Paul Poulton reflects on learning through life's experiences

Paul Poulton

The things they teach us at school! I had to learn the 'square on the hypotenuse' formula before I'd realised exactly what a hypotenuse was. We were told by stern-looking adults that all these lessons of geography, maths, English and PE etc. will be important for the rest of our lives, so we'd better learn them. In many ways I can see that it is true, (although I've never really had much use for logarithms). I still use maths for my accounts and quite a number of other applications. I am using English this very second. Geography has turned out to be exceptionally useful as I tour with my band and PE is still an enjoyable pursuit; I enjoy running for my local club in cross country events. But while I was actually at school, in the lessons, sitting at a desk with a pencil in my mouth, it seemed like drudgery and painful toil. In fact I often feel a little bit guilty when I see a young child under the age of four. The love of life is written in their body language; they move, carefree, from one pursuit to the next, eager to explore all the wonders that life has to offer them. We'll soon put a stop to that! Sending our children to school almost seems cruel and yet we love our children, and know that a good education is very important for them to reach their potential.

What may surprise us is that school is really only the starting point, as we continue to learn lessons our whole life. It's a sad person who doesn't learn from mistakes they've made or see others making. There is a proverb that says, "A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences".

We tend to think that once we have left the education system we'll be on our own. And when we find, as Alice Cooper sang, that "School's out forever", it's then we realise what a privilege it is to be educated, and to have someone take enough of an interest in us to teach us. Yes, it may be a teacher's job and yes, they may get paid for it, but it is still a hard job and shows that we are in a society where we care for each other by passing on important knowledge. However, we would be wrong to suppose that we are bereft of teachers once we have left school or university. There is still a teacher available to us. And this educator's lessons are exciting, adventurous, awe-inspiring and sometimes scary, but the lessons learned, if we apply ourselves, are invaluable.

Sometime after I had left school I became ill. There was blood in my urine and I felt dizzy; I then began to feel weak and could hardly get out of bed, in fact some days I didn't. I would phone my mother and when she arrived at my house I would throw her the keys out of the bedroom window, as my bed was near the window and I could manage to throw the keys without getting out of bed. I spent some time in hospital for tests, one of which was under general anaesthetic and I also had examinations for which I was awake. I was ill for two years and it took me longer to start feeling normal again. I didn't enjoy being ill - some nights I'd feel so grim that I wondered if I would wake up in the morning. All my doctors were mystified; they couldn't seem to locate the cause of the problem. It was a hard time for me. And yet I look back on that stage of my life as a lesson I was being taught. I learned things that I don't see how I would have learned any other way. I was being taught about what really counts in life. I learned the importance of faith and I was instructed in getting my priorities in the correct order.

My first cross country run at school was a shock to my system and yet now I enjoy running for the pleasure of it. The lessons I received from my heavenly teacher have also brought joy into my life. He used the illness I had to teach me some important lessons, but other people learn the same lessons in other ways. The classes he teaches are different for each one of us; he doesn't go round making people ill so he can teach them, but he will use all our circumstances to teach us, if we will listen.

The Bible reminds us that God is treating us as his children when he teaches us. Some lessons may seem formidable while we are in the middle of them, but later on they produce a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained in them.