The school reports that must try harder
Alan Turing is just one talent who went unnoticed by teachers, says Rosa Silverman
Needless to say, I had the last laugh.” These are the words with which Alan Partridge ends every anecdote in his Bouncing Back memoir, beautifully demonstrating his petty delight at seeing those who underestimate him receive their comeuppance.
The fictional broadcaster may display a misplaced sense of his own success but, for many a real-life, well-known figure, the “last laugh” really has been theirs. A school report card now on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge reveals that a different Alan – genius codebreaker Turing – was once told by his science teacher he would never amount to much, given his “vague ideas”.
This damning indictment of a pupil who went on to become the father of modern computing – and whose work at Bletchley Park helped us to win the Second World War, no less – was delivered by his Sherborne School physics teacher in his 1929 summer term report, which now forms part of a new exhibition called Codebreakers and Groundbreakers.
Turing, however, was far from the only genius to be roundly excoriated in a report, only to prove his doubting schoolmasters wrong upon entering the adult world. A blistering end-ofterm report for an Etonian named John Gurdon declared in 1949 that it would be “a sheer waste of time” for him to pursue a career in science. He would not listen, could not learn simple biological facts and “insisted on doing work in his own way”. In adulthood, the biologist Prof Sir John Gurdon was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in recognition of his pioneering work in the field of cloning. Well, poor Mr Gaddum, his science teacher, got that one rather wrong. But perhaps he should not be blamed. For his ilk were once replicated across the land, writing off the futures of a host of budding stars.
Winston Churchill, according to one report from St George’s School, Ascot, had “no ambition… is a constant trouble to everybody and is always in some scrape or other. He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere.”
The poor parents of one John Eric Bartholomew, meanwhile, were told in the Thirties by the head of Lancaster Road School in Lancashire: “I hate to say this, but Eric will never get anywhere in life.”
The hopeless boy in question went on to adopt the stage name of Eric Morecambe. It is possible you may have heard of him.
Stephen Fry was described in a report by the headmaster of Uppingham School as someone who “has glaring faults and they have certainly glared at us this term”. He was later expelled from the Rutland institution.
And – my favourite example – Jilly Cooper, as a girl, apparently “set herself an extremely low standard which she has failed to maintain”. Or so said one of her reports from Godolphin School in Salisbury. Nor was it atypical. “My school reports were always awful,” the bestselling author tells me. “I would come home for the school holidays and the first three days were heaven.
“Then the report arrived on the doormat and my father would read it and say ‘this is a disgrace’, while my mother would cry. It ruined the holidays for about a week afterwards.” Yet the criticism was a good life lesson – and made what happened subsequently all the sweeter: “If you’re a bit of a disaster early in life, it’s just nice to be a bit less of a disaster later on,” she says.
Everyone loves a story of a young no-hoper going on to defy expectations. Apart from anything else, it is inspiring. Damien Hirst attended my own school in Leeds, some years before I did. The “E” grade he was said to have achieved in A-level art was legendary. It gave the rest of us hope – wrongly, as it turned out, for we are all yet to win the Turner Prize.
So what should we infer from all this potential going unspotted? It is too simplistic – unfair, even – to blame the individual teachers in question. When John Lennon’s teacher at Quarry Bank School in Liverpool pronounced that he was “certainly on the road to failure”, how could he have known that this “hopeless” boy who was “rather a clown in class” would go on to create a musical revolution? We would have been more surprised, frankly, had his school report claimed he showed early signs of becoming one of the world’s most famous men.
The answer, then, must lie in the system itself. Today, in an age when all must win prizes, school reports burst with positive language designed to couch criticism and cause as little offence as possible. A far cry from the teachers of yore who seemed to delight in delivering character assassinations of those who failed to meet a rigid set of criteria: sit quietly, do your work and do not step out of line.
Perhaps those destined to stand out for their work later in life were never likely to fit into this mould as children. Stepping out of line, after all, is forbidden at school yet crucial to success later on. Few achievements would be made in art, literature, science or business if no one did so.
The real lesson, says Prof Sir John Gurdon, is one for parents: “As a result of that report [in 1949], I was immediately removed from any further science teaching at my school,” he tells me. “Thanks to my parents I was able to retrieve the situation and get into science having left school. It was obvious to my parents that my only major interest was in science and not in ancient Greek, which I had to study at school.
“When asked for advice, I always say that if parents perceive a major interest in an offspring, it would be best if they can do anything they can to enable him or her to embark on a career [in it].”
A desire to prove their teacher wrong may even drive pupils’ success. A 16-year-old Albert Einstein was told in a damning report from his Munich school that he would “never amount to anything”. After revolutionising physics with his General Theory of Relativity, he noted: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
‘Won’t amount to much due to his vague ideas’ Alan Turing, computing pioneer ‘A constant trouble to everybody; is always in some scrape’ Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister ‘Set an extremely low standard she has failed to maintain’ Jilly Cooper, writer ‘Has glaring faults, and they have certainly glared at us this term’ Stephen Fry, actor ‘He insisted on doing work in his own way’ Prof Sir John Gurdon, scientist