My first reaction to this question was to think of my favourite overall teacher throughout my education – without a doubt it was Miss Rose. To say she was an elderly lady would be an understatement, she was older than Methuselah. She was stooped in her walk, her hair was the whitest you can imagine and she looked like a very old lady. She taught me in Primary school, Religious Education definitely but perhaps other subjects too, I don’t remember. But I loved her. She was kind, she had a twinkle in her eye and when my world fell apart when I was 10 years old, she was a rock for me. Yes, she was my favourite teacher without a doubt. But was she my most influential? No, I don’t think she was.
My most influential teacher was Professor Michael Burleigh when I was at Cardiff University. At the end of my second year, we had to pick our dissertation subject for our third and final year. We had to choose one subject out of a list of (say) 10 and 50% of our marks that year would go on that subject, of which our dissertation was a part. So, it was a very significant choice. Of the 10, there was only one I wanted to study -Nazism with Prof Burleigh, though I had to pick some back-ups. I don’t even remember what they were, I had no intention of studying them. So, I lobbied him. Every week I went to his office (he was never there) and left him a note explaining why I would be a good choice for his group. Because he was only ever in Cardiff one day a week, his group was the smallest of all of them and I knew that there was competition for spaces. I had never met him, but I knew that was the course for me. So, when I found out at the end of my second year that I had secured a space, I was overjoyed. An example of where persistence pays off and a focused pursuit of what you want leads to a successful outcome. As I say, I had no intention at all of studying any of the other (I am sure very good) courses on offer.
The first session began in the second week of the first term of my final year of my degree. I was so excited. An entire Tuesday afternoon was blocked out for all of the courses, we had three hours every week of studying this one subject such was its importance to our overall degree – 25% across the two years. I was already on course for a good 2:1 but I wanted to push that if I could to a First. I had been warned by other lecturers that Prof Burleigh was a hard taskmaster and a bit of a tyrant, frankly. That didn’t bother me in the slightest. I was an older student who had spent five years working my way up on the money markets in the City of London after finishing my A’Levels. A woman in the late 1980’s working in a very male-dominated field, I was not in the slightest perturbed by a curmudgeonly man. I was well used to dealing with them. Anyway, after about an hour and a half of Prof Burleigh going through what the course entailed for the next three terms and how we would be assessed etcetera, he said we could leave as we wouldn’t be starting the lectures proper until the following week. He’d been an absolute delight, and as we got up to go we all murmured to each other that he was much nicer than we thought. Then he said ‘oh, sorry, can you come back there’s something I forgot to mention’. Not thinking anything of it, we did so and all sat down smiling at him. Then he proceeded to tell us that if any of us were thinking of effing around during his lectures, he would feel no hesitation in kicking us off his course with all the attending problems that would cause for our chances of graduating. And he meant it, that much was clear. So much for Mr Nice Professor. Nearly 30 years later, I can still remember that day as clear as if it was yesterday. I was already motivated to do well, that speech ratcheted it up by a factor of 50. And I wasn’t the only one. I think I can safely say, none of us were deliberately difficult during that academic year in that class.
Another reason he was influential was the way in which he dealt with me as my beloved grandmother was dying. He was incredibly kind, helping me in many ways and talking to me about her and her death when it happened. He went to my personal tutor and spoke to her about his concerns for my mental health as he didn’t want me to have problems with my degree because of my loss and what could the university do to help ensure that didn’t happen. Which was how I ended up having grief counselling, which did help me get through an intensely difficult time.
I had an assessment on my dissertation in the January, and I had to rush back from London and visiting my grandmother as she’d had major surgery. It had been hugely upsetting because it was the first time it had been confirmed to us that she was dying, and because I had seen her so very ill. She had not wanted me to see her in that way so it had been very upsetting for her too. Anyway, I got back to Cardiff in a distressed state and had to stand up and defend my research methods to a panel of historians. I didn’t know if I was coming, going, or been there. So, I went to see my personal tutor who advised I see Prof Burleigh. I did so and came away with the view that while he would not be giving me any preferential treatment, he understood me. He knew what I was going through. Which put me enough at my ease that I got through the assessment pretty well, thankfully.
I did, though, monumentally cock up on my dissertation and he was not forgiving for it. I was going really well with it and we were having one of our regular catch-up sessions on its progress. I was writing a critique of two books which had used the same source material but come up with wildly different reasons behind the behaviour of a group of German policemen in Eastern Europe – death squads, basically. The common denominator of the books, though, was that they both assigned one single reason for the actions of a group of men. One that it was peer pressure, the other that it was endemic anti-Semitism. To my mind it could be both at the same time as well as a complete power trip and a myriad of other reasons. In essence, that one single reason for the actions of a group of men couldn’t be ascribed. Prof Burleigh had agreed and recommended I look at the Untermenschen approach in Nazism which I had and had incorporated it into my dissertation. At one catch-up, though, he recommended I include something else, something which to this day I cannot remember. My mind had zoned out into grief, and thoughts of my grandmother who had died by then. I was suppressing my grief in order to get through the final months of my degree and it would come and knock me up the side of the head at very inconvenient moments. One included in the middle of a final exam, but luckily for that one I had done an essay plan so could recover from the lapse. I couldn’t from this one. I literally did not take in a word he had said to me, except the odd thing that didn’t make sense as soon as I left his office. I wracked my brain but couldn’t think of it, and rather than go and tell him that I had zoned out on thoughts of my grandmother which I am sure he would have understood, I decided to leave it out of my dissertation altogether. And I was punished for it. He marked me 69%, a percentage point off a First. When the marks came out, my personal tutor questioned him and he was clear – it was to make the point. I had not listened to him. I had not made a case to him for the exclusion of the material he had suggested so in the absence of that, I should have included it. I had simply, in his view, not listened to him and his advice. And as a result, the argument in my dissertation was the weaker for it. The point was made in not giving me a 67% or 68% mark, but in a galling 69%. Did that 1% tip me off getting an overall First? I don’t think so. Overall in my degree I think I got 67%. But there is always that thought in the back of my mind that what if I’d listened and he’d given me 74% or something? Would have I got a First then? I will never know.
The point is, though, what he did and what I did highlights a particular personally trait in me, and one that I first faced up to as a consequence of that mark. That when I am placed in a situation where I have to speak to someone about something I find uncomfortable, invariably I avoid it. Usually to my detriment. When I do speak to people about it, I usually find that the outcome is positive. Yet it is still a trait I find very difficult to overcome. It stems from my childhood, from trying to be the ‘perfect’ child that caused no headaches for anyone and did everything correctly. So, when I don’t, when I fall short of my own determinant of perfection, I struggle to accept it. I struggle because I feel that others will judge me and find me wanting. That I will, in effect, be rejected. I know why this behaviour started, this need to be ‘perfect’. The perfect mother, the perfect student, the perfect employee, the perfect daughter, the perfect wife and so on. Even while I know that perfection is an illusion, just as control is which goes hand-in-hand with perfection traits. Ultimately, it is the fear of rejection writ large. The problem is, when rejection is your subconscious mind’s comfort zone you constantly end up placing yourself in the situation where it can be enacted. Where you can be rejected in a myriad of ways. Healing from that, overcoming that, is a life’s work. Started by recognising it then seeking to overturn it. What I was afraid of with Prof Burleigh was that he would regard me as somehow less, and I respected him too much for that.
Prof Burleigh was, and remains, the most influential teacher I ever had in my education career. I had teachers I liked more (though I did like him), who I related to on a personal level more, but I never had a teacher I respected more. And I don’t think I ever had a teacher who was as clever and articulate as him, though I had some amazing ones over the years. He was also the only teacher I ever had who was strong enough to both be kind to me when I needed it and punish me when he felt I needed it. He never went easy on me because of what was going on in my life, which I appreciate and value more than if he had done so. It was character-affirming and I learned more in those nine months of the course than just about Nazism. I learned valuable lessons about myself which I still haven’t completely addressed, but it’s an ongoing project.
Yes, Professor Michael Burleigh is the most influential teacher I ever had in my life, and for that I am tremendously grateful.
Louisa Simpson 