Transformation I: The Year Of Living Differently

The Year of Living Differently
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Chapter 3 - The Teacher
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The first year classes are the best of times and the worst of times.

Usually you have a bunch of kids straight from school, used to following experiments in their books and writing them up, never encouraged to think or question. Despite the obligatory lectures on the scientific method which probably made as much sense to them as any other sermon.

But in that collection of "will this be on the exam" whiners, timeservers, timewasters, yobbos only here for drinking and sex and bloody football, in that mess you sometimes find a diamond.

I thought that I might have found one in the tall kid with the odd accent and the intense black eyes. Mind you he was woefully backward in some things, not really surprising given the state of education today.

He'd apparently come from some exclusive boarding school, all games and Latin and buggery in the showers I suppose. But the boy was genuinely interested, and that was rare enough that the deficiencies could be overlooked.

He seemed to have a decent theoretical knowledge, but his lab skills were not at all up to it. He had an eye for colour and a nose for smells, and a feel for temperature and changes, and there's no doubt he had a way of absorbing the theory like Kleenex, but he'd never seen half the gear before and had no clue about how to write things up. He'd stop, lost, in the strangest of places.

But that was fixable. That just needed practice, the core of the business was there, the desire... no, the *hunger* to learn and to understand.

So I pushed him. Hard. Gave him everything he could take and then some. He'd thrived on it, the way the good ones do, even on the scut work!

You don't find them often, but when you do it makes up for all the clods and the football players, and the bloody bureaucracy.

Good postgrad material I'd decided, towards the end of the year. Sometimes you couldn't tell till they'd had the kick upside the head of a few failing marks in first year and got themselves the hell out of the bar and into the lab, but this one didn't seem to drink or party. Although there had been a couple of missed tutorials and some pretty poor explanations.

"So, any idea what you'll do for honours? " I'd asked, near the end of the year. "It's still a while away, but you'll have to plan your course of study soon,"

I'd not expected the flinch, or the shattered look. Or the bombshell of "I.. I won't be coming back next year Sir. "

"What? You are joking!"

"I can't Sir. He won't let me." Eyes down, world in pieces.

"He? Who is he? What do you mean? Is it money? There are such things as scholarships you know."

The boy was ready to run, what on Earth was going on? And he'd dropped that Sir business months ago, what had got into him all of a sudden? "Is it your father? Is that it? Come on man, this isn't the bloody Middle Ages, you are old enough to make up your own mind!"

"I know Sir, I'm sorry Sir, I can't Sir! I'm late for another class Sir," and the kid had got out so fast it was like he was flying. But it was the weekend, there were no other classes.

It was one of the saddest moments of my teaching career, losing that lad.

Oh, he'd turned up to the final lectures, he'd done the last major assignment and the exams, but he'd not done as well as expected, and he'd avoided being caught alone or talking about himself. And he'd not turned up the following year.

Probably been under his father's thumb all his life and too scared to rebel. Funny though, he hadn't seemed to be the timid type. Someone or something had a hold of him though, no question.

What a waste!