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

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unc,-nw nvsg-WV: 1 Conn.. ! annum. IN'-or-:nov- of .fffeuage from .ibn afftltouae Next September more than 1,00 fresh graduates of the Normal Schools will begin to teach in Ontario. You will be welcome reinforcements. How effective you will be depends upon many factors. One is your ability to work hard and long-and to like it. School hours mean little to the teacher, particularly to the young and ambitious teacher. If he finds his long, hard work mere drudgery, his dislike for the labour shows itself in personal habits and traits which reduce his teaching effectiveness with startling rapidity. When tempted to resent the exacting demands of the teaching profession upon your spare time,', observe closely the working day or week of the leading exponents of the other learned professions in your community-the law, the church, medicine. Education is quite as exacting as any of these-nothing less than full devotion will suffice, full devotion is no grudging serviceg it involves joy and satisfaction as well as the performance of a duty. Your effectiveness also depends upon your undertanding of your task. Unless you are able to state in simple words what you are trying to do, your teaching is likely to be as confused and unproductive as your thinking. Fortunately, your simple statements of your task need not remain constant or even consistent, for it is to be expected that you will grow on your jobs, you will see more and better objectives as you proceed. But every such statement must be honest, it must be sincere as well as simple. Only thus is your professional growth possible. Your Normal School course is giving you the germ of such growth. How many times already have you heard versions of the reminder: You are not teaching school subjects to the pupils, you are developing the pupils through the subjects and activities of the course ? That's a good point from which to begin pedagogical growth. With only one other factor in the teacher's efhciency may I deal. It is the professional man's attitude towards life and towards his work. It might almost be called the public servantls point of view. Sir William Osler expressed it most strikingly in his address entitled A Way of Life . There he advised a group of medical students to live in daytight compartmentsf, That is sound advice for any professional man or woman. Those who serve the public have no time either for self-reproaches over past failures or for appre- hensions over future difficulties. This, of course, does not preclude learning from experience and planning ahead. It does presuppose a reasonably adequate preparation for the kind of service to be rendered and a wholehearted devotion to that service. You are making an honest effort to equip yourselves for the jobs you will take next September. Part of that equipment will be the determination to continue your training in service, to avoid becoming rusty or getting into a rut. Each clay's problems will require your undivided attention, your unimpaired energy, your coolest judgment. When you have given them, you have done your full duty. You cannot give these if you worry about your past mistakes or about difficulties still to come. Truly professional service depends upon confidence in your preparation for your task, wholehearted devo- tion to that task and an abiding faith that the task is worth doing. Worry will not make up for the lack of any of these. If you are not confident of the adequacy of your preparation, further study rather than worry is the remedy. If you are not single-minded in your devotion to your teaching job, if you doubt whether that job is worth doing, you had better find a job to which you can devote yourself without reservation. Osler's daytight compartments are a professional necessity for teachers as well as for physicians and sur- geons. We still need more teachers today, but we particularly need teachers capable of living worthily in daytight compartments. We hope that you fall within this category, that you will determine to equip yourselves so adequately to face your problems as they arise that at the close of each day you may have the courage and the modesty to say: Today I have done a creditable job, I have applied my best knowledge and highest skill with full attention to the task in hand, with mind and body unimpaired by futile worrying. Not all that I have done has turned out successfully, but it has been an honest job, the failures have not been due to stupidity, or indifference or emotional disturbance. And tomorrow's task will be even more successful, because I have wrought faithfully and intelligently today. When teachers generally approach their task and perform it in this frame of mind, there will no longer be any argument about the prestige and dignity of the teacher. JOHN G. ALTHOUSE Page Ten

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Q .wo mu-uw v .1 L -,ann AL-IEEE! Y- A ir, Q xc Q .' 'LQzEra2J' ur .yndfruciord in Religion I am speaking on behalf of all the ministers, who are privileged to give instruction in Christian Education, when I wish the students of the London Normal School success and happiness in the profession to which they are about to lay their hands. Just before the Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon addressed his soldiers: Bear in mind that from the top of these monuments forty centuries are watching you attentively. He hoped that these words would inspire them to devote all their skill, bravery and loyalty to the achievement of victory. As you commence your professional duties, teaching the youth of this Dominion, bear in mind the future is looking. not only at you, but to you. The opinions and convictions that shall govern men during the next generation will be shaped in the school-rooms of the next decade. And in these school-rooms you will be the presiding spirits. May your efforts bring joy to you and life more abundant to the future citizens of our Dominion! Sincerely yours, REV. Cl-IAS. V. McLEAN. ur Critic Zyeaclzerd Urban Schools- Rural Schools- Miss Miss Miss Miss Miss Miss Gertrude Bergey, B.A. Pearl Elliott Arah Johnston Edna Lancaster Muriel Lancaster Marguerite Lawler Mr. S. R. MacKay, B.A. Miss Nora MacRae, B.A. Miss Isabel McLeish Mr. E. I. Mitchell, B.A. Miss Gladys Morris Mr. Stuart Oakes Miss Stella Pratten Mr. W. D. Sutton, B.A., B.Paed. Miss Clara Tupper, B.A. High Schools- Mr. T. S. H. Graham, M.A. Mr. R. H. Allin, B.A. Mr. S. R. Byles, B.A. Mr. H. B. Dinsmore, B.A. Mr. V. V. Franks, M.A. Mi's. Edna Adams Miss Shirley Carroll Mr. Lloyd Flannigan Mr. Louis Flannigan Mr. Edward Judd Miss jean McLachlan Mr. W. G. Rigney Miss Eleanor Robson Mrs. Alma Smith Miss Mamie Weld Page Nine

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U-uomseu, J ' U' 'UWUAX Z ZCIIDUL V if lilana-:af ur einefz Road The Weatherman-co-operative, the fire-comfortable. indeedg the hot dogs-deliciousg the student body-in a rare old mood of joyousness, as the annual weiner roast, sponsored by the newly-elected Literary Executive, roared to success at Gibbons Park in North London on the evening of October 2nd. Modern Melodies and Old Favourites, flickering firelight and happy faces, joined forces to ensure the social activities of the 47-48 term a good send off. JOHN E. CUNNINGHAM, Form I. if I7 ay 174194 Our first Play Day, held in September, was our initial social event of the year. Many ele- mentary games were played, such as drop the handkerchief, bean bag golf, hop-scotch, dodge ball, and relays. During the games many new and lasting acquaintances were made. These were facilitated by name cards which signified their home, and group number. In all it was a very enjoyable afternoon. To speak of the second Play Day is to bring back memories of valiant attempts to use our self-made play equipment. Contests involving the use of such articles as stilts, boomerangs, tilting poles, skipping ropes and hoop rolling were carried on. A suitable theme song for the afternoon might well have been Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Boomerang Gone? For many of these well-made pieces of craft work did not return. CHARLES DAY, Form I. ROBERT HOLDEN, Form I. Page Eleven