End of Big May Mean Scrapping Little Red School House

When I was news editor at the Chatham Daily News in 1968, my mother, Muriel E. (Hunt) Morris decided to come from Chapleau and spend  the summer with me. To keep herself busy during the day, she decided to take a summer course in education.

The times they were a changing in the late sixties in more ways than one, and education was included. Mom, who had taught school for 34 years at the time became increasingly frustrated with the new thinking in education being set out by the professor.

Just an aside about the changing times in the Sixties -- shortly after I arrived in Chatham Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy were assassinated; peace talks started in Paris to end the Vietnam war and on June 24, Pierre Trudeau led the Liberals to victory in the federal election. Our headline in 120 point type was CANADA GOES TRUDEAU, which wasn't quite true as he was not popular in some parts of the country.

Anyway, back to Mom and the professor.


One day the professor said in effect that teachers must "account for individual differences" in children, and used some other trendy words in his lecture. Mom, who had not said a word in class all summer, raised her hand to ask him a question. But the classroom teacher still taught to the middle simply because the way the system is structured., including new trendy words signifying really nothing.

"Don't you mean that all children are special with needs?," she asked. I don't recall his reply to Mom, but I do know the rest of the class agreed with her. After spending her entire teaching career treating each and every child as special with needs, she retired two years later after teaching at Chapleau Public School and at Kekabeka Falls for a total of 36 years.


Mom taught elementary school and emphasized the child before the subject content always.
Obviously she had no use for the labelling of children, or anyone else for that matter.


Let me give you an example that involved me. I was teaching economics at Chapleau High School, and almost all the students in my class failed a test. I was having coffee with my mother and pontificating against my students in typical teacher fashion. Mom stopped my little rant, made some suggestions including that maybe I scrap the course content as I had prepared it, and start over. She also suggested I might want to think about finding another career.


"Start where the students are, not where you are," she recommended, adding that she didn't have the foggiest notion what I was talking about when I tried to explain the material on the test.
I took her advice and we started over. In fact, as Junior "B" hockey was very big in Chapleau at the time, I used a hockey rink to teach the factors of production.

Some years later, a school board member, on a tour of the school, stuck his head in my classroom and asked me, "Is this there where they teach hockey?" I replied yes it was and offered to demonstrate. He didn't take me up on the offer. 

Today, more than ever, I believe my mother was right, and I was so fortunate to finish my teaching career at College of the Rockies where I helped found a grad program in new media communications which was very student centred. I will always be indebted to Dr. Wm. Berry Calder, the president of COTR, who believed that the future is now in 1994 and supported me as we pioneered web based communications when many told me that even email would never really catch on.

The advances in technology since I retired in 2000 have been phenomenal, and today I think of the possibilities for a real student centred education system where it is accepted that each child is special with needs is a starting point. Increasingly methinks that the little red school house and all its trappings designed for the 19th century should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Recently, over coffee, I was thumbing through 'The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath' by the American writer Nicco Nele which I had bought from Amazon.ca and picked up at the Canada Post Office in Shoppers Drug Mart.

However, I chuckled to myself given that I usually have coffee in "big" coffee chains and kept thumbing through Nele's rather incredibly good read and near the end came across two suggestions he makes. To better help us inhabit the End of Big, he suggests that in revising institutions, focus on making them more amenable and responsive to individuals and second, demand serious, thoughtful, informed leadership. (Italics are Nele's)

I would be most interested to hear from you. Please comment or email me atmj.morris@live.ca

Fleeing to our "liitle towns for moments of fellowship"

For such a time as this, Canadians surely did not ask or seek.

Let us please reject the poitics of fear and hate, as well as situations like the one that took place in Lethbridge, Alberta, involving a person from Cranbrook where I live.

 In 2014, I travelled  from Cranbrook to Toronto, (and back) where one of my oldest and dearest friends the late Harry "Butch" Pellow hosted a marvellous party attended by some folks I had not seen since high school days, more than 50 years ago. What a joyous occasion it was.

 As I flew across this vast and magnificent land, over the mountains, across the prairies to the forests of Ontario, into Toronto, which has been so much the central place in my life, I once again recalled the words of Bruce Hutchison in The Unknown Country.

Mr. Hutchison, who has Cranbrook roots, wrote in 1942, that "No one knows my country ...Who can know our loneliness on the immensity of prairie, in the dark forest and on the windy sea rock? A few lights, a faint glow in our largest city, the vast breast of the night and all around blackness and emptiness and silence. We flee to little towns for moments of fellowship."

2014 party attendees

In 2015, I made essentially the same trip across Canada but to Chapleau for the launch of 'The Chapleau Boys Go To War' which I co-authored with my cousin Michael McMullen.

Little did I think during my travels that I would be putting Mr. Hutchison's words into the context of 2018 in our country and beyond.

 He also posed the question: "Who but us can feel our fears and hopes and passions?"

 Indeed, who but us? And given our very troubled world, for a myriad of reasons, Canadians from coast to coast to coast vent their fears and hopes and passions as they try to understand, to make sense of it all.

 I won't pretend to have the answers, but I do know one thing for sure: Be not afraid.

 As Canadians, let us focus on the positive aspects of living in this still largely unknown country and strive to fulfill our hopes and passions.

 I often think of my mother's family who arrived in Canada in 1913 to make a new life for themselves. Not here long before my grandfather was badly burned in a fire but he survived. Then it was World War I, then the Great Depression, then World War II, and my father Flying Officer Jim Morris, was killed on active service in the RCAF in 1943.

 Through it all, my family and I know that yours faced its challenges too, and, never, ever let fear and hate rule their lives.

 Let me leave you with two quotes to think about:

 "Fear is the only true enemy, born of ignorance and the parent of anger and hate."  Edward Albert

 "The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear." Gandhi

 As difficult as it may be, let us focus on those things bringing us together rather than dividing us. Let us certainly not be intimidated, but lead the way to the "promised land" where our greatest hopes and passions will be fulfilled -- Canada!

 We are all children of the village in Canada and if need be, it is OK, even today to "flee" for a moment to the little towns for fellowship as Mr. Hutchison suggested in 1942.

I  did, even though the little town was a home in Toronto, and then Chapleau, the town where I was raised.  And as many readers know, my other safe place is Orlando, Florida My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Updated May 2018

 

School Days changing as cursive writing courses may disappear from core curriculum

Just as I was digesting a list of nine things that will disappear in my lifetime sent to me by an old friend, I stumbled across a story on Yahoo News that the end of teaching cursive writing in elementary schools is on the horizon.

Ever since, one of the verses from that old song "School Days" has been running through my mind. Remember?

"School days, school days,

Good old golden rule days.

Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic

Taught to the tune of a hickory stick.

You were my bashful, barefoot beau

and I wrote on your slate.

'I love you Joe'

When we were a couple of kids."

Back in the day, so to speak. "reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic" were the Three R's, the core of the elementary school curriculum.

And above the blackboard in almost ever elementary school classroom was the alphabet in capital and small letters.

But first, here briefly is the list of nine things my friend sent me. Set to disappear are the post office, the cheque, the newspaper, the physical book and newspaper, the land line telephone, music listened to on devices as  as we have known it, television and generally many  "things" we own as they will all be on a "cloud". Actually I tend to agree, but they are a story for another day.

Back to cursive writing. It never entered my mind that was disappearing as core part of elementary school curriculum in over 40 states in the United States and several Canadian provinces. Although I can't remember the last time I sent anyone a handwritten letter, and only scribble notes as needed, and keep a journal, I never assumed kids would not be required to take cursive writing. 

Tori Floyd, writing in The Right Click a Yahoo News blog on June 16, 2013. writes,   "In the not so distant past, it was a rite of passage for student in elementary school to sit through lessons on cursive writing, slowly learning how to shape connected-up letters in the hope of one day having legible penmanship.

"But with the increased presence of keyboards everywhere, the days of cursive writing may be numbered and schools are seeing the writing on the wall.

"As the end of cursive writing appears to be nigh, many parents and educators probably find themselves wondering: should we still be teaching cursive writing?"

I wonder too. Those who argue it suggest it is "one more thing teachers have to help students with in light of the pervasiveness of electronic communication."

But, occupational therapist Suzanne Asherson  said on Mashable  “In today’s world children need to know how to both use keyboarding to type, as well as being able to pick up a pencil or a pen and be able to write.  Both skills are necessary and should be taught to our children in order to have functional adults who are efficient in their jobs and in the real world.”

Maybe, but it begs the question -- in the 21st Century is excellence in cursive writing needed to be a "functional" adult who is "efficient in their jobs and in the real world".

This debate over cursive writing takes me back to when I started high school in 1955. Because the powers that be determined I was university bound, I was enrolled in an academic program and took Latin instead of Typing. In fact, I took Latin until the end of my first year at university, and I haven't spoken or written it much in the last 50 years. I still don't know how to type properly using my own "hunt and peck" system, and I think I typed something every day of my working and retired life.

However,  as Mr. G.A. Hill, one of my outstanding Latin teachers told me, studying the subject made me better in English. 

And, he was right. Perhaps the same argument can be made for the continuation of cursive writing as part of the core curriculum. Simply put, it's good for students.

Nonetheless, no doubt I should have taken Typing too.

In 2011 in a piece for ABC World News, Brian Braiker wrote, "Antiquated or no, cursive is viewed by some parents and educators as essential to an education -- especially as text-happy teens become ever more thumb-centric."

Try as I might, I was unable to compose new words for "School Days". Somehow, "texting, tweeting and thumbing" and writing on a "tablet" just didn't do it, although tablet may be digital version of slate!

What are your thoughts? I look forward to hearing from you. You may comment here or my email is mj.morris@live.ca

                                     

Friday Morning Coffee Club annual golf tournament successful with surprise winner

The Winners

The Friday Morning Coffee Club held its third annual successful golf tournament at the Elizabeth Lake Lodge with a surprise winner.

Ed Saffin brought his grandson Tom along to play in the tournament - and he not only notched four holes in one over the 36 holes, but emerged as the winner of the Ron McFarland Trophy as the winner, with lowest overall score.

The foursome who emerged victorious in the tournament included Jim Roberts, Joel Vinge, Antoine Beurskens and Dennis Burton.

They will be presented with the Peter Davidson Memorial Trophy in a ceremony at a later date. Tom will also be presented with the Ron McFarland Trophy at that time.

Tom

The Friday Morning Coffee Club has been meeting regularly for four years now.

MJ, Tom, Ed Saffin

Joining Ed and Tom on the losing team were Ken Wellington and yours truly, who despite our best efforts, and some holes in one, could not pull off a victory.

Ken

Ken did get a hole in one

However, it was another great time with plenty of laughs for all of us, and thanks to the folks at Elizabeth Lake Lodge for having us.

Antoine

Thanks to Jim Roberts and Joel Vinge for putting it all together. Photos by Joel

Joel Vinge shares special meaning of 1937 Ford

Joel Vinge, a founding member of the Friday Morning Coffee Club and well-known Cranbrook entertainer, volunteer andsinger in choirs, and other groups, shared photos of the 1937 Ford which has a special meaning for him.

Joel tells us the story: "Last week the three of us (the car - 1937 Ford, my identical twin Dave Sindholt and me) all born in 1937 got together to take these pictures. 

"The car, owned by brother, Dave Carter, of one of our neighbours, Louise, was visiting from Whiterock.

"Dave Sindholt was born in Ontario the same day I was born at Sec. 12, Tp. 47 Rnge. 19, W2nd, Saskatchewan. Oldness does have some perks!

"Happy Thanksgiving!"

How about that dashboard!!!

PS... If any readers have memories or stories/pics about old cars, please feel free to contaact me... My email is mj.morris@live.ca and I am on Facebook.

Bill Groves shares good stick along with retail career travels

Bill Groves, a long time friend who lives in Chapleau says he liked my  " Good Stick " story, thanks Bill, and decided to share his own as well as a bit of history from his career in the retail business. Good stuff Bill, and as always thanks!  MJM

 By Bill Groves

I have always had a good stick ( since moving back to Chapleau in 1976 ! A couple of pictures are included.

Having semi retired from my retail life,  21 Places in 21  years in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta,  training , managing stores , then on the road as district manager  in B.C. and Alberta. Eventually I opened our own two new stores in Kamloops B.C.and ran those for nearly four years. Barbara, my wife  ran one and I ran the other one in two different shopping centres at each end of the city then sold them to the Stedman Company and retired back to Ontario as my parents had serious health problems .

Barbara (Bowland) Groves

Stedmans heard I was back in Ontario and contacted me to see if I would help out an old friend , the store manager in Cochrane Ont while he was recuperating from  a heart operation. I said ok . I ended up staying for six months ! Now it was January and I wasn't sure what I was going to work at so I offered to manage the Stedman Store In Chapleau Ont as I had just heard they had transferred the manager and had no immediate replacement.

The deal must be that they leave me in Chapleau until my kids had finished school . They agreed ! I maybe mention here that Chapleau is Barbara's home town and that's why I accepted this position.

So goes the story ! Here it is 2016 having run the store for the company for ten years then purchasing the business and the building . Ran it as Groves Department Store for twenty years and we have now been re-retired for eleven years after leasing my building to another retailer !

Back to the good stick. Sorry for the reminiscing rant ! I use a walking pole rather than a cane type stick as I find it comforting to walk with and to hunt with especially on uneven trails , bush roads etc. When hunting I use it as a hunting stick as you can see it has a short branch sticking out at waist height and one at shoulder height for resting and aiming my rifle when sitting or standing.  It is also pronged and sharp at the tip for protection from animals, snakes and unfriendly dogs !

I have made a number of cane types which my wife uses and enjoys for the steadiness it provides her while following me on these hikes on the bush trails around town and out at the cottage.

The first part of this is quite off topic but somewhere in your and my friend relationship you had asked me for a story about us so I added a bit of it here.

Thanks for inviting me to participate in your good stick / good friends stories

Bill Groves

Friday Morning Coffee Club launches series of 'good stick' stories

Friday Morning Coffee Club, aka FMCC, launched its 'good stick' project with members bringing their own personal examples to the regular session on Feb.19.

Somehow, at least to me, it seems that the man I met on the bush road near my home in Chapleau on July 28, 1980, who commented that maybe some day I would find a good stick like he had, meant much more than I thought I did.

After receiving my own good stick recently from my lifelong friend Harry 'Butch' Pellow, of course I had to bring it to a FMCC meeting, and suddenly others were sharing their personal experiences with me. 

In fact Gerry Warner was the first to launch our 'Good Stick' series with a fascinating look at his travels with a stick he has had for 40 years. Here is the link to it: http://themainstreeter.blogspot.com/2016/02/theres-no-friend-like-good-stick-by.html

Gerry Warner

One thing leads to another, as it usually does, and we now hope to have a series of personal stories on finding your good stick, and the role it plays in our lives. Members are working on their stories now and they will be published on this blog and a Facebook page.

If you would like to participate, please just email me at mj.morris@live.ca

Good sticks on the table

Over the years I have written several stories based on my own good stick experience, and even included reference to it at an ecumenical service in which I participated at the 90th anniversary reunion of Chapleau High School in 2012. I expressed the hope that everyone would find their own good stick.

In the letter accompanying my stick Butch wrote: "As our frailties become more evident, we need to be mindful of every step going forward -- be reminded of your friend many years ago who explained the "good stick theory."  

For a guy who loves metaphor, it took me about 30 years to grasp the implied comparison between a piece of wood that was very helpful and powerful in helping me as I walked along a  bush road and my friends who have also been there with me and for me -- most particularly Harry 'Butch' Pellow. I have been most blessed. Thanks Butch for being the "good stick" so often over the past 70 years or so.

As FMCC members share their stories, it takes me back to a speech I heard by Ray Bradbury, who commented that he was born "a collector of metaphors. Metaphors are the centre of life."

Brian shows his "good stick"

Most assuredly I agree, as I look forward to the metaphors from my friends in FMCC, and any who choose to share their good stick stories.

I would just add that the man on bush road, while expressing the hope that I would find my good stick, added that maybe I would also see the auburn wolf, but not to be afraid. It would not hurt me. I will leave interpretations of that metaphor to you my friends.

Here is link to recent version of it:http://themainstreeter.blogspot.com/2016/02/discovering-meaning-behind-good-stick.html

Last but not least. thanks to Joel for making sure everyone brought their good stick, arranging and doing photography, and being a great 'good stick' to all of us in FMCC.Can't wait to hear your good stick story Joel... He tells us it comes from Maine.

Discovering the meaning behind the 'good stick'

Perhaps  the man I met on the bush road at Chapleau some 30 years ago who told me "Maybe some day you will find a good stick too", meant much more than I thought he did.

As I walked along the road, coming towards me was a man who I had often seen go by my house, but I did not know him. As he approached, he said, "Where is your good stick?", stopping to explain that he always carried a "good stick" with him. He moved it from hand to hand, he told me and it served to strengthen his arms and upper body.

"Maybe some day you will find a good stick too," he said.

As I walked along the road, coming towards me was a man who I had often seen go by my house, but I did not know him. As he approached, he said, "Wher smiling, and off he went, adding, "Maybe you will also see the wolf. It's auburn. Don't be afraid. He won't hurt you." I never saw the man again, or the wolf.... (or so I thought)

I had written a story about finding the good stick some years ago, and even spoke about it at the 90th anniversary reunion of Chapleau High School in 2012. I hadn't thought about it much recently, until I received huge box from my lifelong friend Harry 'Butch' Pellow. Upon opening it. Butch had sent me a walking stick.

Butch and MJM circa 1947

But, it was the enclosed letter that made me fully realize the metaphor of the "good stick". He wrote that it was sent with best wishes "as you carry it". 

He added: "As our frailties become more evident, we need to be mindful of every step going forward -- be reminded of your friend many years ago who explained the "good stick theory."  I get the message my friend.

Butch and Brigitte Pellow 2015

By the way, the bush road was actually a logging road built originally by Edgar Pellow, Butch's uncle circa 1930.

Let me go back to my story about the good stick, and I hope I don't mangle metaphors too badly in so doing. "Shortly thereafter I came across a stick and picked it up. It wasn't as sturdy or straight as the one the man was carrying, but crooked as it was I had found my good stick. My good stick became my travelling companion helping me cross a beaver dam and walk along the edge of a pond. When I became tired I leaned on it and took a rest, and when I stumbled it helped me keep my balance, and aided me as I climbed a hill.

"My good stick was very powerful indeed, and long after I lost it I thought that if that old piece of wood from a dead tree could have been so much help to me as I wandered along, giving me confidence to surmount minor obstacles, maybe the man I met on the road meant much more with his comments than maybe I would find a good stick and even see the wolf that would not harm me some day."

For a guy like me who loves metaphor, it took me about 30 years to grasp the implied comparison between a piece of wood that was very helpful and powerful in helping me as I walked along life's road and my friends who have also been there with me and for me -- most particularly Harry 'Butch' Pellow. I have been most blessed.

Thanks Butch for being the "good stick" so often over the past 70 years or so.

I was so excited with my discovery that I was going to use it as a framework for a review of 2015 which was a truly amazing one for me, as my friends, aka "good sticks" made possible. 

Back David, Jim, MJ, Ed, Brian, Joel, Antoine Seated, Dennis, Mark. Ron

However, the Friday Morning Coffee Club, aka FMCC, was meeting and of course, I had to bring my good stick to our weekly session. It is just on three years now since FMCC was launched quite unintentionally.. 

I started having coffee at Starbucks in the newly opened, now closed Target store, was joined by Joel Vinge, then Jim Roberts, and the rest is history.If everyone shows, we now have 20 members. There is no agenda. We meet for fellowship, many laughs for an hour with all the "good sticks" who have become good friends.

We celebrate birthdays and other special occasions, and have played golf and had breakfasts at Rocky View Ranch.

Without mixing metaphors any further, let me leave you with a quote from Stephen Grellet as I head out carrying my good stick:  “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

PS  I am not even going to try and deal with the wolf metaphor now!!!

There’s no friend like a Good Stick by Gerry Warner

Bull River Rumble

NOTE: Thanks to Gerry Warner for agreeing to launch the "Good Stick" stories. If you would like to participate, please email me at mj.morris@live.ca with Good stick in the subject line. MJM

By Gerry Warner

My “good stick,” which I’ve carried faithfully for almost 40 years, started as a birch sapling growing on the banks of Carpenter Creek near the ghost town of Sandon in the West Kootenay. Its bark was red like cherry wood because birch trees don’t develop their distinctive, peeling white color until they get a bit older than my wooden companion which was probably only a few years old when I cut it.

It was a handsome stick, unlike its owner, and I did some carving on it to give it a square grip, which made it even more distinctive something like its bearded owner. Now this was back in the mid-1970’s when few hikers carried sticks or even poles like so many do today. So I was a bit ahead of the curve in those days unlike today when you see hikers and walkers that seldom stray from sidewalks shuffling along—not with a beaten up, old, organic stick – but but with a gleaming, set of space-age, titanium or steel poles in case they get blown over by a summer breeze or a butterfly lands on their shoulder causing them to fall down and break a leg.

But I digress.

No, I’m not kidding about the age of my stick. I’ve probably had it more than 40 years and it’s showing its age. Most of the gleaming, scarlet – it really was scarlet – bark has long since peeled off even though I used to wax and varnish it on occasion. A short section also splintered off the lower end of the old birch wood stick and the wood left now is a dirty gray color far from the translucent red. But oh, the places we’ve been.

I carried and leaned on that stick for more than 200 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail, starting in Manning Park and going as far as Snoqualmie Pass in the Washington Cascades. I still dream of taking it, or it taking, me, all the way to the end of the Crest Trail in Mexico, but that will probably remain a dream. On another occasion, I used my trusty, old stick as a mast to hold a sail as I canoed down Lake Laberge on my way down the Yukon River to Dawson City. It shortened that long northern trip by at least a day.

Moyie Falls

Oddly enough. I didn’t take it with me when I walked the 400 miles or so along the El Camino Santiago in Spain because I was afraid its trail-worn character wouldmake it a likely target for a thief or it might have ended up as lost plane baggage on the trip over and back. Nor did I use it when I hiked into Everest Base Camp for largely the same reasons.

But I’ve hauled it almost to the top of Mt. Fisher several times, but abandoned it temporarily when I reached the exposed section of the peak where I needed both hands more than my faithful stick. And yes, I always hide it under the boulders and crevices of the saddle because it has been with me for so long I get more paranoid about somebody stealing it every year. And don’t knock paranoia. It gets worse with old age.

Summit Over Kindersley Pass

As I reflect back on the history of my “Old Stick,” I can’t help but wonder, who’s going to be around the longest? Tempered by all those hiking trips and being banged around from hither to yon. that stick, if anything, is stronger than it was when I rudely cut it down in the leafy, wilds of Carpenter Creek. As for me, I’m doing pretty good for a septuagenarian, a new septuagenarian I might add. But I’m not kidding myself. You only get so many years on this mortal coil. The flesh, if not the soul, is growing weaker and my day of reckoning is coming.

And you know something? If that damn stick outlasts me, I’ve just decided to change my will.
I want to be buried with that old hunk of Kootenay wood.

Finding "60 bucks" in pockets of dress pants led JR Wallace to Act of Random Kindness

JR Wallace

 Finding "60 bucks" in pockets of dress pants led to an Act of Random Kindness.

When JR Wallace, a young model and entrepreneur who lives in Texas went to the drycleaners recently to pick up his dress pants he was surprised,

Here is JR's story which appeared on Facebook,

JR wrote: "The lady who does my dry cleaning found 60 bucks wadded up in my Calvin Klein dress pants. When I picked them up she had the money clipped to the pants."

JR's action:

"The fact that she was honest and didn't take the money absolutely floors me. Any other employee would've taken that money gladly like it was never there!!!

"So enjoy that $60 tip sweetheart, Happy New Year."

I was able to reach JR and he explained further why he gave her the money

"I did it because well she works very hard. She's an older woman who's family left her the business when they died. Very sweet woman and probably doesn't receive many tips."

And he added: "As much as I needed that $60 I figured she could use it herself."

Never fear JR. What goes around, comes around. I am sure you will be rewarded for your Act of Random Kindness. Happy New Year!!

My email is mj.morris@live.ca