At the chalkface: I hear voices, doctor

For nigh-on 40 years my lessons were models of coherence, lucidity, harmony, blazing curiosity, fizzing creativity, daunting severity – sanctuaries of contemplation and finely differentiated learning, all reflecting a rather sophisticated, cutting-edge pedagogy and plenty of Govean rigour.

My goodness, they had Govean rigour. Targets were met, tests were passed and learning outcomes were pretty exponential. And sentences were always completed. Ofsted had little choice but to pronounce them “Sublime”.

Your lessons too I shouldn’t wonder. Of course they were. Except when they weren’t. Except, when they were the opposite.

Then I heard the voices. I got the voices in my head, doctor – a mash-up of voices, inner or outer or both, mine or others. Lessons could become a perpetual interruption. Sentences became incomplete. They got bombed. My inner voice became an unlicensed stream of consciousness, a device whereby the absurd was accommodated and sanity preserved – or not.