Posts with the high school tag

Barris Beat

New Normal or B-Western

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
What normal looks like now. cbc.ca

Some friends and I got together this week. We were abiding by the no-more-than-10-in-a-bubble rule. Actually, there were only about five of us, and we weren’t even in the same neighbourhood. We’d gathered – as so many of us do these days – for a Zoom chat. After we’d caught up on all the latest, somebody sighed and wondered when we might all gather at a favourite watering hole again. There was a pause.

“Geez, I wish things were back to normal,” one friend said.

There was general agreement that sitting face-to-face, having the chance to give hugs to family and good friends, or enjoy a cool one on a patio together really would be great to have back. Later, however, I concluded there’s a great deal about the old normal I’d rather not return to. (more…)

Barris Beat

We need grads, not geniuses

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The faceless, helpless time writing Grade 13 Departmentals.

They crammed us into a single hall at the school. Often it was the high-school gymnasium filled with rows and rows of movable desks and chairs. We were allowed pencils, an eraser, a ruler and limitless sheets of what we used to call “foolscap” paper on which to write our answers. In came an adjudicator, who announced the name of the exam, the time available to complete it and strict guidelines for decorum during the exam.

“If we catch you cheating,” the adjudicator announced, “we will disqualify your mark. You will fail the term.”

In my day – back in the 1960s – these meat-grinding assemblies to test the cumulative knowledge of students at year’s-end were known as “Departmentals.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Walk, don’t run the engine

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I made a health decision a few weeks ago. Well, it wasn’t really a health decision, but it had some health consequences, I guess. It might be called an environmental decision, because there are certainly planetary benefits. But then again, it was more expediency than anything else. The past few weeks, I’ve been up most weekday mornings and out the door early and on foot.

“I’m off to walk the boys to school,” I’ve been announcing to my wife, these past few weeks. (more…)