With (and without) Respect to Fin Cook

From: "malcolm and elaine cato"
Subject: Fin Cook

"In defence of Fin I would like to say that, although yes he had an ocker French pronunciation and yes he took shortcuts like not teaching us the 2nd person familiar "tu" forms of verbs, he nonetheless connected with us adolescents and gave me an abiding interest in the French language. This has lasted to this day and has resulted in me having travelled to France for a language school and having French friends in Nantes. He spiced up sentences for translation by throwing in words like "petticoat" and told us to say anything, "wheelbarrow" even, if we couldn't translate a French word. An unforgettable teacher."

Malcolm Cato

Paul Feldman responds:

"An ex-teacher I worked with once said 'To be happy at teaching, you have to enjoy wielding authority over young people'. Fin certainly appeared to meet that criterion. But because I wasn't much good at sport, and was never in his French class, he came across to me as a self-indulgent disciplinarian who cultivated and favoured the sporting elite. It is interesting and challenging to hear people speaking up for him as a teacher. I can remember shuddering on hearing him say to a group of parents, 'I can get your boy a good, solid, 60 to 70 percent'. I can remember also, his painful embarrassment at being confronted by a native French speaker brought to the school by Joan Whittaker.

But perhaps within his chosen domain, Fin was able to be creative at imparting a set of knowledge, and able to encourage confidence in learning - amongst some kids anyway. His authority, and the pliability of his class, gave him the confidence to enjoy what he was teaching and find it interesting. For him, teaching remained much as it was for those primary school teachers - mostly males - who created a whole world around their classrooms and their arcane enthusiasms. This whole experience led Fin to become a spokesman, on parent/teacher nights, for the teaching of non-practical subjects, and proclaim himself "a man of culcha rather than science". To them, as teacher and sportsmaster, he was the genial salesman for a set of experiences. To us, depending on who we were, he was clearly something else.

Unforgettable certainly, and it's impossible to think of him as a ghost. But what would someone like him be doing these days? Still teaching? And if so, where?"

________________

22/1/2009 - fin

Posted by Anonymous

fin was an abomination and an insult to anyone who had the misfortune to be in his class. remember when he castigated a student in the quad for not having his sleeves rolled up to the correct (in his mind) level. and remember, he was a teacher at a selective high school. god alone knows what those poor bastards down the road had to put up with. i'm sure it took many of us years to get over his bombastic and thoroughly distasteful antics. unless of course you were peter carpenter. he probably thought paris was in texas. ironic about his name though. 13/8/2008 - Neil Treverrow adds... Posted by Anonymous “I was taught by Fin Cook and to this day I would be confidant in asking any Parisian the location of the pen of my Aunt. Merky bowcoop Fin.” Neil Treverrow (class of 68) 14/8/2008 - re Fin Cook Posted by Anonymous To add to my previous overly cryptic comment, obviously Fin Cook succeeded in inspiring some with an interest in the French language, but I wonder how much further this would have bloomed under a more competent teacher. For my part the Ardath afflicted ocker accented tones of Fin, and his approach to teaching said “this is a subject to be cranked out and bugger the prospects of being able to converse with a native French speaker”. A constant statement of contempt for pronunciation. I recall attending some after- hours French tutorials run by “Madam Bottler”, a native of France, which underlined the gulf between French and the Finnian dialect. So much so that there was almost a need for an interpreter to bridge the gap. I cannot imagine Fin as a modern teacher but I can picture Fin’s character as a loveable buffoon in a “old school days “parody, bumbling through his classes (punctuated by bursts of canned laughter every time he annunciates a stilted phrase), tolerated by the headmaster for his endeavours with the rugger team, hidden away by nervous French Master during staff assessments, creating bewilderment and consternation on holiday in France attempting to speak the lingo. I guess an effective teacher is many things to many people. My recollections were of a number of competent teachers who greatly benefited from reflected glory of some amazing students, a few really fine teachers who were able to take a whole class along with them, and a number who were incompetents (unconscious incompetents hopefully, rather than total scoundrels). All in all nothing to refute Mark Ierace’s recollected comment “we were bright but in a dull school” . Neil Treverrow