Think Different.

You just can’t beat football-fan rhetoric.

As another person central to the news this week said the last time we played England, “I was up here, then down there. Incredible.”

Ally McCoist is not the villain. He is allowed his views on God Save The King. Conversely, as a Rangers fan, who was also there in Hampden and didn’t boo the English anthem, neither did I sing it, and I’m allowed to do that too.

Get this, because it goes even deeper, as a young Rangers fan, I knew the monarchy meant a lot to McCoist since he was a boy, because I, as a Rangers fan, I had all the VHSs, and on ‘The Bluebells Are Blue’, when he received a knighthood, he was the proudest man alive. 'Good for him', I thought.

I don’t agree with him, but I certainly respect him. Rejoicing with those who rejoice is something we've lost the art of.

Yet, deeper still, McCoist thinks Scotland could be independent and yet maintain the monarchy - ‘like Canada’, he says.

Very interesting. I can imagine more than a few Rangers fans unsure of how to handle that information. Maybe because it’s incompatible with how they think. Its complexity is unwelcome. Do you just cut off Rangers’ record goalscorer? Maybe, like Cipher in the Matrix, you just want to remember nothing about it. "Nothing."

You see, even if we consciously try to assimilate, we can’t all think exactly the same, because we don’t all think the same.

The brain is a very, very complicated piece of machinery. To put it crudely.

It is astonishingly intricate; forging and reforging synaptic connections (or, learning things), all the time, through challenge, habit and repetition.

The fact that you can read, write, think and formulate opinions, is a wonderfully exciting and exhilarating event. And, importantly, it’s yours - this extraordinary human event - this ‘learning’.

No one can take that from you.

You might have had terrible teachers who coloured and flavoured that learning experience. We all did. Yet, we also had good teachers, whose learning felt good, and I think these educators tapped into something vital within all of us.

They reinforced the greatest truth in the world, and didn’t ridicule you for it. 

What was that nugget of gold they carefully chiselled away at, so as to let you take hold the prize in your own hands?

You are allowed to think different [sic].

———

I’d actually go one further - you can’t do anything but ‘think different’. You might just need the bravery to embrace it.

I’ll say that again.

You can’t help but think differently.

You might just need the bravery to accept it.

Now, I’m not pulling rank here, that couldn’t be more against what I know to be true, but so you know what I’m talking about; I know this to be true across thousands of hours spent as a specialist educator in a professional context. I’ve researched as far as time allows at present, earning a Masters with distinction in Education, and enjoy doing so joyfully and independently - it wasn’t for a promotion.

I’ve taught across Universities, led across Local Authorities, and reported to Education Scotland regarding exactly how children learn, via case studies I conducted, citing research amongst my peers.

Essentially, in this domain, I know what I’m talking about, so let me be very clear;

“No learner can be expected to think in the same way as his or her teacher.

No two learners in a class can be expected to think in the same way as each other (possibly excepting twins).

(Backhouse et al, 1992, p54)”

Scotland lost a football match against their closest, nearest and dearest rivals. Some (intoxicated) football fans, on both sides, sang songs and did things that football fans do every week. We didn’t all do the same thing, because we are not all the same. We are individuals. We have independent thoughts and feelings. Pundits then had their opinions. Because they are also individuals. 

There isn’t a ‘correct’ answer here because you cannot draw a circle around a particular people group and say that they are all the same, because they cannot be.

It simply isn’t true.

Crucially, history reminds us, and warns us sternly, that when we try to draw rings around people groups, horrible things usually follow.

Irreparably bad things follow.

If we draw a line in the sand, we’d better mean it.

Now, if I might risk a bit of advice that I will be applying to myself as well; if this has made you think, then allow it to do so.

Maybe take a break from Twitter, or ‘X’ as it now is.

Improve your mood by going and talking to people in the real world, who don’t feed your particular echo chamber.

Engage respectfully.

Listen, and don’t talk as much.

Then we might be able to hear one another.

Then we might be able to create space to learn from one another.

Football is ' just a game', sure, but let's learn from the ugliness, one brain at a time.

Peace,

Andy