Andrew Dickens Afternoons

I am the son of a teacher. One of the old fashioned kind. The teacher who left school at 17, went to Ardmore Teacher’s Training College and was back in front of a classroom of kids by the age of 18.A teacher who taught in Canada and the UK and came home destined to never climb up the rankings of teachers because she never went to university and got a degree.The sort of teacher who was still teaching kids late into her seventies. A 60 year career. A person who had a calling to be a teacher.These are the teachers that many principals say save the day. The ones they can call when there’s illness and staffing crises and this older generation would wade in and just get down and teach.And Mum was a teacher who lived in the nice part of town but taught in the poorest. My school was decile 10 while Mum drove miles teaching all through South Auckland and Flatbush until finally ending out at Panmure Bridge School - Decile Rating 1.There’s quite a few of these teachers around. and they’re the ones who have seen every fa