Anecdote – Education – A tale of parents and me

Posted on by Opher

A passion for education cover

Education – A tale of parents and me

I am the first person in my family, from either side, to have gained a University Degree.

It seems to me that keeping a population ignorant makes them easier to control.

I come from working class stock. One of my grandfathers was a meat porter in Smithfield market. The other was a meter reader for the water board.

My father was very clever. He passed his exams to go to the Grammar School. His parents refused to allow him. They could not afford his uniform. He left school at fourteen to go to work and bring his pay packet home. He joined up in the army to fight in Italy in the Second World War. As an adult he took courses and became an ace typist that enabled him to gain a career in Fleet Street on the newspapers. He achieved a middle management post in charge of a telephone reporters’ office.

My mother’s education effectively ended at the age of eleven when she became ill and was sent off to the seaside for a long convalescence. On returning she was deemed to have missed too much and placed in the ‘Remove’ class. This was effectively a class for those with extreme learning difficulties. As soon as the teacher found my mother could read and write she set her to work helping the other students. In those days the class sizes were fifty five plus. My mum became a teacher’s aide. She took a group of students and taught them. She never escaped from that Remove class. She was too useful. Her own education was brought to a halt.

Like my father my mother later took courses and achieved a high level of expertise in typing and short-hand that enabled her to have a career up until she had babies.

My parents believed in education. They knew it was a passport to a better way of life. To be educated gave you the qualifications, skills and outlook to gain a superior way of life. You had a choice of more fulfilling careers, greater earning power and social mobility. More importantly it opens your mind to more options and greater horizons. It gives you confidence and your life more colour.

I believe education is the long term answer to ignorance such as religious fundamentalism. An educated mind questions. An ignorant mind accepts.

My life has been transformed by the education my family afforded me. I gained the qualifications to go into teaching and become a Headteacher – a career that put me in contact with lively idealistic young minds and proved extremely fulfilling. It opened my mind to question the world, appreciate its beauty, to write, read, travel and meet extraordinary people.

I am grateful for my upbringing. They gave me love, freedom and education. The never tried to indoctrinate me with their politics or religion.

I am who I am because of it.

I often wonder how far my gifted parents would have gone if they had education behind them? They were victims of poverty and the class system that prevented them achieving what they were capable of.

22 thoughts on “Anecdote – Education – A tale of parents and me”

  2. Sorry I am a bit late in reading the above but how true – the class system held back so many. My own Parents were not big on School, they sent me I went I left went onto learn shorthand and typing, then a job, never mind what I really wanted to do, it had to be office work like my sister and for me to bring the money home until I left my parents home to go straight to marriage and cook/clean you get the idea, until I was allowed to have two babies only.

    1. Sounds pretty standard. I was very fortunate. My parents valued education and brought me up to expect I would achieve. They took me to Oxford University when I was a kid to have a look at where I was going. Unfortunately they did not have a clue about what was required. I had a head full of my own priorities and they did not include homework or studying. So I never achieved my potential and they probably felt let down.
      Now I can see education for the important thing it is. It expands minds and opens horizons. It gives you an interesting career and money to do things. When it is done properly!

      1. I do agree with you and Jonathan could have so much better for himself, he has a strong mind of his own. It was hard for him his Father died when he was 15, he had “friends” I could only warn him about but he knew best, he learnt much later though. His teacher at the college he went to told me he was so good at Law studies but needed to do more work – Jonathan was not going to listen to me. David had an accident with his left eye and the school wrote him off, he left after his exams, I bought a pc he taught himself how to use it started a small business and went from there. My Boys need to get out there and enjoy life, never mind me, they need to live they saw and heard too much. violence they should not have seen. They care too much for me, I love them totally.

      1. I hope they will Opher, it has not been easy for them and I worry that they are already damaged., and I did that I know there were others too but I am there Mother , my Husband used to tell people I was like a “Lion with her Cubs” but I should have done more, it did not help that David turned from Jonathan. That is why I think Jonathan got in with these “friends” from school he came home drunk quite a number of times, once we had to call the ambulance service to him, I know he tried pot fair enough, he said nothing else I have to believe him. He suffers with panic attacks caused by others or maybe what he saw/heard as a child used as a weapon by my mother – both boys names they were called by my sister names I was called by her to the boys, there is so much. Jonathan has no confidence in himself (me) and he is so well read I have never met anyone who has read as much as Jonathan he will read anything, sci fi his favourite though and music, he is so good . David is different comes easy to him not serious always joking usually about me, successful in his way, his Father he takes after I guess.

      2. Well you’ve all been through a lot. The drink and pot is pretty normal for boys of that age. Puberty messes with brain connections. The fighting creates more of a trauma but they’ll get over it. You can only do so much. Jonathan sounds great. Reading is brilliant and David will come through.

  4. They really are two great Sons, my sister is still here and it worries me she might outlive me then the Boys have a fight on their hands re the house, David ignoring our Solicitor and listening to my mother that is why we are in the mess. She does nothing around the house never has, I just worry for the boys. Jonathan wants to be my “Carer” I do not want that for him and not for myself if I give in it will be the worse thing for me, I know I am in pain 24/7 and my spine is all twisted but I have to be able to keep on physically if I get to the point where my body just goes then that is it for me, the boys know that. Worry is the worst thing.

    1. Sounds like you have to take action now to ensure that the house is sorted for the boys. That’s a priority. I’m so sorry to hear how much you are suffering. Surely the medication helps?

      1. Come the New Year I am going to see a Solicitor, so much happened this year had to keep putting it off, but what with heart probs it must be done pdq. I am on pain killers and a Morphine Patch but they do not work (that is why I have a G&T some nights). Jonathan who used to work for Boots and Lloyds in the Pharmacy is so good, will not believe it (like you) tells me they are working but my pain now overrides them, hos. gave me Tens machine had my own before years ago but they just annoy me and this one started a pain down my right leg from knee to ankle, stopped the Tens, hos don’t know yet, still have the pain though. My Spine was curved from birth I was told a few years ago now, something should have been done when I was small but it was not. I asked the Specialist who saw the scars on my back if my mother did damage with the cane he said it would not have helped. There we are Opher, being selfish I ask myself what the hell did I do to deserve this, God knows I don’t. There are people out there far, far worse than me.

      2. There may be lots of people a lot worse of but that doesn’t automatically heklp, does it? Pain nags away at you. I think that’s why you need to be planning, looking ahead, giving yourself something to hang on to and live for.
        SF is the first step.
        In the meantime get that solicitor sorted and take a weight off your mind!

      1. You are not being bossy, it is what I need. My husband would never arrange a holiday for us if I wanted to take the boys out of the atmosphere in the house I would have to arrange the holiday and save up for it and then he would go. I just always wanted him to show more interest but he did not. Even our holidays in Cornwall every year he would drive us to the beach and leave the boys and myself come back hours later, he never understood why I would get upset and cry about that – such is life as they say. I need someone strong to “push me”.

  6. So great your parents instilled in you a love of education., and an expectation that you would go to school. Education just keeps getting more and more expensive. our granddaughter is really struggling to get through without a student loan that will keep her indebted for the rest of her life. She has a good head on her shoulders. I am so grateful for my education.

    1. Yes. I don’t think it’s right. Education should be free. It is a prerequisite for a healthy society and good economy. Paying for it favours the rich.

      1. I agree 100% ! Is it free over there now? They keep talking about it here, but tuition keeps going up.

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