Suburban Conformity.

I was born into a British middle class suburban conformity, where people did what they were told and didn’t ask questions, worked toward their retirement and then died.

And what’s worse I lived in Tower Close.

There were only 7 houses in the close and we constituted a veritable haven of respectable middle class suburban conformity within the stifling suburban conformity that surrounded and suffocated us.

This was driven home to me when I was surprised by the Library Museum guard when he discovered me with my hands deep in a box of discontinued library books, destined for the local hospital, in a room behind the museum that I had entered by passing through no less than 3 closed doors, all clearly parked PRIVATE and one locked.

The key was reachable with a stick and sheet of newspaper.

After a sudden and frightening cry of “Oy, whatya doing?” the guard demanded my address.

“Tower close”.

“You should know better.”

One of the character traits that I now carry and occasionally display is an inability to define myself.

Ok it’s not really an inability, more of a reluctance, but it originates from an aversion to suburban conformity and a dread that if I settle under a label – bam – I’ll be back there in Tower Close with 2.4 children.

Now clearly this long rambling introduction is not just an excuse to use the phrase “suburban conformity” as many times as possible and thus annoy my friend Anne who recently accused me of milking it, but because I want to take a risk, confess and say something about teaching.

Because some of the people who read this blog work in education and, cough, I do to.

There I said it.

And today I sat down to read an article which was possibly about Neuro –Imaging Techniques and Research, certainly about the Contribution of Multilingualsm to Creativity and in all cases only a page long of text with a nice coloured picture taking up a good third.

And here’s the confession.

I didn’t understand ANYTHING.

Every now and again I try to engage with the intellectual energy of others in the field and every time I end up feeling like Homer Simpson.

I think my brain is full.

Here is, what I think was, the key sentence.

“What we believe is significant about the evidence clusters is the similarity of outcomes resulting from different research approaches, and how they strengthen the position of foreign language learning by describing distinct types of added value.”

I tell you, if it wasn’t for the comma in there I would have to had read it another 10 times to realise I didn’t understand.

Ask me how to juggle 3 cigar boxes, balance a ping-pong ball on your nose or climb onto a unicycle and I’m your man.

Ask me to help you speak English as a foreign language and I’m clearly not.

Of course, if that Library Guard hadn’t shown up just when he had and interrupted my attempt at Suburban non-conformity, I could be a much better-read individual.