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

Page 13 text:

W jftnm the Bite- tintipaI'5 ffite... These are exciting days to be entering the teaching profession: By comparison, becoming a teacher must have been much less challenging when' one facilitated the educational process by creating and maintaining an atmosphere of silence and submission to oneself as the dispenser of learning and the overt moulder of pupils' minds. With the recognition of individual differences and the acknowledgement of the right of different types of pupils to different educational treatment, really significant changes in the attitude toward school discipline have resulted. Now, it seems to me, uncertainty regarding classroom discipline has become an area of grave concern to many beginning teachers, I should like to take this opportunity to share with you some ideas that may help to make your entrance to your first teaching assignment a little less traumatic. Good discipline is no longer considered equivalent to unrelieved silence and con- formity to rules, nor can it be measured in terms of outward obedience to explicit com- mands of the teacher, nor does it consist of good behaviour in the teachers' presence only, Good discipline depends upon good communication. Rules should be as few as pos- sible, as simple and unambiguous as circumstances allow. General standards of behaviour should be inculcated which will be applied to varying and unforeseen situations, Such be- haviour will be ensured when as far as possible pupils understand the reasons for the rules to which they must submit and the standards which they are expected to achieve. Recognize that there still remains things that are true, honest, just, pure, of good re- port and acknowledge them as the authoritative context of educational behaviour.

Page 12 text:

jfrum the rinripaI'5 ffire... No one told you it was going to be easy to succeed as a teacher, You have taken only the first step on the way to becoming a successful teacher. l hope you found it difficult because few worthwhile things are achieved easily. One of the few, is not the career of a successful teacher. As a teacher the challenges are innumerableg the problems are difficult to defineg the solutions, even the brilliant ones, are slow to prove themselves. My hope for you is that you have the commitment to persevere and the energy of constant courage to reach the highest of goals and the greatest of rewardsg to be recogni- Zed by those you teach as a great teacher. O D. F. Harris

Page 14 text:

hitnrial It is indeed an honour to have been chosen the editor of Spectrum '71, I sincerely hope that I have fulfilled the desires of the student body. This year is a very important year to all of us. Finally we can see the dream turn into reality. Looking back, we shall remember the practice-teaching weeks, the activities at the college, and all the friends we met there. Therein lies the duty of any yearbook, to help enhance those memories, The theme of Spectrum '71 originates from a poem by Catullus, Hail and Farewell. There are many possible interpretations of how this applies to London Teachers' College. The most obvious is the short duration of our stay hereg we come in September, and in a short while, May comes and we are gone. Or are we saying Farewell to London Teachers' College and Hail to the amalgamated Faculty of Education? To the yearbook staff, it means saying farewell to the last yearbook produced by the college. In closing, reflect back to when you were an elementary pupil. Did you have a teacher who particularly motivated you and started you moving on the right road? What he did for you, try best to do for your pupils! W