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

Page 9 text:

The Spectrum At one place in his journeys Saint Paul was confronted with the chief captain of a Roman garrison. Of his own Roman citizenship the captain spoke to Paul in these words: With a great sum obtained I this freedom. You are beginning to teach at a time when there is more freedom than ever before in your job. You are free to choose where you work, at what you work, and in large measure the rewards of your work. You will have much to do with deciding the means of your work — the courses which you will teach — and the ends towards which you work. You will have less and less direc- tion from above. More than ever before the personal growth of the children entrusted to you will depend upon you. Teachers are advancing fast towards professional freedom. But never forget that all freedom must be paid for. The price of your freedom is to show that you deserve that freedom. Are you willing to pay its price of increased responsibility? In these iron times the public at large must make many sacrifices to preserve their Canadian way of life. If we teachers are also to ask them to pay more and more money for education, it is only right that citizens will come more and more to ask what they are getting for their money. Are you ready to answer that question? . . . . Ready to answer it in terms of the growth which you have effected in their children? .... Ready to show through your work that money spent on schools may have even more to do with preserving our kind of liberties than money spent on guns? .... Ready to face the inspection of those who inevitably will compare the product of our schools with that kind of soulless and dreadful effi- ciency which comes from totalitarian education? During the next few years our Canadian schools are going to have to answer questions like these. In the work which you have chosen you are freer than ever before to make your own des- tiny. Remember that all freedom must be bought with a great sum. F. C. BIEHL

Page 8 text:

The Spectrum You who are graduating from the Normal School to take up duties in the classrooms of Ontario, do so at a notable time, for never has the prestige of the teaching profession been higher than it is to-day. Underlying this improved status is a keen sense, on the part of the public, of the teacher ' s increasing responsibility. No longer is the teacher regarded as a mere middleman purveying a uniform course of study to a so-called average pupil. Child study has banished that concept forever. Curriculum and method must be adapted to individual boys and girls, and to individual communities. It is the teacher who must do this adapting. For that reason the teachers of the Province are now being asked to take part in curriculum building on a local basis. The invitation reflects the faith of the public in the men and women who instruct our children. I am confident that you will justify that faith, and that you will take an active in- terest in the work of the curriculum committees in your district. My heartiest good wishes for success and happiness follow you as you enter your chosen profession. DANA PORTER.

Page 10 text:

The Spectrum There are many good teachers, many efficient practitioners of the science of teaching:. There are few great teachers, nor will there ever be too many of them. For a great teacher is more than an educational scientist. He is an artist in people. A great teacher gives his students more than knowledge. He gives them knowledge transmuted by his own rich personality into something more precious — into wisdom and understanding. Mr. Roberts has been teaching at London Normal School since 1940. In those ten years upwards of fifteen hundred students have sat in his classes. Few of them will ever forget him. For Mr. Roberts is a great personality, a teacher to whom his work is a creative art. Mr. Roberts is an acknowledged authority in his fields of the teaching of mathematics and. health. He is the author of texts in both fields. He has taken graduate work in four univer- sities. He was a pioneer advocate of the principle that it is even more important to provide healthful living for children ' s minds than for their bodies. He serves on important international committees which deal with school health. Besides this mastery of his own fields, Mr. Roberts has brought a wide cultural background to his work. He did pioneer work again in bringing musicians of world renown to smaller Can- adian cities. He is still very active in the Little Theatre movement. In the course of his full life Mr. Roberts has known as personal friends many of the great names in the arts. Mr. Roberts has given much of his time to bettering the lot of two kinds of children — those who are handicapped by cerebral palsy, and those who too often are ignored in our schools because of their exceptional intelligence. Mr. Roberts has decided to leave us this year at the height of his powers. All of us — his colleagues as well as his students — will miss him. We shall not soon forget his incisive mind, his wide store of experience, his trenchant wit, nor his genuine enthusiasm for people. Although he has left teacher-training, we know that Mr. Roberts will continue to contribute much to making this a better world for children. F. C. BIFHL. 8