London Normal School - Spectrum Yearbook (London, Ontario Canada)

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who know increasingly little about anything except play. In our day, children had definite work to be done after school — hoeing, carrying wood, and such. We children certainly did not believe as Dr. Dearness who, in advising parents to give their children definite tasks, made this statement, Blessed be chores. So, there was usually very- little time for this rest and recreation. Yet, on top of this we always had homework to do. And woe to him who came to school next day without it done! Alas! alas! we had no beautifully mounted history pictures to impress upon our plastic minds the Landing of Jacques Cartier and The Death of Wolfe. No sand-tables revealed to us the my- steries of islands, rivers and mountains. Neither were nature excursions the order of the day. We learned the characteristics of the Maple, the Jack Pine and the Spruce without disturbing those trees at all. We were given repeatedly those frpwned- upon assignments, Look it up in your book or Get up this chapter for next day. Nor did we have The Joy Books or The Science Readers to beguile us with their entrancing little stories so cunningly padding small chunks of knowledge. There was no music in that little brick school- house for there was no piano, and pitch-pipes and rote-songs had not found their way to us. No doctor came at the correct intervals to inoculate us. No nurse or dentist was at our service. Far from it! Nevertheless, we survived, even grew and thrived on this unseemly school-life. And behold! what now we are. But ah! with a sigh we think what we might have been. — Marion Roberts. On Teaching Wee THERE were four of us to catch the taxi at eight- thirty on that cold winter morning; two were bound for Mr. Rigney ' s school and two for Mrs. Paterson ' s. I hurried up Wortley Road, where the taxi-driver stood waiting by his cab to take us to the country. As I stepped forward to get into the taxi, a huge, shaggy, brown dog jumped past me and calmly took his place on the back seat. I hung back and eyed the canine distastefully. Did I have to sit beside him? However, there was nothing to do but climb in. The first passenger, already in the front seat, looked back and on see- ing my seatmate greeted him with, Hello Bozo! When the other two students arrived I gave Bozo a gentle push and moved over beside him. The taxi driver shut the door, took his own seat, started the car, and we were off. What an uncomfortable ride! We gave that clumsy creature as wide a berth as possible. He lolled expansively on the cushions and thoroughly enjoyed the congenial atmosphere. But we, we suffered in silence, mentally berating the cab com- pany that would allow its drivers to take their pets with them. At last we reached Mr. Rigney ' s school where the two boys alighted, one from the front seat and the other from the back. The remainder of the trip was made in comparative comfort and if we could have heaved that dog over the back of the front seat and landed him beside his master we should have been perfectly happy. At Mrs. Paterson ' s school my teaching part- ner and I stepped out of the car. The dog slipped past us and ran across the schoolyard. My partner called him back, while I held the car door open. The driver seemed unconcerned. She called again, then turning to him said, — Whose dog is this, anyway? Surprised, the man said to me, Isn ' t it yours? In dazed wonderment I answered, — We thought it belonged to you. With a shrill whistle and Here, here! , he called our canine companion back to the taxi, muttering, — We carry all kinds of concrete material. — Esther Leaman. Expiation ALL his life he had hated the sea and had avoided it. From childhood its utter vast- ness and the terror of its mountainous waves had gripped him. Now he was at its mercy. Toward evening, the west wind had suddenly come to life with a sullen roar and beneath it gigan- tic seas had built up with incredible speed. In no time at all the gale was full. The ship staggered in the great welters of blinding wind and water, climbing the towering waves and then slipping down into the yawning grey valleys beneath. Sleet shot over her tall masts; the screaming of the gale was shrill with menace; on all sides was the deep booming of the ocean. At midnight he stood by the rail with the rest of the passengers, the stark terror of his soul re- vealed in his eyes. They said the ship was sink- ing. Sinking! Then he was to go out into the midst of that desolate and forbidding waste where the sea boiled and seethed like molten pitch? Those black tortured waves were to seize him and he would go down, down. They were lowering the boats now. Women and children first. This was the last boat. Room for one more, the captain was saying. He was searching in the mass of upturned frightened faces for the man who would occupy the coveted vacancy. One figure by the rail attracted the captain ' s attention. It was that of a man struggling to reach the boat. Whimpering and sobbing, he was pushing and clawing at those about him like a wild beast. To go down, down .... no space to move in, no space to breathe in. No — no; he couldn ' t. Dear God — this was his chance! Suddenly he was at the boat ' s edge. An old grey-haired man was about to get in. What was the matter with everyone — didn ' t they under- stand? This was to be his place, his only chance. He jostled the old man aside and clambered into the boat. No time to wait. As the boat was { Continued on page 30 Page Twenty-nine

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The Future Education of the K[ormalite IT is a common saying that education begins when I our schooling ends. For no class of person is ' this truer than for the teacher. One must be prepared, on entering the profession, for a life of work and of study. The clear-sighted teacher-in- training looks forward to it and prepares accord- ingly. On the other hand there is a large class of people who heave a sigh of relief when the end of their training appears and the prospect of a job looms up. They expect a sinecure and the pro- spect of taking it easy and letting someone else do the work is very pleasant. The only blot on the landscape is the necessity of having to begin Uni- versity work. To these people, teaching is never more than a job and in a few years they are lagging behind their fellow teachers, trying to work with a serious lack of equipment. I do not. think the picture overdrawn, for into my experience, limited though it be, have come a number of teachers who are teaching lessons and not children, and whose main interest is in the monthly pay cheque. To such teachers, the new Program of Studies is not an opportunity, but a disaster, for they are not equipped to meet its re- quirements for 1938 methods, its increased re- cognition of human values, and its demand for greater background on the part of the teacher. The desirable teacher-in-training, essentially an idealist, rejoices that he commences his career under an enlightened system, for he realizes that he is reaping the benefit of methods that have been put into practice for years by experienced teachers before they were issued in the form of a course of study. He does not grumble that he is required to take University work because he in- tended to do so as soon as he could afford it; and he looks forward to the supplementary Education course as an opportunity to repair his pedagogical ground-work, for some of his preconceptions have been shattered by a few years experience. More than that, he likes to think of having money of his own (little though it may be) with which to indulge in his fondness for reading, both books and periodicals, and he hopes to build up a specialized knowledge in some field in which he has par- ticular interest. He does not flinch when faced with the prospect of full time service in his chosen work. Happy indeed is the teacher who is an incurable idealist, provided his idealism is tem- pered with practical purpose and common sense. There is no more interesting person to meet than a teacher who is in love with his work, and who has not lost his idealism. In many places the school teacher is looked upon as an authority on all and sundry subjects. In some places it may be that the teacher is the only person in the community who could possibly aspire to such a position. It is true, however, that he cannot for long pose as such unless he really is an authority. This immediately directs our attention to the question of reading, a subject on which it is easy to become dogmatic, simply because there are such definite principles involved. One of these is, that only when the teacher is a lover of good literature and enjoys reading, can she inspire in her pupils a desire to read. It is not a process of easy contagion, but it is certain that the teacher cannot infect the pupils with attitudes that she herself does not have. This is a principle every Normalite has become familiar with, but its truth seems to have become obscured in this connection. Descending from the realm of attitudes to that of knowledge, we quote an idea that Normalites will appreciate, namely, that if we are teaching too near the edge of our knowledge, we are in serious danger of falling over. It seems to me that a teacher ' s success may depend in a great measure upon the width of this margin. The other great factor is methodology, and here, too, education is never complete. No meth- ods are infallible. In time they all give way to revised forms or entirely new methods. In this field the educated teacher is a little ahead of his time, while he whose training stopped upon his graduation from Normal School is tagging along like Dopey, the seventh dwarf, making feeble and ludicrous attempts at imitation of his fellows. Further prolixity would only defeat the pur- pose of these observations, and conclusion is easily drawn. Unless one is in love with teaching, has a continuous educative process in himself, and is able to learn from those he is teaching, he has missed his calling and were better off anywhere else than in this noblest of professions, but sorriest of trades. —Earle Sanborn. In Our Day AS we people of the older generation look back on our own school days, now far distant, we cannot help but compare the school of our day with the school of to-day. We cannot re- strain a feeling of something like scorn for these weaklings of modern children who have to be coddled and babied. With this scorn is mingled a bit of envy and jealousy of these same children who have so much more than we even dreamed of, in the little brick school-house. I am quite sure that no one was ever concerned as to whether we were developing useful abilities and desirable attitudes. The knowledge was given to us, sometimes useful knowledge, some- times not. But, as for these abilities and attitudes why, the teacher would have been as surprised to hear of them as we Normal students were! If she ever discovered that any of her pupils had not the abilities she thought proper, her method of coping with the situation would, you may be sure, be quite different from that advised to-day. Let me quote from the Course of Study, The Minister urges the Inspectors to discourage . . . . unreasonable requirements in the matter of home- work for pupils in the elementary school. These children. . . . must have time for rest and recrea- tion. And all this for a generation of children Page Twenty-eight

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Ronnie s T ew Puppy Dog A Visit to Toyland ONE cold winter day when Ronnie was walk- ing home from school, he heard a sad little whimper. He stopped by the side of the road and found lying in the snow a dirty ragged shivering little puppy dog. I am cold and hungry and have no home and nobody loves me, whimpered the poor dirty ragged little puppy dog. Oh you poor dear little puppy dog! cried Ronnie, as he gathered him in his arms, I love you. I shall take you home with me and you will be my very own little puppy dog. W hen Ronnie got home, he ran into the house and called Mother, Mother, look at the lovely puppy dog I found. He is going to live here and be my very own puppy dog! But Mother frowned at the poor shivering little puppy dog and replied angrily, I won ' t have that dirty ragged little wretch in my house! Ronnie and the puppy dog sat down and be- gan to cry. Oh what shall we do? What shall we do? Why don ' t you give me a bath? asked the puppy dog. That ' s just what I ' ll do, exclaimed Ronnie. So he got a nice big tub filled with warm soapy water, put the puppy dcg in it and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. When the bath was oxer the puppy dog was just beautiful. He was no longer a dirty ragged puppy dog, but he was white, silky, soft, shiny and fluffy. Ronnie brought him to Mother and asked May I keep this puppy dog? Mother cried, Oh what a lovelv ' , white, silky, soft, fluffy puppy dog. You may keep that one. Ronnie and the puppy dog were so happy that they danced around in a circle giggling and laughing about the big joke they played on Mother. — Rose Zankan. THE PLACE OF LITERATURE AND ART —Continued from page 27. portrayed in the characters of fiction and painting — is to strengthen the bonds of friendship. And Literature and Art help us to understand not only our own people, but the people of other nations as well. We read Pearl Buck ' s The Good Earth, and never again can we think or speak lightly of the Chinese peasant. We attend a performance of Lady Precious Stream, a Chinese play two thousand years old, which ran in Toronto some time ago. and ever afterward w r e entertain a respect for Chinese drama. Every good book is translated into many languages. A good book needs no translation. Surely the inference here is clear. Good books and good Art are universally known and appreciated. Thus if Literature and Art promote universal understanding they may do much to promote universal peace. — G. Madeline Ferguson. ONE night, when Billy was asleep in his little bed, some fairies slid dow r n the moonbeams onto his shoulders and whispered to him. Wake up, Billy, wake up! We are going to play with the toys. Billy looked up at his visitors with wondering eyes, and asked: Play with the toys? How can we do that? Come with us, and you will see, they answered. They helped Billy scramble from his bed, hurried from the room, and into the soft darkness of the night. Soon they arrived at the toy department of a big store. As they stood at the door, Billy could hear a queer pattering, rustling noise coming from the room. The fairies brought him in and told the toys that they had brought Billy to play with them. Billy was very much surprised to see them moving about and playing among themselves. A friendly teddy bear stopped playing for a while, and exp lained that at midnight, when little boys and girls are asleep, the toys come to life and play among themselves. Billy had a wonderful time playing with all the toys and watching them play- together. When the night ended the fairies hurried him back to his room, slid through the window dow n the fading moonbeams, and tucked him into bed. In the morning, Billy told his mother about the toys, and she said it was just a dream. He was sure, though, that it wasn ' t a dream, and that the fairies really had taken him to play with the toys. — Ruth Fox. EXPIATION — Continued from page 29. lowered, he looked up to see a grey head appear over the rail. Through the confusion came the words, You shan ' t escape. The sea is never cheated. Days passed. The sun blazed down with savage heat upon the occupants of the little boat, and was reflected brassily from the surface of the water. He sat apart from the others in the stem of the boat. No one had spoken to him. His thirst was becoming acute torment. From the tops of successive seas he surveyed the expanse of heaving ocean, shading his bloodshot eyes. Once a feather of smoke against the grey sky ex- cited him, but nothing came of it. Queer hallucinations beset him after a while. He and that old man were together on a raft and the waves were reaching for them. They ' ll get you. They ' ll get you, the old man leered. And finally it seemed that they had. Later, when a rescuing party sighted the little boat, all who had waited and watched for so main ' days were faint with hunger and thirst, and all were sane but one. He was quite mad, and kept chanting, It didn ' t get me. It didn ' t get me. — Marion Ramsay. Page Thirty