Memories of my four years at Carnegie are many and varied but, given the direction my career took subsequently, possibly one of the most influential was the following: During our second year, we were required to teach swimming to visiting groups of local schoolchildren. The children were all brought by bus onto Beckett Park and were required to get changed in the cubicles which lined the teaching pool that, I believe, is still there.
As student teachers, we were required to stand outside the cubicle doors (one student per cubicle) and introduce whichever child emerged to a basic swimming lesson. When the door in front of me opened, there stood before me a young boy with only one leg. This was my first encounter with any form of disability and, not knowing what else to say, I simply told him to “hop in” and said I would join him in the water. Shortly after (possibly in year three), Carnegie provided us with an opportunity to visit the Pinderfields rehabilitation centre and, in year four, I chose a B.Ed module on what, in the language of the time, was called “the education of backward and handicapped children”. The rest, as they say, is history.
1970
2025
