Clenton Farquarson: A Memorable Teacher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q311xie5Yr4

Transcript

But I had one teacher I remember, Mr Hebden who, I don’t know what he saw, he saw something in me and kind of brought me out of my shell for sport, rugby and, you know, he just gave me self-worth and self-esteem, in that I could do something, and he helped me a lot to build my self-esteem up. One of the things I had an issue with was knowing my left and right. I’m right handed but I’m left handed, but when I went through school they tied my left hand behind my back and made me write with my right hand. He picked up that I was a ‘leftie’ he used to say. He said ‘you’re naturally left handed’ he said, ‘what’s happened?’ I said ‘I was told it was wrong’. He said ‘so you’re telling me that someone forced you to..’ and I went, ‘well, yeah’ and now I write, now it’s become the norm for me. And he said ‘well just do what feels natural’ and I used to say ‘natural? You’re off your head’ you know, ‘I normally get told off if I do what’s natural to me’, but he helped instil into me that you can do stuff but do it your way and he helped me find my way when I was doing sport ‘cause I did everything differently. It was difficult, but he made me feel there was nothing wrong in who I am, so yeah, he instilled in me some pride, you know, which I didn’t get ‘cause I only got - if I was in trouble at school I had loads of people noticing me if that makes sense and that’s why I said the RSI (‘Repetitive Statement Injury – see video clip) came in and I ended up believing it myself, so the only time I got noticed and people to care about me in my warped mind, was when I was in trouble, so I behaved like that.

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