worldteachersday

17d

Teacher, scholar,
he had worked a true task when all alive…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “For Angus MacLeod”
Published in New Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2011)

Today, 5 October, is World Teachers Day. In this poem Iain Crichton Smith, himself a teacher, celebrates the life of a former Headmaster of Oban High School

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https://www.unesco.org/en/days/teachers

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldTeachersDay #teaching #teachers #education #school #schools

Iain Crichton Smith
For Angus MacLeod
Headmaster, and Editor of Gaelic Poems

Today they laid him in the earth’s cold colour,
a man from Lewis with his seventy-five
years struck from his head. Teacher, scholar,
he had worked a true task when all alive,

building a school, elucidating texts.
The Gaelic shone quite clearly in his bones.
A casket filled with ashes had been mixed
with filtered sunlight and the small stones.

A useful life with pupils and with poems:
sufficient honours (his humour asked no more)
he takes his place in many minds and rooms.
Without their knowing it, his patient care

instructs far hands to turn a new lever,
a voice to speak in a mild-mannered tone.
The deeds we do reverberate forever.
Inveterate justice weighs the flesh and bone.

His best editions are some men and women
who scrutinise each action like a word.
The truest work is learning to be human
definitive texts the poorest can afford.

ALT

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17d

It’s 9:15pm and I just found out it’s World Teacher’s Day. I missed a whole day of celebrating because I was too busy writing lesson plans and grading papers. Pretty ironic I guess.

#worldteachersday

Edited 17d ago

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