Times change. But there
are many men at the
School still following
that basic path. And an
integral part of it is Div,
which is a unique feature
of a Wykehamical
education.
DIV
Radical Thinking.
Featuring
Nick MacKinnon (Co Ro, 1986-)
Alasdair MacKinnon (Coll, 2003-08 )
Lachlan MacKinnon (I, 2006-11)
16 The Wykeham Journal 2014
You will sometimes hear it said that
William of Wykeham was not an educator,
but founded his two colleges primarily as
chantries for the eternal repose of his soul.
That is, quite plainly, rot.
If he had wanted a flash chantry, he would have
followed the model of St Elizabeth’s (see the
accompanying story, Digging the Dirt). Anyone who
looks at the School’s original licences, statutes, and
charter will see that he was implementing the country’s
first detailed educational programme for transforming
a nine-year-old boy into a Master of Arts.
Times change. But there are many men at the School
still following that basic path. And an integral part of
it is Div, which is a unique feature of a Wykehamical
education. Every man studies it once a day. It demands
no examinations, merely an essay on Saturday
evenings. In the early years it covers a broad range
of English, History, and Divina. Later, it expands to
whatever the Div don imagines will be interesting.
It has, naturally, changed over the years, but there
is no doubt it has been part of the curriculum
in one form or another for a long time. Today it
remains vibrant and, with other schools increasingly
concentrating on league tables and exams to the
exclusion of all else, it seems more radical than ever.
To understand it better, I wanted to talk to a family
who have recent direct experiences of it. Was it,
I wondered, something special for them, or just
another part of a bursting timetable?
Nick MacKinnon is best known to non-Wykehamists
as one of the most prolific setters of The Sunday
Times Brainteasers, and also for his award-winning
poetry. He came to Winchester from Oxford as a
Mathma don, looking forward to teaching his subject
and getting involved in the School’s sporting life.
However, within a few years, he found himself
taking on a VIth Book Div, and then, eight years
ago, an MP Div as well.
His eldest son, Alasdair, was in College, where he won
Recita, Jun Steeplechase, and played in First Orchestra.
He went on to take a double first in Russian and
German at Caius, Cambridge, before starting work as
an archaeologist in Tyre. His youngest son, Lachlan,
was in Hopper’s, where he was a Music Exhibitioner,
played in VIs, the Soccer 2nd XI, and First Orchestra.
After leaving, he went on to take a double first in
Chemistry at New College, Oxford, where he is now
deeply into research looking at cellular biophysics.
If any family knows about Div, it is the MacKinnons.
And I wanted to find out just what they — with their
very different interests and skills — think it offers.
When Nick first took on Div duties and began
immersing himself in English, he discovered an
unknown and deep love of poetry, so much so that
he started writing, and the critics think he does it
rather well. In 2012 he won the Hippocrates and
Keats-Shelley Prizes, and in 2013 he added the
Forward Prize. For him, Div has taken his interests
far beyond the Mathma he thought he was signing up
for. To give me an idea, he hands over his personal
lesson plan for his MP Div on the history, literature,
poetry, and religion of the Anglo-Saxons. I read it
with amazement, and a mounting realization that most
universities would struggle to offer undergraduates
such an integrated and wide-ranging view of the
period. For Nick, it is has clearly become a passion.
I catch up with Lachlan in the frost-covered cloisters
at New College, where we walk and reflect on Div
from the pupil’s perspective. Thankfully his memories
are far fresher than mine. He still relishes the fact that
in VIth Book with Laurence Wolff the ‘syllabus’ was
widened to include being taught to draw in regular
life drawing sessions, tea-tasting, and even visiting
the opera several times.
He makes two broader observations. His Pre-Us
were in Physics, Chemistry and German, and his
A-Level Maths and Further Maths, but he very much
appreciates having been taught, through the discipline
of the weekly Div task, how to write essays and
present arguments, a skill that his Science A-Levels
did not prioritise but which he finds immensely
useful. He is also very grateful that it has given him
an uncommonly broad base of things to discuss with
people from other disciplines. How many other
A-Level Science students, I wonder, also fitted into
their sixth form timetable discussions on War and
Peace, Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects and Zamyatin’s We?
Alasdair gives me his thoughts long-distance
from the Lebanon. He is working on a UNESCO
project to restore parts of Tyre, where he specializes
in research, surveying, cartography, photography,
and structural engineering. His A-Levels were
Math