No one knows when Jesus was actually born. I cannot lay claim to having more information than the rest, but scholars think it was sometime in October. God’s incarnation on earth is the most significant event in all of history so the fact that He came makes His actual date of arrival of little significance.

History tells us that one of the first Roman emperors to embrace the Christian faith was Constantine. In a political attempt to normalize the faith and compromise with the religious systems of the day, Constantine created a Christian celebration out of a pagan festival of trees and declared December 25 to be the birthdate of Jesus. Christmas didn’t exist before this took place in 312 AD, but it has been an integral part of the Christian faith ever since. The point is, for almost two millennia, Christmas has been celebrated around the world and it was brought to Canada with its founding. Religious hair-splitters refuse to celebrate a holiday rooted in paganism, and the secular folk would love to eliminate it altogether.

In a superfluous attempt to avoid offending non-Christians, the school at which I worked determined to rename Christmas, Winter Fest. Begging an answer is why anyone would want to celebrate winter? Seems to me, celebrating the redemption of mankind carries a little more weight than celebrating cold, dark days!

In any case, when the school determined to rename Christmas in order not to offend the non-Christians, guess who took the greatest offence? You guessed it if you said the very people the administration wanted to avoid offending. My Muslim, Hindi and Jewish students were quick to condemn the renaming of Christmas, partly because they could see that picking on Christians today would likely lead to picking on others tomorrow, and the fact that they enjoyed taking part in the festivities.

So, I remain steadfast in wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, not because I believe Jesus was born on that day but because Jesus was born and that is worth celebrating. I refuse to water down or negate what God did for us on that day, whenever it actually was, by using rather dumb terms like merry winter fest or happy holidays, both of which mean nothing at all to anyone. Cultural holidays should be celebrated, not redefined.

I must admit, the young lady was very attractive. Not only was she pretty, but she had a confident demeanour that went beyond her good looks. She did not play the arrogant “aren’t I pretty” game, and most of the young fellows would have loved to ask her out on a date. However, she was so sure of herself, most of the guys thought she was out of their “league”.

At this point in the story, it is important to note that you can’t judge a book by its cover, although having a good cover does help. The content of the book or the person is what matters. I cannot say I knew what this young lady was like as a person, as our relationship was simply teacher-student. She was a good student, but that does not mean she was a good person. In any case, let’s continue with the story.

Wanting to somehow impress this young lady, a would-be suitor arrived in class early and loudly announced he was bored, obviously hoping to attract the attention of the only other student in the class, namely the topic of this story. I cannot imagine what was going on in this young man’s head or what he was trying to accomplish with such an asinine statement, but his comment hit its mark.

Remember this episode occurred in a high school classroom and involved young people who had yet to master the fine art of diplomacy. The young lady responded with a not-so-nice statement. She said, “Boredom occurs when someone does not have the brains to find something to do.” Needless to say, this statement completely negated the young man’s efforts to get her attention, at least from a positive perspective.

Despite the young lady’s lack of proper decorum in conversation, the point she made was valid. Productive individuals should not even know what boredom is. To be bored is indeed to lack the ambition to think for yourself or to contribute to a greater cause. This should not, I would like to say “should never”, be the case with the home educated. Home educated students should be encouraged to do something positive with their lives that goes beyond the self and includes serving.

There was quite a commotion in the classroom before class was to begin. A young lady, obviously of means, was showing off her new blue jeans. Other girls were oohing and ahhing over what was obviously something to be desired. The young lady with the new pants was enjoying all the attention her jeans were bringing her as she gyrated her pelvis to give all the onlookers a better view of her “clothes”. This exercise attracted the attention of more than just the girls who were present; the boys, who were obviously the target audience, turned their heads as well. But one lone girl sitting at the front of the class was clearly not impressed.

The contrarian lady was a bit older and much more mature than the other girls involved in the pant scene. It was also obvious she did not come from a wealthy family so could not have gotten a like pair of jeans should she have desired them.

Recognizing that there was more to this than met the eye, I determined to spike the situation with a question. I asked the jeans-admiring group of young ladies what made this pair of jeans so special and how much they’d cost. The reply was $70. Bear in mind this was around thirty years ago when decent jeans could be purchased for $20.

I then asked how a $70 pair of jeans differed from a $20 pair. As the group of admirers listed the cut, the styling and the additional adornments, the isolated girl at the front immediately suggested the difference was actually 50 bucks! She went on to illuminate us all with the obvious fact that both 70 and 20 dollar jeans provided the service of covering one’s backside!

I do not recall the reaction of the expensive jeans admirers, but I do recall the expression on the naysayer’s face. It was priceless. It said, “How foolish of you to think the pants covering your rear end are somehow important.” Her wisdom was not lost on most of the students in the class, but I believe the message was missed by the $70 jeans party.

The moral of this story is: you do not need to spend a lot of money to accomplish things, particularly when looking for curriculum and supplies for home education. Indeed, sometimes the best things are inexpensive or even free. More money spent does not mean better results. Sometimes the difference is simply $50.

I put one hundred and ten percent into everything I do. I say one hundred and ten percent because I have been blessed with an extraordinary amount of energy and I was taught to be dedicated toward excellence in fully completing any task. As a consequence, I really worked hard to be the best teacher possible. This required two very important things.

First, you cannot be a teacher if you are not first a learner. This may seem strange, maybe not, but there are people, even certificated teachers, who do not make learning a priority. Any person who fails or refuses to learn is bound to stay the same, as there is little possibility for growth. This explains why you can meet a school mate from twenty years ago who has not changed much over the years. Everybody needs to learn to grow. Having said that, not all learners are teachers, but every teacher needs to be a learner.

The next requirement to being a good teacher is having a goal. I was continually frustrated by colleagues who clearly demonstrated a lack of concern regarding their individual student’s accomplishments. These folks simply did their job in rote-like fashion, having students regurgitate what they had delivered. Students better at this process may have gotten the better marks, but would they make a better employee or citizen?

Unlike many of my professional colleagues, I simply refused to accept the notion that mastering half the curricular expectation was acceptable. I taught my students to put in their all and do the best they could in a quest for excellence. Most delivered as expected.

I certainly drew the attention of other teachers who would occasionally ask me for the secrets to my success. I am not sure how many got the lesson but the secret is summarized in one word… expectations. Students under the tutelage of uncaring teachers who expected nothing delivered as expected. Those guided by teachers with high expectations also did as expected. Students are not usually naturally lazy, but they will do as expected. Expect nothing and that is what you will get. Expect much and get much.

Home educating parents will do well to have high expectations. Strive for and demand excellence, but avoid unreasonable expectations of perfection.

Even though I had an advanced education in Biology, most of my teaching career was comprised of teaching French. I suppose this had something to do with me being bilingual because this was also around the time Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau declared Canada a bilingual country so every school was scrambling to make students speak both official languages.

It took years before I finally orchestrated my way out of teaching French and was finally able to teach what I really loved. But even then, I had to teach one of those “nothing” courses designed to help non-academic students collect enough credits to graduate. Science 24 was such a class.

There is very little to accomplish in these “nothing” classes other than encouraging attendance and making at least a nominal effort to help students succeed. In this particular class, I had a nineteen-year-old lady, who was always in class on time, sat at the front and did reasonably well on her assignments. Being quite a bit older than the rest of the class, she had a more mature demeanour. I enjoyed having talks with her, even if she was a bit reserved and slow to offer information.

When I asked her what she planned to do after getting her diploma, she refused to tell me. I found it rather strange that she would refuse to talk about this but I let it go and just lightly brought it up every now and again. Finally, she blurted out that she did not want me laughing at her career choice. I assured her that was definitely not part of my job description.

As I kept pestering her, she eventually saw I was genuinely interested in her future. After making me promise I would not laugh, she shared her future ambitions.

She was soon to be married. Her career aspirations were to be a wife, mother and home-maker. What broke my heart was that she was obviously not getting support in her choice from her peers and maybe not even from her family. But she sure got a lot of support and encouragement from me! What a pity that this young lady’s career choice was ever a laughing matter. In my opinion, wife-mother-homemaker is the highest calling for any woman and I told my student that. She was surprised by my enthusiastic support of her noble career choice. Remember, this was over twenty-five years ago. What would happen today? Encourage your young ladies to aspire to the highest calling on earth: Wife and Mother.

I have now told two of my favourite stories about having contests with parents as a teacher. I must admit I can only think of two more episodes where I found myself on the wrong end of parental anger.

The one is very easy to dismiss as a quirk. The only child in the family was promised a brand new Mustang convertible upon his graduation. Unfortunately, this young man believed he could succeed due more to his parents than of actual academic ability. He erroneously thought he could get a few easy credits by taking French. He was a nice kid, but he really did not have what it took to pass French class. In fact, he did dismally. His dad came to the school demanding I give his son a passing grade, which I could not for two good reasons. Firstly, grades are earned, not awarded. Secondly, his grade barely made the 30th percentile; there was much too much distance between where he was and a passing grade. When I refused to change the boy’s grade, the dad very angrily called me a racist, which made no sense as we were all of the same “race”. End of story.

One more story before coming to a conclusion. I cannot remember what led to the confrontation, but I can say the dad was very upset. Once again, I employed my old trick of asking how the parent would have reacted to what the child had done. This time the impact was such that I went from being Mister Bad to the best teacher ever! So much so, this dad went to the principal and insisted I receive merit pay, which I didn’t but I did get a very nice letter of commendation placed in my records.

In every case, when a parent came ready to defend their child, when the question was put to them about how they would have handled the situation, the tables completely turned. When I was eventually transferred from the far-away school, “Bob” started a petition to keep me in that community. What was it that caused parents to sign it? Another associated question, why was I so lonely during parent-teacher interviews? Simple. While I was very strict, I did not fight with my students. Nor did I fight with parents for I knew I was working in loco parentis, meaning I was always serving the parents in helping them to educate their children. Unlike those with extremely long lineups of parents waiting to confront a teacher, I was liked because I was never in competition with parents. They were the boss, not me. Just as you are the boss. Your children’s education is your responsibility.

Last week I set the stage for a showdown between myself and the chairman of the Board of Trustees for the school at which I worked. During the last class of the day, the chairman’s frustrated son had showed a clear lack of decorum when facing a failing grade on his exam. He was removed from my class and his dad showed up minutes after dismissal.

This dad was clearly upset that his son had been kicked out of my class and he wanted an explanation. The student had accompanied his dad, I presume to watch his dad take me to the cleaners, so to speak. His posture demonstrated that he was expecting something akin to a Roman gladiator taking on a worthy opponent.

When I admitted to having removed the boy from my class, the dad angrily asked why. I asked permission to pose a question of the father before explaining myself. The dad condescendingly agreed so I asked him to put himself in my place as the teacher and then tell me what he would do if his son called him a son of a “b”?

By now the student had noticeably changed his attitude. He knew his dad did not tolerate such language or behaviour. The dad responded, “I’d kill him!” (He really said that!) I responded, “Well, I did not kill him, but I did kick him out of my class.” If looks could kill, that young man was in serious trouble. I somewhat defended him by telling the dad I understood his frustration, but neither dad nor I thought the boy’s reaction was acceptable. I am sure he now thought the same.

To reduce the tension, I suggested that since the boy had disrespected me publicly, he could apologize publicly. It was Friday afternoon. By Monday last class, I had completely forgotten about the incident. Trying to get things going in class, the young man kept interrupting until in desperation he got up, came to the front of the classroom and publicly apologized for having disrespected me the Friday before.

This boy likely never mastered French, but he likely still remembers his French 30 class where he learned a lesson he will not forget.

I was happy to have a full-time job after a few years of trying to support my family as a supply teacher, even though my new job was an hour’s drive away. I had been offered the job mid-year, as the students had driven the teacher I was replacing nuts. I knew it was a bad scene, but I was not afraid of students and I needed more secure employment.

The students were indeed a bad bunch. There were forty of them, making the class too big, but also too small to split. They had been known as hellions since grade one and were now in grade nine and my responsibility. On top of being punished with having to teach this group Language Arts, most certainly not my strength, I was also tasked with teaching grades seven to twelve French and grade eight Social Studies. It turned out to be the most difficult assignment of my teaching career, but I had those kids tamed in such a short time that I sort of became a celebrity in the community.

Over the years, while most of my students adapted to my strict discipline, there was always one who tested to see if I meant business. One young fellow, easily ten inches taller than me, was the son of the chairman of the school trustees. I am not sure what he had in mind but one day he got up in the grade twelve class and boldly called me a son of a “b”, after discovering he had failed his exam. In a matter of seconds, he found himself out of my classroom. He immediately called his dad to report my misdemeanour and told the principal his dad was coming.

This particular class was the last one at the end of the week. As soon as my students were gone, my ghostly pale principal asked if I had in fact kicked this kid out of class, and, obviously afraid, announced “Bob” was coming. I greatly relieved this poor man when I told him to send “Bob” directly to me. When he arrived, I certainly understood where my young student had gotten his tall stature. Father and son entered my classroom, where the boy sprawled in a front row desk so he could watch his dad rip me apart. It was a good thing I was not intimidated because these two fellas both towered over me.

I know you can hardly wait to hear what transpired during this showdown, but you will have to wait until next time.

I am likely bragging a bit, but in all my years in the classroom, it was rare to find myself in confrontations with parents. This claim is supported by the fact that I still remember the few I had.

One parent with a grievance did not contact me, nor did he contact the principal. He went directly to the Superintendent who demanded a meeting with the principal, the parent and me the following week. According to the principal, I had been accused of preaching. When I explained to the principal that I had told a disgruntled student his mark was directly related to his effort and that he had simply reaped what he had sown, the principal pounded his desk, exclaiming that was not preaching but common sense.

All day Saturday I was increasingly concerned about this situation with this parent, a farming neighbour from whom we bought a lot of product. Unafraid of and not really trusting the parent, principal and superintendent, I called the dad and asked to meet with him.

When I arrived, the son was anxious to see how his dad would pummel me. When the parent had completed the recitation of his concerns, I simply asked him if his son had explained the entire scenario. The dad asked, “What do you mean?” I then asked if the son had told him how he had caused a terrible scene in the classroom and shown serious disrespect toward me in front of the entire class? At this juncture, the boy suddenly remembered he had chores to do and started leaving the room. His dad yelled for him to sit down and proceeded to ask me in detail what had happened and how it had transpired.

Needless to say, the big meeting got “mysteriously” cancelled Monday morning, much to everyone’s surprise but mine.

There may be a few morals of this story but we will simply focus on the fact that parents do not usually get the entire story from their children. Whether they are home educated or not, there will always be a tendency for children to carefully omit any parts of the story which will implicate them as guilty. Parents need to glean the missing pieces from what they hear from their children, as they will not likely be getting the whole truth when a child is partly or even completely guilty of an offence.

We often get phone calls from desperate parents wanting to escape a school system that is simply not working for them or their children. This problem can easily be explained with a single word: standards. Likely the biggest reason for failure in the school system is the erroneous belief that standard expectations can be applied to all children, none of whom are standard or average.

In this particular case, the mom had had some degree of success with her older children attending school, but her youngest son was another story. He was 12 years old, functionally illiterate and misbehaving at school. I explained that the misbehaviour was likely not due to her son being a bad boy, but as a survival mechanism in a world in which he did not fit. I also told her that children forced to do something they cannot do, are not ready to do, or are not interested in doing will often result in bad attitudes that are then usually manifested as bad behaviour, especially within an institutional environment.

This young fellow certainly did not lack ability or motivation. Once I ascertained he was a natural fixer of things and had an entrepreneurial bent, I recommend his reading program be based on the local Bargain Finder publication. Mom accepted the suggestion and found that her son could read, especially when it involved something he was interested in.

We watched in amazement as this boy scoured the Buy & Sell papers, bought broken items, fixed them and sold them for a profit; he was barely a teenager. The only complaint we received from the mom was that she was kept very busy driving this young businessman around Calgary so he could procure his potential money makers.

This boy was so good with his hands, he would combine elements to ingeniously create new things. One time, upon our arrival, he insisted on showing us his latest invention, a motorized tricycle created from broken bicycles and powered by an engine he had absconded from the family lawnmower. Needless to say, when mom discovered this slight indiscretion she quickly reminded him he would be in serous trouble with his dad who planned to mow the grass that night.

When children are allowed to be who they are rather than being forced to meet external standards, they will be much happier and will learn what interests them, often with amazing results.