IRMA

1. I was nineteen years old and I was about to face my first class. It was a
2. junior room in the Irma School. How lucky could I be! It was 1932 and
3. there were far more teachers than there were jobs, so to get a job, let
4. alone one in a town, was really more than anyone could wish for. Fresh
5. out of Edmonton Normal School, I was full of enthusiasm and ready to face
6. my little class. Did I say little? I had a lot to learn. The principal, Mr.
7. Sydney Magrath opened the door and the children came marching in. They
8. kept coming through that door – would they never stop and how many were
9. there anyway? Where to seat them all was the first priority. Making a
10. quick count, there appeared to be around forty swarming into and around
11. the room. Well, I was the teacher, wasn’t I? I had better take over, and
12. somehow that morning, I did get everybody into a seat and to some degree
13. organized and by the many questions asked I suddenly realized that, to
14. them, I was a teacher who knew the answer to everything. When noon
15. came, most of the children went home for lunch. The few that came in
16. from the country, brought their lunch and stayed at school. I dashed home
17. and back as soon as I could, to be with the children that stayed.
18.  
19. At the end of my first day of teaching, I found that I had forty pupils –
20. nine of them beginners. There were four grades in my room and four in the
21. senior room. Later, I was sometimes given five grades when the senior
22. room was too crowded. When that first day of teaching ended and the last
23. little pupil left for home, I realized that I had just begun my real
24. education, in how to be a teacher. I was glad that I had taken up teaching
25. – but – what a CHALLENGE!
26.  
27. Shortly after school had started, I was visited by a member of the school
28. board to inform me that a school fair would be taking place in a few
29. weeks. The school work to be entered should have been prepared by the
30. teacher the previous term but as she was leaving it was not done so I
31. would have to do it. I was given a book with all instructions for all the
32. different classes, some to be done at home, such as cooking and sewing,
33. the rest at school. I was told to make this a priority and not to worry too
34. much about anything else until the fair was over. This was our first big
35. activity.
36.  
37. The Christmas concert was our next big undertaking. It was to be held in a
38. hall downtown and was open to the public. I was told that everybody from
39. all around came to this concert. There wasn’t a piano in the school, so I
40. had to take the children to the church after school to practice the songs.
41. The church was always cold and the piano keys icy. We saw to it that
42. every child had a part in the programme.
43.  
44. A musical festival had been organized to include the towns of Irma,
45. Wainwright, Edgerton, Chauvin and Viking, together with the surrounding
46. districts. It was to be held in Wainwright in the month of May. Again we
47. made trips to the church to practice the solos, duets and choral
48. work. The day of the festival, the children were transported to the
49. festival in parents’ cars and the majority in the back of a large truck in
50. which the teachers also rode. During the day, certain entries were picked
51. to take part in a concert at night. Just to show how innovative children
52. could be in those days, a little eight year old, who lived with his father,
53. went home with the people who had taken him there. After he arrived
54. home, another child, who had also come home, told him that the action
55. song that he was in had been chosen for the concert at night. By the time
56. we were preparing to go on stage without him – in he walked. He had gone
57. out to the road and hitch-hiked his way back, rather than not be in it.
58.  
59. This festival went on for several years and we entered every year.
60. Between this and the Christmas concert, I think the children gained a lot
61. in speech training and it was a good addition to the regular school work.
62.  
63. The last extra event was the track meet. This took place in Irma, so we
64. did not have to travel to attend. The usual events took place and we spent
65. the spring practicing races, jumps and baseball.
66.  
67. We had large classes at that time but the children must not have suffered
68. too much as many of them went on to higher education, becoming teachers,
69. lawyers, ministers, doctors, and successful farmers. Sadly some were
70. lost when they gave their lives for their country during the second world
71. war.
72.  
73. The parents of the Irma children were very interested in providing the
74. best opportunities that they could for their children. They were always
75. most co-operative with the teachers. A rink was flooded in the town and I
76. was given season tickets to be given secretly to any child who could not
77. afford one. They wanted every child to skate. As far as school supplies
78. went, the board would order whatever I thought necessary. I was able
79. to choose suitable books for the library. I had better supplies at that
80. school in 1932 that I had twenty years later when I was back teaching.
81. The local school board had only one school to take care of, and were
82. close enough to know what we needed. True we had no indoor plumbing –
83. no secretaries or teachers’ aides and we were greatly overworked. We put
84. in many hours of overtime to get through everything we had to do.
85. Somehow we did it all. Today, teachers’ hours are better and conditions in
86. the modern schools much more pleasant to spend their day in but it
87. was a different era then and we met the challenge as best we could.
88.  
89. The whole high school was taught by one teacher, Mr. Stanley Reeds, who
90. taught that school for twenty-five years. About 1936 he was given an
91. assistant – Mr. Olaf Larson. Mr. Donald Gunn later was principal for many
92. years.

Irma
Submitted by Winnifred Alexander

140-142