The Making of an Educator - The Journey to El Loco Parentis

It's a wonder, considering all the barriers to becoming a teacher I encountered, that I ended up becoming one anyway. The route that led me to teaching was certainly indirect because of all the barriers. And I certainly never expected I'd eventually teach other teachers how to teach.

My desire to become a high school teacher was quite strong when I was 16 years old. Not long after, I acknowledged my desire to be a father. The former was because I really enjoyed my high school experience, but I didn't feel I was able to navigate the halls, procedures, nor skills that it took to succeed at least conventionally. But before high school, I did have such a teacher who was not only fair, but made an incredible impression on me. It was my math teacher, and I'll never forget in grade 8, during our trip to Quebec City, he patted me on the shoulder, impressed that I was spending some of the bus ride reading a book on math puzzles. I shouldn't say that my high school teachers were not good. They were likely the very best one could find in any high school. But I had a number of bad experiences which I felt were unreasonable.

Photo by Michael Barker

I had an accounting teacher who made my life hell when I openly accepted a zero for skipping a test. She left the room shortly after I graciously accepted a zero, because her attempt to humiliate me failed. She asked me if I had a note for missing the test. I said I didn't. She asked if I skipped the test, and I said that I did. My father taught me never to lie, and at this point, I just wanted to stop skipping to end the spiral of missing class. It just ends up raising the price I paid for not adequately studying for the test and skipping it. I reasoned that it was a mistake, and there was no getting around writing the test if I was to also maintain my integrity, and skipping to avoid answering the questions about missing the test only made things worse. So I cut my losses. My teacher exclaimed that I would get a zero on the test. I'm not sure if she expected me to plead with her, or get upset, but I just nodded and said, "No Problem." A few minutes later she excused herself and was replaced by another teacher. Although I doubt I had anything to do with the inability to continue teaching us, the teacher who came to replace her asked who Adam was, and I raised my hand. And that was it. We were told to work quietly. The following year, when that substitute became a temporary VP, she had it in for me.

I was called down to the office for skipping class and she gave me a detention. The first of my high school career. After last period, I went to my locker, told my friends I was not walking home with them, sorted my things and went up to the office. I took a seat, and worked on my math homework for 30 minutes. The secretary excused us. The following day, I was called down again and asked why I hadn't attended the detention. I told her that I did attend. She said my name wasn't on the clipboard. I explained that I didn't know there was a clipboard. She said that if my name wasn't on the clipboard, I hadn't attended, and I wasn't there when she left the office. I told her I was sorry. I then told her she could ask the secretary, but she wouldn't have it. She didn't need to ask the secretary because I wasn't there when she left. She forced me to admit that I skipped detention or risk being suspended. I sat in silence, unsure how to handle it. Luckily, she broke the silence telling me I would have to serve another detention. She advised me not to go to my locker and to come straight to the office to serve the detention. This told me she knew I was late because I didn't go right away, so I followed this advise. But I also went to speak to the principal. I didn't like the threat of being suspended and being forced to say something that wasn't true. He sympathized, but for all practical purposes told me to appease her and serve the detention.

I'll spare the details of the physical education teacher who forced me to drop his course because I wasn't interested in the weight training module, the English teacher who denied me my vote in the school election for not attending her class (I was going to take it at night school), and the History teacher who gave my Head Photography position to someone else despite my efforts as a young Head Photographer. But these incidents all built upon my interest in becoming a compassionate teacher for students and ensuring there was less injustice in schools. Note that looking back on it, I'm happy for those experiences. They made me stronger and shaped who I am. I don't blame them for anything, and take full responsibility for what happened to me. I made some poor choices, even if they were noble.

I had some great experiences in high school that made those experiences less traumatic. Such as my music teacher, who was refreshingly not prejudiced, allowing students to volunteer Saturday mornings, building sets for the musical. I gained some confidence with power tools for no other reason than they let me use power tools. Even though I flunked English time and time again, but then became the best student in summer school, I never found any real confidence with English. But there was a good experience I had with an English teacher who gave me freedom in a way that I would show up from time to time just to learn something. One day we read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. He asked us for our interpretation. Nobody was interested. He asked why he seemed to be out of place, why the footman in the poem would snicker at Prufrock's coat. It struck me. I gave my interpretation, comparing it to Pygmalion (My Fair Lady) and when I was done, he just started at me, smiling slightly. After class, he asked why I wouldn't come more often. I told him I would but never did. I preferred fewer forced books to read and essays to write in summer school.

My father was the one who discouraged me, or rather, painted an unflattering picture of the life and times of a high school teacher. Teaching the same thing over and over again, and how boring it would be after a few years. Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Breakfast Club reinforced this negative image of the teaching profession. So I set my sights elsewhere. He would have supported me in doing anything, and ultimately, I followed another dream which was to work at the CBC. And then I did work at the CBC. But the thing I loved most working there was training others to use the computers to encode media and our online news delivery system. I eventually became staff, but without getting into too much detail, I pissed off my manager while trying to be helpful, and I suffered for it. I was no longer asked to participate in consulting and it was one of the aspects I enjoyed most, along with the occasional training. So I considered opening up a post-production school. That was when a friend of mine suggested I consider becoming a high school teacher. I told him I wanted to teach post-production and maybe photography, not French, which I saw as my only teachable. He said I could teach those things in high school. I investigated, and was immediately drawn to the idea, when it turned out he was right.

My classroom window at TheStudentSchool

I got accepted to every one of my university choices, which was a great relief. I was afraid I wouldn't get accepted anywhere. I even got a scholarship to Queens, which would have been cool. Maybe Elon Musk would have been my friend. Once I was accepted, I put in my resignation and many of my colleagues and friends said I was crazy. It wasn't easy to take that leap, but I believed strongly that you are rewarded by taking risks. I had no security or promise that I would have a job after Teacher's College. And I loved the people I worked with, and would miss them, but I told myself I just wouldn't see them every day, but I would see them. And I do, from time to time. They are still very close friends, who I love and adore. This past summer I brought Gandhi's Rotis for lunch and it was amazing to see them all at once. Jessica brought Caribbean soda, and Andrew said it made his year, or something like that. Best day of his summer? Next week I'm going to hang with my CBC Archives peeps. Had I stayed at Archives, it might have been even harder to make the move!

When it came to my teaching career, and getting a job, I was very serious and dedicated to getting exactly what I wanted. I only applied to the TDSB. All my eggs in one basket. Luckily it paid off. I remember I drove to 5050 Yonge 3 hours in advance just in case my car broke down. I didn't want to take the subway for fear that the subway might break down. In the end, the two retired principals who interviewed me asked if I wouldn't mind having my interview early since I arrived over an hour before my appointment, and a teacher candidate called to say he was going to be late, so I agreed to take his place. I already had a leg up! After that, I did a few interviews, and luckily my cover letter, which spoke more about my dad than about me, resonated with Mamacita Principale, as I called her. She hired me.

And the rest as they say, is history. Now I teach teachers how to teach at Niagara University on top of my day job in the TDSB. I wonder what the next step will be. Author? *grin*

PS - My grade 9 Physics Summer School teacher (who I became friends with) eventually came across my name in the TDSB email list and asked if my father's name was Kamal. Ended up visiting her so many years after she taught me. That was a trip!

The Making of an Athlete - Trials and Tribulations of Athleticism

Sometimes I wonder if I could have been an Olympian. There are many components at play but the main one seems to be athleticism. The main reason I was judged as unathletic in school was simple. I was raised by immigrants, neither of whom watched or was interested in professional sports, and while I believe my dad was averse to athletic competition, and did not like to exert himself physically (which he more than made up for through mental exertion) he must have seen that I was not deemed as athletic and wanted me to have every advantage in that regard. So he took what he read and learned, and tried to see if that would make a difference. A scholars approach, which was not misplaced, but lacked a crucial element. But more on that in a moment.

My hockey skates. I loved those Super Tacks!

Growing up I was always interested in playing. I was very good at testing things, and observing things. I would test the limits of balance, and agility on occasion, and would gauge the possibility of success based on what I saw others doing. This would not have been a problem if I had distinguished between those my size, and those much larger than me. Someone larger could easily jump over the puddle, and it took some time to understand why the same approach landed me in the puddle instead.

It was around grade 7 that my grades in physical education excelled. I was starting to grasp the rules of sport, which is where I wish there was more focus. There were a lot of assumptions made before then about how the game was played, and so I didn't achieve because I couldn't develop strategy or even know what I needed to do at what time. Scoring on your own net is confusing when the teacher flips the sides of teams. In grade 7 I found myself saying to myself, "Why didn't you explain that? I can do that." As soon as I found out that you could catch the football as an interception, I started intercepting like crazy. I watched everyone else push or hit the ball, so I did the same thing. But I had a knack for analyzing how things would play out. If I guarded a player well, they would never get thrown the ball, but if I made it seem as though they were open, and wait till the quarterback wound up and then pounced, I got in front of the ball easily to pick it out. But of course it was confusing when sometimes I was praised, and other times I was cursed. If it was their last down (opportunity to throw the ball) you didn't want to intercept. I recall a game of dodgeball where I was the last one on my side again the last one on the other side. I remember many of my peers couldn't believe it, but I had a keen eye, and figured out that it was a patience game. Wait till the other side makes a mistake. I'll never forget that game. I had few moment of glory back then.

It was this ability to read the field in all sports that allowed me to improve exponentially. I wasn't strong nor did I have incredible dexterity, but I had a mental advantage, and a persistence. As the years went on, and my muscle memory improved, and my understanding of the games grew, I became quite an athlete. When I started playing soccer, I found my position on defence didn't require the footwork skills I lacked, and felt I found my place when a friend referred to me as a pillar on the field, frustrating players who were often denied a goal scoring opportunity because of my relentlessness. I still lacked fundamental strategy.

My dad's heart was in the right place when he enrolled me in figure skating when I was in grade 4. He had read that hockey players had an advantage if they had first learned to figure skate. And he wasn't wrong. Skating was the one activity before grade 7 where I was, at the very least, on a level playing field with my peers, but often enough it provided a huge advantage. I enjoyed figure skating, but as soon as I got to the stage of jumping and spinning, and falling on my ass repeatedly, I stopped enjoying it. But by then I had the fundamental skills necessary to float around the rink and make it to the last stages of British Bulldog, a game where you tried to make it across the rink without being tagged by those in the centre. Eventually my cousin was sent to take me to buy hockey equipment. I would take the bus to the rink after Saturday Morning Classes, and my dad might have come to one of my games, but he didn't understand it so he was likely bored watching. And it's cold. I only signed up for one year of hockey in the end. I managed one assist the whole season by simply passing the puck up from my defensive position, and our star player managed to get a break-away and score. My coach repeatedly told me to watch the off side. He taught me the strategy of what to do at the blue line, and where to go, as the puck moved around in the opposing team's end, but he never explained the magic of the blue line which dictated off side. I heard it a lot. "Watch the off-side!" and "That wasn't off-side!" I didn't know I should never let the puck past the blue line. Many years later when I was part of a hockey playoff pool, I watched a bit of hockey and managed to figure out the whole off-side thing. It's pretty easy to understand, really. If you ever want to understand it, let me know. I'm your guy.

Right before my dad passed away, I had just started working at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Mother Corp, and I started working out. It wasn't really my thing, so I just continued with sport, but explored something I could do more regularly. So I bought a rowing machine. A nifty beautiful Concept II rower Model B, which I have since upgraded to a Model C. I remember one time I was on the rowing machine, and my dad came looking for me in my new place, and he just lay on my bed watching me row. I can imagine what he thought. He probably thought I was slightly insane. He didn't understand or comprehend why anyone would do anything that resulted in breathing hard, sweating, and seemingly toy with thresholds of pain. I doubt he ever experienced the endorphins and high that comes with physical exertion. A few years after he passed away. Although one of the youngest of his siblings, his more athletic brothers and sisters outlived him considerably. The importance of regular exercise was not lost on me. I eventually took a introduction to rowing course at the Argonaut Rowing Club. I loved it, but the early morning hours and one of the girls on my team who constantly blamed me for our lack of progress (but was finally put in her place by our coxswain/coach) resulted in my abandoning it. Our coxswain Ralph wanted to train me in skulling which meant individual rowing, but I was tearing the skin off my hands, so I bowed out. I do miss it though. There was something amazing about being so close to the water, and I felt so at peace. More recently, I found that same feeling doing some kayaking. My first time was with my friend Diana I believe, and she loves it. The time I did it on my own was in New Jersey, and my growth mindset allowed me to venture far from my cousin's cottage, with the belief that I had the muscle and steam to get back.

After rowing, I got into running, and started training for a full marathon. An injury kept me from keeping up my full marathon training, but I was growing tired of the super long distances. Although I haven't run a full marathon, I ran several half marathons, leaving my 5 and 10ks behind. But I haven't run in a long time. I think when I finally came to terms with my dad passing away, I no longer needed the running, which was a time I could have conversations with my dad. I never ran with music. Ever. I loved it, and miss it, sometimes.

I eventually got into cross-country biking, and everything changed. I think I wanted to do something epic after I drove across America along Route 66. I read about a mayor in a town who biked from Santa Monica to his city on Route 66 to raise money and boost tourism. I never liked the speed demons on the bike paths, but I did enjoy biking, and when I got a nice upright dutch bike, I discovered biking could be comfortable. A tadpole recumbent bike was even more comfortable! And if you're biking from Northern Washington to Southern California, you want to be comfortable. In the end, I sold Rawk Lobster, my tadpole trike, to my friend, and built a custom touring bicycle. Equally comfortable, to a certain degree, and a lot zippier. I have yet to do a really long tour, but I managed almost 260km on a newly injured knee in Nova Scotia. My first day riding, the twinge was there. I would ice it at night and managed 3 days of riding, getting off and pushing up hills which provides ed too painful. A few weeks after I did my Pacific Coast tour, I completed my first century. 100 miles in a single day. That was an entirely different experience than doing 50-65 miles a day along the coast, even though it was relatively flat. My love of biking will never die. I currently have 4 bikes, if you include my old mountain bike which resides at my villa in Egypt. I love them all, and they all have names. But I will try to have fewer.

Rawk Lobster II

Lately, I've been doing ballet, which is hard work. I'm also going to take up basketball, although I'll learn on my own before doing pick-up games. But I think I'm eventually going to focus my exercise more on gymnastics. If I'm going to raise a bunch of kids, I'm going to need to be able to keep up with them. How's that for motivation to stay in shape?

So there you have it. The making of an athlete, sort of. I don't think anyone would look at me and think I was an athlete, but looks can be deceiving. I'm full of energy, and I have a growth mindset when it comes to what I can accomplish physically. I don't think I see any limitations, and I think as my body ages, I'll embrace it even more.