iRelle

For those who aren’t in the know, SVR stands for Schooling, Values and Reason. I really don’t have any idea what on earth it’s about, but it’s a requirement for my Education course. We were the lucky ones… the years who started after us have had SVR courses from year one. By all accounts, the unit is someone with a bad sense of humour’s idea of sadistic fun… terrible tests, unfathomable content and scary tutors. I can’t vouch for the first two, but on Thursday I met (well, saw) the lecturer for SVR and he is a wonderful piece of work! Perhaps it’s not fair to call him scary – he didn’t even snap at the latecomers – but he certainly is awe-inspiring. The tension in the lecture theatre while he was talking was almost audible, and the moment he left a nervous, restrained giggle ran through the ranks of dumbstruck third years.

There wasn’t quite so much frivolity during his discourse, although he came out with some brilliant one-liners and delivered them with a perfect deadpan. Right at the beginning he disdainfully told us “now, I don’t know, you might have compulsive note-taking disease or something, but honestly, don’t.” I feel that may have been directed more towards the first few rows (guilty!) but after that, I really couldn’t help myself. In actual fact, I wasn’t note-taking, I was quote-taking – and those two and a half pages are the most I’ve ever written in a first lecture. This one wasn’t even a half-hour long!

I have to try to depict the man, because without having seen and heard him, it’s hard to imagine what’s so amazing about his remarks. He’s rather tall, and his voice is gravelly (partially explained away by his three-week bout of “hog wog”, followed by a cold) and loud and by turns contemptuous, demanding, scornful and reasonable. Not the reasonable you get from a normal person, but a slightly edgy what-you-wanna-make-of-that reasonable. It was all the more threatening in the dim lighting of LT9. In his own words, “I’m certainly not Mr. Smiley, Gushy, Have-you-had-a-good-weekend, oh-how-lovely, sure-take-the-day-off kind of person” (okay, I may have misquoted somewhere in there. He was speaking fast.) and my particular favourite – “My room is dark and cold. I hate sunlight and building air, and therefore I leave the door outside open Summer and Winter. You’re only there for ten minutes anyway, so tough luck.” I think he may have suggested we wear a jacket or something. He also explained that nobody has ever left his office with (ominous music… wait, cancel that order. How about something a little lighter? Panpipes?) without the help they were looking for. I have no doubt this guy is a fantastic person to glean knowledge from… if you don’t crack under the strain first.

His advice on asking questions sums up his personality, and makes me like him just that little bit more (I’m expecting to get along reasonably well with him, really): “If you feel like a dill, take two brave pills, toughen up, and feel like a dill. But ask the question.”

And his summary of schooling in general was downright inspiring. Here it is, paraphrased by me:

“ You better be convinced you’re getting into something noble, or at leat halfway decent. Otherwise it’s just locking children up in a room for most of the year and making them do things they don’t want to do, for twelve or so years! That’s a massive amount of man hours, and you need to damn sure about why you are doing it.”

…bring it on, SVR!

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