speaker on the subject of commercial security. On this occasion before me were about forty senior local business men. Normally I don’t dry on these occasions, but I was into full throttle when for a second I did. Well two ex-headmasters, who had been the very serious and strict, listening intently to you and looking straight at you, can almost put you off.

Education, yes you do need it but what sort of education. Education is the act or process of acquiring knowledge. To be educated is to display culture, taste, and knowledge, cultivated on experience or information. But be careful when you educate somebody, careful just how much emphasise you allow to be put on indoctrination when you educate.

You should allow learning to be a pleasure, and that is not always achieved in the lecture room.