Lunchtime Ramblings: An apology to a former teacher

This is an apology to one of my science teachers at high school, I've changed his name, not for any real reason other than to be mysterious

Dear Mr Tuna, (for context I've just eaten tuna and that's what my brain decided cling to)

I owe you an apology.

I just thought you were a Grumpasaurus who felt you were teaching a class of idiots and giving them a lecture because you hated us. All of the above may well be true but I think I get it now.

We'd often get a bit of a telling off for collectively getting things wrong or failing to understand why we were wrong. Sounds standard for school, but occasionally we'd get a bit of a rant going beyond the here and now, you'd start talking about our potential futures and how we'd have to change our approach to succeed or how we may get conned by electricians or plumbers in the future if we didn't think more for ourselves. I used to think you were making a mountain out a molehill but I think I get it now.

You weren't telling us we were stupid, you weren't telling us that we'd never handle household repair situations, you were trying to instil in us the need to develop problem solving skills, the need to understand the problem, the need to have an approach to understanding how we would go about identifying a solution.

I missed the point. Question 7 on a homework sheet about rocks wasn't the important thing. It was that we didn't look into it, we didn't look at the ways we could find out the answer, we just decided we didn't know and that was that.

I've been putting it into practise for a while it didn't quite hit me until now. It's not that we can't ask for help or that not knowing the answer isn't okay, but I need to know how to find the answer. I need to know what information is available to me, I need to know what is within my skill set and what will require assistance.

I'm sorry, you were right.

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