Editor:
Education, as I see it, has been a world of changes.
When I started teaching in 1954, with just Grade 12 and one year of Provincial Normal School in Victoria, I went to the Cassiar Asbestos Mine in Northern B.C.
I taught Grades 1-3 in a two-room school. My classroom was partitioned off at one end of the recreation hall; I had to ask the mine superintendent to close the hall during school hours, as my students and I were learning some very non-instructional language.
I then taught at Mile 1202 of the Alaska Highway in a one-room school. My Grade 8 male student kept feeding the pot-bellied stove so we would keep warm – it was up to -40 F at times. I even made my own ‘jelly pad’ so I could duplicate copies.
In 1957, my husband, son and I moved to Prince Rupert, where I taught until 1970, in elementary, then junior high, then senior high.
We moved to Richmond, my husband having decided to become a teacher, too, at the age of 37. While he attended the UBC’s shop-teacher program, I taught French 8-9, then went into counselling.
In 1974, I switched to the Delta School District, as we had bought property in South Surrey. In 1981, I became a counsellor at Seaquam Secondary till 1994 when I retired after 35 years of teaching.
Being only 57, and having both a French master of education and a counselling psychology master, I was able to go on the TTOC (Teachers Teaching On Call) list, with French-immersion, counselling, learning assistance and resource rooms.
This summer, I am retiring after 55 years of teaching a tremendous, varied group of students. I found students eager to work if it interested them, and eager to learn all about this world we are lucky to live in.
It is a world of fantastic changes from an education world of IQs to mixed groupings. From rote learning to group inquiry; from phonetics to sight reading and back again; from memorizing time tables to discovering how math principles really work; and, of course, laptops, iPads, etc. for research purposes.
My one regret is the amount of trees we cut now to photocopy materials because of lack of textbooks.
I found the students, parents, teachers and administrators very helpful and co-operative – although I did once have to administer the strap back in 1959. New teachers today have a much more difficult task.
I will always appreciate and never regret my wonderful years aiding young minds to develop to the best of their abilities.
Armida Hutt, Surrey
