Fwd: EPISODE 566 “TO SIR, WITH LOVE!” JOHN RICKER TURNS 99 YEARS OLD

EPISODE 566   “TO SIR, WITH LOVE!”  JOHN RICKER TURNS 99 YEARS OLD

alan skeoch

April 19, 2022

Impact on one young teacher

Teachable moments do occur, and this is one of them.  

(THIS note was intended as a birthday card to John Ricker, my teacher, but now seems

it should be a bit bigger than that.  So it is now EPISODE 566, very personal kind of Episode.)

Hi Marvi and John

Of course Marjorie and I want to wish John a Happy Birthday…99 years…the Castelfield 

Institute has been a wonderful way of maintaining contact with you

John.  

 I am so glad you forgot to send my bill for all those bottles of beer

and sandwiches.  Do not send bill now…too deep in the past.

I remember my grandmother and grandfather celebrating their 95th

 and grandma said to me: “Alan, it seems like only yesterday.”

She was referring to her lifespan…this motivated me to try and put

that lifespan together so others could share in her life history.  The research

sure surprised me and I am still digging.  i.e. Was the rather infamous

Dr. Price, a Welshman who impregnated many women including my

great Grandmother,…was he really that Dr. Price?   

Family lore said Dr. Price was a man who evaded responsibility.  By

digging I discovered that was not the case.  He disbelieved in marriage

but paid for my grandmother to attend a very fancy ladies college

in Kington…she emerged as a ‘lady’ which meant my grandfather was

expected to tip his hat to her.  I am not sure he did that.

Why tell you this?  Because “only yesterday” applies so well to you

and the richness of your past.  I can only imagine your pacifist father’s

shock when he discovered you had volunteered for the air force.

And I know much about the horror you faced in bomber command.;;

and can feel the loss you felt when so many friends did not return.

 But also you resolved to get on with life and make a career of teaching

Only yesterday!   Lots of good times, John, especially the impact you

had on me as a very naive potential teacher.  Your ‘antics’ at the

front of the room were worth replicating with warmth and gusto.

Always a serious thread of solid history giving your lessons real meaning.

I remember one odd lesson on “doing projects” where your students

at Parkdale made historical objects like siege weapons of ancient 

times.   My students did the same only went one better.  The girls

made dresses … i.e. Marie Antoinette’s dress…and wore them

to class.  One dress I kept to show other students and then returned 

it to her 30 years later.  “Sir, I swiped the dress material from a yard

goods store in Parkdale.”  How could she do that?  Under her own

dress?  I should have asked.

One of the things that makes me really good about the career path

you sent me on at Parkdale is the continuing contact I have with

some of the ex-students.  Two of them, Jeanette Chau and Julia (Walkely) Sherman.

even nominated me for

some ‘writer of the year’ award in Mississauga.  Imagine that?

After retiring in 1999…being still remembered.    Like you I am out to pasture and enjoying the

rich red clover that the bees enjoy. To be remembered is Sweet all the same.

What was I doing at the OCE winter program when most of my

friends had taken the speed up summer program?   I thought

the longer course would be better.  And to do so I turned down

many job offers from Humberside and others.  If I was to be a

teacher I wanted the best grounding possible.  And got it.

Partway through the winter course you sent me to Brockville for

a paid job for two weeks.  What a rare privilege.  Accomodation was arranged 

with an Irish family that wanted me to play checkers with them

each evening.  How could I prepare lessons?  Only after they went to bed.

But Must do the lessons.  Not hired as a babysitter.  Those kids expected some big questions.   Some

of my best lessons began the way you began often.  “Can you help me.”  “I do not for

the life of me understand why Riel was executed by John A.. Macdonald?”

(long long pause) ” Can anyone help me?”

Homework!   A thorny isaue.  Too much homework can destroy the

impact of the big questions.   Maybe best to ignore homework.  Most boys

would not do homework anyway.  Some could not read.  Some could

not understand abstractions anyway.  Some did not give a damn.

But all were capable of being motivated.

I remember another teacher who you must have known.  Evan Cruickshank

was my teacher at Humberside then moved to Parkdale.  You two had

similarities in that you could motivate students with big questions.  “Crooky”

once said in class in answer to a student question…”I don’t know.”

That night I went to the library ro help him out and told him privatley  the next day

the info he needed.  He thanked me.  Later I realized it was a teaching method.

He could trigger kids to do things they rarely did…like doing research in

a library…alone.  

Difficult students were a challenge.  I loved trying to turn them around.

Like the kids that told me to ‘Fuck Off!”  They were the best to turn

around and the easiest.  You told me I would meet these kids.

If a kid reached the stage of frustration that

he or she was ready to use that expletive then the student was ready

for a teachable moment.   Lots of unhappy kids at Parkdale.  Kids

that needed help without fawning.  “Alan, if you take the job at Parkdale,

you will never leave.”  You were so right, John.  And what an honour to

be a teacher in the school where you were once a student and became

a teacher after the horrors of World War II.  It was a trust bestowed.

Then there was Simon Cotter.  President of the student council who

In your OCE classes way back in 1963 there was no one in the room

that you did not notice.  A collective.  No favouritism.  All were tied up in one bundle.

I loved that.  Sucking around was never something I liked doing.

I wanted my teachers to be above favouritism even if they had favourites.

Some of the students i taught so many years ago still call me “Sir”

and have difficulty calling me “Alan” which to me means there was respect

for the distance between teachers and students.  And no favoritism even

if I had favoriites like Conrad Blonski whose mother was barely holding

on…living below the poverty line as a “carnie” with a popgun booth

at local carnivals.  “Where do you sleep, Conrad?” “On the floor beneath

the popguns.” he said without feeling sorry for himself.  Who could not love

such a kid.?  He loved me.  Sounds so vain to say that.  How do I know?  Because he punched me

on the shoulder often with a “:good morning, sir”   The happiest times of his

life were his student days at Parkdale.  Sad to say that.  Good teachers

have that skill.   You did.  I tried to emulate.  No sucking around.  Respect.

Rather long “Happy Birthday”, John.  But it could be one hell of s lot longer.

alan skeoch

(we have known each other

for 63 years…I now call you John

but called you ’sir’ for many years.)