Being a good teacher has nothing to do with perpetuating the standards and norms of others. It's not about stuffing people's brains with information either. It's about giving people the skills and the enthusiasm and the curiosity to go and grab knowledge (not information) for themselves. We can all be teachers if we have something to offer. The greatest teacher I ever had was Kery Dalby*, a botanist who had the rare knack of simultaneously losing himself in his own enthusiasms and infecting everyone around him with those same enthusiasms. He died quite recently, in his late nineties. My regret is that I never told him how he'd been the making of me. Another chap was called Kenny Alvin, a palaeobotanist of the first order, whose wide-eyed enthusiasm for his field of endeavour trumped any need for sophisticated teaching skills.

*Kery was short for Dunkery, a first name bestowed on him because he was born within sight of Dunkery Beacon, the highest point on Exmoor. Poignantly, that area was the favourite of my late father-in-law, and Mrs Steve and I go once a year to walk to the top of Dunkery Beacon, where we spell out "dad" in pebbles just by the summit cairn.