Key learning factors in my experience

Developing an active identity. I think I reached my turn in the road as a kid when I learned that if I stayed passive I would be lost. I failed the 11+ or qualifying exam, so landed in secondary school. That would not have been so very bad, but that I landed in a 'special' class. Today it would probably be a 'pupils with special needs' class. At that time it was just the 'bottom of the heap'. Many of the other pupils just couldn't read or write. I felt really bad and out-of-place. Then I started to take steps - for me then frightening steps - to get into another class, later another school and eventually to university.
Being part of a group but getting spotted. I think I learned best when I felt least vulnerable. This had a lot to do with finding a place in 'the class'. I often needed to be 'background' but I knew deep down that I needed to be found. It was a kind of cat and mouse thing. One teacher, Hazael Cathcart, managed to spot me. This is how it happened.
I had just made the transition from secondary school to grammar school. It was a culture shock, I was a kid from the housing estate from the working class, we were 'yobs' they were 'snobs' (actually we had more colourful descriptions for them, and actually, until I corrected this attitude, I was the 'snob') I felt insecure and became quiet and introverted, I enjoyed Hazael she was kind of exotic in her chalky black teachers gown with her hair in a mess and her crazy way of looking over her glasses. Yet, for all her scatty appearance, she spotted me! I was of course unaware of this, since she would have had no favourites. On the day the A-Level results came out, (I was working in a shop part-time), Hazael suddenly appeared and told me that I had obtained an A in her subject. We had a really hearty conversation, the first outside of the teacher/pupil relationship. She left a letter for me which I noticed only after she had gone. In it she said knew I had potential and that she wasn't surprised that I had got an A.
Cool Learning. These experiences will always be key to my ability to learn, and they infuse my teaching methodology. I have never bullied students to speak, I know some need the undergrowth and the quietness, but I try to spot them in that undergrowth. Learning is about securing personal identity and as a teacher, securing learning environments, and locating uniqueness.