Here’s to the Teachers!
Since March 2020, I’ve been thinking a lot about teachers. Among a long list of people who’ve consistently been closer to COVID than I’ll ever be, they are perhaps the most unsung, especially here in Ontario, where they’ve been put on the frontlines without the protection they deserve and tossed by the unpredictable waves of the Ontario government as they “pivot” between remote and in-person learning. It’s got me thinking about the profound impact some teachers had on me during my 22 years of formal schooling.
School has always come easily to me. I don’t take much credit for this. A lot is luck. Having four older siblings and mature parents helped too - there was encouragement in my early years for reading. I remember having one sister read The Jungle Books to me while I was still in a crib. Ok, so I was in a crib much longer than most due to a bed shortage in the house but Kipling at age 4 got me on the right path to be successful in Kindergarten the next year.
My grade 5 teacher, Deirdre Graham, was the first formal teacher leaving her lasting mark on me. Mrs. Graham was cool in a way we hadn’t seen from other teachers. I think she’d even taught high school in town (!) before she hit Brookside, our elementary school surrounded by farmers’ fields. I don’t remember the ways she was cool - I just have an image of her being a strong towering woman imbued with a positive outlook she passed on to us. She loved children and loved inspiring us to do great things within our little world. Google reveals she’s an Alpaca farmer now. I emailed and she responded in less than an hour, remembering our class. Still gracious and lovely after 45 years.
Audrey Tiffin taught me Grade 13 Canadian English. Mrs. Tiffin’s extraordinaryness was lost on many of the students and indeed, I would argue, much of Wingham, where I went to high school at FE Madill. Sadly, she died three weeks before the October 10, 2013 announcement that one of her first students, Alice Munro, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Audrey was immensely proud of Alice’s achievements and they stayed in touch — Alice even poured tea for us as Mrs T’s 1986 retirement party. But Audrey was proud of all Canadian writers, and taught us about the greats our country had to offer. Her enthusiasm spilled out beyond CanLit: I remember analyzing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds in her Grade 12 class, very radical, in a school board where Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners was one of a list of books that we were NOT allowed to read, content not suitable for our tender minds.* Beyond her in-class passions was her overwhelming sense of spirit. There was no dress up day when she didn’t wow us with a costume, and in particular I remember her purple strappy sandals on “purple and white” day. Oh, she was way-cool.
I arrived at McMaster in 1985 and took a bit of time to find my feet. When I did, I was in the political science department where I met Barb Carroll, another strong female teacher. Barb took an interest in her students and encouraged us to pursue what was important to us as individuals. She was the first to suggest I might have the chops for grad school. She didn’t take anything too seriously though and I remember sitting in her office having a few good laughs about this and that. A normal person, sorely needed for this girl from Huron County who often felt out of her depth socially.
My one year at York University doing a master’s in political science was the darkest period of my education. I was too young to engage in any serious critique of the exercise of power and felt it that year. I sat in Janine Brodie’s Feminist Political Theory class for a full year with a five or six other women - I was the youngest - and said nothing substantive. At all. Nothing. People who know me now would find that hard to believe. At the time though I hadn’t the confidence to express anything because I knew I had nothing of interest to say. Janine saw something germinating in my head that needed a chance to bloom. She never gave up on me even though I had given up on myself, and for that I have always been grateful.
Returning to school at 36 to do a law degree was daunting. I was in a pack of hungry 23 year olds, smart as hell, and competitive, even at the University of Victoria, known for its laid-back BC collegial environment. I was privileged to be in John Kilcoyne’s 1st year contract law class. Johnny K spent his time helping students realize there is nothing magic about law, it’s just a tool you can use to effect change. And law school is just a bunch of hoops necessary to be allowed to use the tool. Preparing us for our first set of exams, he did a top 10 list. Numbers 2 and 1 are worth sharing here. No. 2: “exercise virtuous anti-social behaviour,” meaning avoid getting caught up in the pre-exam communal stress-out outside the exam room and the post-exam scrum. And No. 1: “Get a Life." I hadn’t taken an exam, except the LSAT for which my score was mediocre, in 12 years so this was welcome advice contra what the school was feeding us and we were feeding each other. At our 3rd year “prom,” he did another top 10 list on life as a lawyer and while I don’t remember the first nine, I clearly recall his number one tip: “if you’re stuck, you can always use a post-it note to roll a joint.” Yes, Johnny K was irreverent. But he taught the law so we would remember it, with the necessary rigour but peppered with humour and scathing critiques of law, policy, and practice. He kept big egos in check - there are many in law school - and bolstered the tender psyches of people who’d been bruised by being for the first time in classrooms with colleagues who are remarkably smarter than most of us.
As great as good teachers can be, I’ve had some bad ones too. I took all three years of Latin our high school offered and I’m grateful for it. It helped create my interest in English and grammar. However, the teacher: not so much. He also taught boys phys ed and reportedly tossed young men against the lockers when they misbehaved or, I fear, when they were unable to meet his exacting physical standards. We didn’t see that temper in Latin very often, and never the physical side, but we saw sarcasm and other signs of the brute he was. In my grade 13 yearbook, he wrote - in Latin of course - “too many opinions, not many men.” I will not forget the sting of those words. Clearly - it’s been 36 years and I still think about it. Not quite #MeToo, but if it happened today, I’d make him answer to someone.
And then there was our 'business associations' prof in law school. I can’t even talk about it.
So what’s my point here?
Each of these positive memories is linked to in-person, one-on-one conversations with great teachers resulting in connections both academic and personal. At the time they presented appetizing sometimes exotic dishes on the buffet of learning, encouraging us to sample. Now, after the food is long digested, we’re still left with the pleasant aftertaste.
Pandemic schooling is so different. Forty-five years from now, will today’s children think back to their elementary teachers and feel connections? In 20 years, will others look at post-it notes and think of funny lines that stuck because of connections to the source? I worry.
Dear teachers - I salute you. May this damn-demic end soon.
* here’s a news story from a local paper about the book bans of Huron County in the 70s which still existed in the next decade when I was in school https://www.clintonnewsrecord.com/opinion/huron-countys-dirty-books-debate-of-1978
