Wykeham Journal 2014 | Page 22

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