Early Life and Career
Michael Alexander Stern was born on 13 January 1922 in Egypt, the son of a civil engineer. He attended Ravenswood Preparatory School in Devon and Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk.
Stern went to Downing College, Cambridge for a year before his studies were interrupted by World War II. Stern served in the Royal Signals in the British Army in North Africa, Italy, and Greece, rising to the rank of captain. He graduated from Downing College in 1947.
Stern taught school in England, later serving at head teaching posts at approved schools from 1952 to 1955. In 1955, Stern read an article by Rev. Trevor Huddleston and, at Huddleston's invitation, Stern went to South Africa and became the headmaster of St Peter's, a school for African children in Johannesburg. However, educational policies under the apartheid government in South Africa forced the school to close. Stern was then appointed as the headmaster of the new (white) school which took its place, St. Martins, by the bishop of Johannesburg, Ambrose Reeves. He stayed for five years.
Read more about this topic: Michael Stern (educator)
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“From age eleven to age sixteen I lived a spartan life without the usual adolescent uncertainty. I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world, and there was nothing else.”
—Diana Nyad (b. 1949)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)