Many years ago I used to be a teacher. Well, in a way.

To be accurate, I was a flying instructor. This technically qualifies you as a teacher on the general grounds that if you ain’t teaching your students anything then what are you doing there? But somehow, I never felt like a teacher teacher. I’ll try to explain.

My students were all adults – some of them young, but certainly adults. A few were sponsored, but the majority were self-paying. Which means they were self-motivated in the first place. And of course it’s easy to teach self-motivated students, ain’t it…?

Well, y-e-a-h…

In fact – well, no. Not always.

Flying training was not, is not, and never will be, cheap. I struggled, scrimped and sacrificed to get my own training. Whenever I made the next small stepping-stone I felt like buying everyone in the bar a drink, but would remember my tottering if not actually prostrate finances and settle for a personal banquet of a half of the cheapest lager and a packet of crisps. And when I became an instructor I soon found my students varied between two extremes – those who had done their pre-briefed homework beforehand, and those who walked in the door switching to ‘flying mode’ as they passed through the portal and expecting me to force-feed knowledge into them like stuffing grain into a pate-de-foie-gras goose. Who totally ignored my oft-repeated axiom of:  “Never learn in the air. Learn on the ground, then PRACTISE in the air”.

Guess which set of students got my best attention. Natural piloting aptitude – odd as it may sound – was far less important. It was attitude to learning that counted. I remember my heart swelling when an elfin gardener who had to consult her coins before shoving anything into the coffee machine won her first aerobatic competition…

Well… guess who learned most out of four years of teaching? The answer – me. The instructor. I learned about the subject – on the grounds that if you really want to learn about something, try teaching it – and I also learned about humility, humanity, hubris…

But… I guess I was never a teacher teacher. Because teacher teachers don’t operate like that.

For a start, proper teachers teach in schools, colleges or universities various. They do not have the luxury, particularly in primary and early secondary education, of self-motivated pupils – they simply stand up in front of whatever motley collection of juvenile angels and thugs have been thrown at them and try to pump some knowledge and, more importantly, enthusiasm into them. And they do this for six hours a working day for perhaps 30 years…

Teachers get favourite pupils in classes – of course they do, and any teacher who tells you otherwise is either lying or disinterested – but rather like my flight students this has little to do with the kids’ abilities but everything to do with their enthusiasm, curiosity, and desire to learn. A favourite – probably a big word, call it inwardly-warmed-to – pupil is usually going to be the one, or ones, who quite simply try the hardest. Or perhaps when the odd lout or loutess suddenly sparks up and starts taking an interest.

 

Teacher teachers have no happy options

But favourites or no, the teachers are still stuck with the lot of them. If I had a particularly inept flight student I could always take him on one side and tactfully explain that his chances of living to collect his old age pension would be immeasurably improved if he never touched the controls of an aeroplane again – especially one of mine – and perhaps he might care to consider taking up, say, Ninja sword-fighting or maybe going over Niagara Falls in a barrel as more appropriate career options. Teacher teachers do not have this happy option of chopping pupils – or not unless they can actually prove that little Genghis Khan in 3B slashed four car tyres and strangled three puppies on his way to school, anyway.

So I have a lot of respect for teacher teachers.

Who always have a huge workload. And, particularly in primary and early secondary, are coming at their task after a teaching degree course which was theoretically three years but in actuality maybe six months at University on a good day followed by two-and-half years hands-on in schools. And which Uni course may well in the first place have been – er, shall we say kinda niggardly in the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths (see A Vital BET Paying Off), And then we wonder why we’re running out of scientists and engineers…

Okay. That’s the way it is. That’s reality.

So step on stage STEM Ambassadors.

STEM Ambassadors are volunteers. The idea is that they are established scientists or engineers in various fields who are willing to go into schools maybe three, four, five times a year for the purpose of whipping up the kids – sorry, sorry, I mean enthusing the pupils – with the concept of a career in science and engineering, rather than going into hairdressing, pothole-filling, or politics. (Although Gawd knows this great nation of ours could use a few more pothole-fillers right now. More politicians we definitely don’t need, but pothole-fillers… sorry, sorry again, I digress).

These STEM Ambassadors are in fact treading a bit of a tightrope. They are not there to teach – it says here. And of course you cannot walk in for an hour or so two or three times a year and realistically expect to teach much anyway. It says here.

No – the idea is not that your STEM Ambassador who happens to be a nuclear physicist tries to teach a class of nine year olds nuclear fission in a quick 40 minute dash. The idea is that he or she introduces the idea of a career in nuclear physics – illustrates how challenging it can be, what the goals are, how we’ll all slop back into the stone-age without it and never mind all those stupid wind-farms, and how actually it’s also a darn good career option ‘cos you earn skads of money and look like Superman in a white coat without actually having to wear your underpants outside your trousers.

That’s the idea. You, the STEM Ambassador, are NOT a teacher. You are there to ignite an interest, perhaps to present fascinating games which might fan the spark into further life, and hopefully become a role model. And then you go away…

The more intelligent STEM Ambassadors – and of course they are all highly intelligent or they wouldn’t be there – soon realise that they’re not just there to inspire the pupils, but also their teachers. In fact most importantly their teachers, because you’re in there for one hour in six months and the teachers have the little rodents for 20 or 30 hours every week.

So if you’re talking about a 1,000 mph Land Speed Record car rather than a slabby nuclear power station you have a bit more chance of catching the attention of both pupils and teachers alike…

Well, we’ll come back to that.

Forget BLOODHOUND for a moment, and let’s look at STEM Ambassador-ship. It’s a wee bit akin to becoming a scoutmaster or an RAFVR pilot teaching cadets to fly in motor-gliders rather resembling clockwork vultures. There is no pay in it, and you do it because you (a) enjoy it, (b) want to pass something of your knowledge and enthusiasm on, and (c) have a bit of time to spare to so do. Or thought you did, until you started doing it.

And you have to jump through hoops before you can become a STEM Ambassador. You have to have a Police CRB (Criminal Record Bureau) clearance. And you have to go on a one-day course teaching you, the future Ambassador, how to… well, Ambass, I suppose. I went through these hoops and would have to say that the one-day course was a touch… um, er, oh Gawd, how can I put it, with everyone so keen and all? Maybe a tad… um, disconnected from the real world. Taking groups of senior technicians and scientists willing to give up their time to help the country’s education system and then giving them three magnets, five straws, a couple of other household objects, and asking them to produce a science lesson within 10 minutes is – well, kinda like asking Isambard Kingdom Brunel at the drop of a stove-pipe hat to lecture on the advanced science of the wheel barrow. Please forgive my cynicism, and please remember that my opinions are my own, and not endorsed by BLOODHOUND. But I personally felt that this ‘course’ did not add a great deal to my tiny store of wisdom. Nobody failed – in fact, short of walking in there with two green heads and an AK47, there seemed to be no pass / fail methodology at all – and the day ended with much form-filling. So much so that it might even have been designed by a civil servant under the inspired guidance of a politician who’d taken advice from other civil servants…

 

More hoops…

Yeah, well, great.

BLOODHOUND however has a rather more rigorous approach – meaning there are still more hoops to jump through before you become a BLOODHOUND Ambassador. Firstly you must already be a card-carrying STEM Ambassador (see www.stemnet.org.uk) or equivalent. Secondly you have an interview with one of the BET – the BLOODHOUND Education Team. And thirdly you have to go on a BLOODHOUND Induction Course – maybe at the new BLOODHOUND Education Centre in Manchester, maybe at the upcoming same in Bristol, or maybe at one of the many outreach venues the BLOODHOUND Education Team ‘borrow’ to mesh in with their peregrinations around the country.

Which is why I am on this day sitting in one of the historic rooms of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (I Mech E) at the ultimately prestigious address of One Birdcage Walk, London SW1. A two-minute stroll from the Houses of Parliament, the I Mech E HQ is one of those white-stoned imposing edifices which London specialises in, the very building reeking of tradition and somehow giving the impression that if you walked in wearing a lip-ring there would be a clanking of ancient chain-sprockets and you would be reduced to dog-food without ever knowing what had been dropped on you.

Or maybe not: the I Mech E has a long history of embracing new thinkers. Perhaps it’s just that the premises look that way.

As usual in these London historic buildings the staircases are grandiose, the oil-paintings on the walls are faded but breathtaking, and the lifts (if any) are a part of mechanical history in themselves. The offices of the staff often resemble Victorian cubby-holes – largely because they are Victorian cubby-holes – but the conference rooms exude grandeur.

Which – sipping bleary coffee at 0830 in the morning and looking around at the score or so throng – is more than can be said for the attendees. The aspiring BLOODHOUND Ambassadors are tubby men, thin men, medium men, ages ranging from maybe 35 to 65 except for one young guy. The three ladies in the group are the same. Most everybody has had a goodly journey to get here, most everybody is casually dressed, and most everybody hides the odd yawn. Not quite befitting the historical I Mech E. No suits, no wing-collars, no top hats – an apparently motley collection in these hallowed halls.

I have never been more wrong in my life.

We are here in this room for seven hours. Our teachers are Jonathan Ellis, BLOODHOUND Ambassador Director, and Sharon Peck, Lead Ambassador Trainer. Both are amazingly charismatic educators, and Jonathan in particular, sandy-haired, craggy-faced and agile, is one of those teachers who bounces about a lot, uses body-language like a blunt instrument and hands like a semaphore, and has that mysterious ability to change that craggy face from informative to questioning to challenging to amused without apparently moving a muscle. He can also incite very serious scientists to go Ooh and Aah like a bunch of kids at a pantomime. It is like watching an actor on the boards, and how he and Sharon deliver this sort of performance daily and then drive two to four hours to the next venue is completely beyond me.

The content – well in fact there is no point in my trying to contract seven hours into a few paragraphs. The message to inspire students – thoroughly delivered. The message to inspire teachers – thoroughly delivered. Methodology – quite deeply examined, and basically boiling down to pumping an interested look onto the front of the heads of both pupils and teachers. If you want to know more – just go do it. Go on the course. It’s like getting half a University Teacher Training Course rammed down your throat in one day. Definitely the pate-de-foie-gras school of learning. By 1600 hrs my brain is a stuffed-full bladder hanging from a fragile hook in the top of my skull, and it will take me several days hereafter to absorb the written material I am about to carry away with me.

But on this afternoon, that is in the future. On this afternoon, in the I Mech E shrine, the surprise is yet to come.

The surprise is, in fact, this motley array of volunteers.

Motley is apt, and certainly not meant rudely. Names changed to protect the guilty, but Fred is a food machinery engineer, Danny is a cryogenic scientist, Sue and Bill are ex-special-needs volunteers, John is a telephone engineer, Amy is a chiropractor, and David is a retired bank manager. Will is a successful importer of clothes, of all things…

And at the end of this day, just before overload sets in, comes the crunch. Each candidate has been asked to prepare a presentation on a particular aspect of BLOODHOUND – one person on steering, another on the rocket, etc. Each gets just  three minutes to start the presentation and then gets chopped off, so we only see the beginning of the performance. Has to be that way, or we’d all be found asleep or maybe extinct in the hallowed halls around about four in the morning. Just three minutes…

And this motley crew of non-experts are… absolutely magnificent.

During the day I’ve already discovered that these people are all interesting, outgoing, and vigorous. And now their presentations are practically flawless. If this was 40 years ago then any one of them could come be a volunteer ground instructor in my flying school, and welcome. They are captivating, energetic, and above all involving.

It’s as if every person present always wanted to be an actor, and this is their big audition.

 

Wizard hats and electronic aces

Moreover – and to my great personal embarrassment – all seem to be electronic aces, too. All, or very nearly all, step up to the stage bearing thingumijigs which look like small cigarette lighters, and spear them into the side of the laptop computer which provides all the graphics for the big screen. Memory sticks, I think these lighters are called. And not only do they plug them in without fumbling, but then proceed to perform the apparent miracle of accessing them with a couple of swift key-strokes – a task which would take me about an hour of lip-chewing, furrowed brow, and increasingly bad temper while the damn programme rushes around the inside of the computer hiding behind chips and thumbing its nose at me. And having so accessed them, then proceed to commence an… er, what’s it called… that highly-professional-looking visual screen presentation… you’ll know. Poshpit – no. Peepot – no…. ah, its coming to me – Point-Power. Or is it maybe Power-Point…?

Anyway, something like that. And the visuals are terrific. Where they got them from I have no idea. Well, no, that’s not right – I know where they got them from, most of them being from the BLOODHOUND website – but what I do not have the faintest clue about is how they got them off the site and into their presentations. I’m fairly sure that scissors and paste did not come into it, but suspect there might be the odd wizard’s hat kicking around under the table. Anyway, when it comes to my turn I am rather desperately looking around for an old-fashioned blackboard, like what I used 40 years ago.

No blackboard. No blackboard in the I Mech E. Brunel would probably have raised a sardonic eyebrow – not at there being no blackboards, but that some idiot in 2011 would walk into the I Mech E expecting a blackboard.

Mine is not therefore exactly the presentation of the day. I really must get teached-up on Point-Power…

But that is not the point. The point is that this gang – this disparate gang – is really bright, on the ball, that the BLOODHOUND spirit has got under their skin, that they want to be part of the action…

And that they are bloody good. I’d send ‘most any one of them anywhere, anytime.

Well, that’s great. And it has been a fascinating and exhausting day. But as I stand outside on Birdcage Walk puffing on my nasty old pipe I’m thinking that not all Ambassadors will have all those skills – the natural or acquired ability to teach, the computer-literacy...

Or even, indeed, the desire to go in and teach – sorry, inspire – young kids. I was once a teacher, of sorts, but I could never do that. Inspire flight students, yes – but not kids. Simply not my thing.

But BLOODHOUND needs all sorts of Ambassadors. Some who can talk in schools. Some – a few – who can lecture in universities. Others – like me – who find a class of 10 or 12 year-olds not daunting as such, but kinda outside their experience. But are perfectly happy to talk to folk on a display stand at some event or other. Be an instructor again. And still others who are built like brick – er – outhouses, and are both happy to answer questions (or deflect them) and also happy to do the humping work in setting-up and dismantling road-shows. BLOODHOUND calls these Event Ambassadors. The induction is no less gruelling.

All kinds of people.

From every walk of life.

Who want to be a part of the adventure.

BLOODHOUND is getting there. The need is for something like 600 Ambassadors by the end of this year, and many more on into the future. At the moment there are about 350. Even with the opening of the Manchester and Bristol training centres, simple arithmetic says the BET (the BLOODHOUND Educational Team, now the BLOODHOUND Educational Trust) probably cannot do it all, what with everything else on their plates. So it will come round to Ambassadors teaching new Ambassadors…

And learning themselves – oh, yes, learning – as they go along. Just as I did while teaching.