Various Veins
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It's been said there are three sides to every story. I gave my side of the story of Elliott Fairbairn a couple of weeks ago. That was a teacher's side. I stand by it, partly because a man I came to respect used seniority to get a class in Mr. Fairbairn's school and let me into the Tillsonburg system in the school he wanted to leave.
While I was surprised by the change in expectations, I couldn't resent that man's action. He opened the way for me to be a vice principal for nine years. But that's another story.
Last week I chanced to be seated in Jimmy's beside a couple who recognized me. My picture at the head of this column identified me, and memory told them I once taught their two sons. Their mother told me she reads this column, and usually agrees with my take on things. She did, however have a strong objection to my call to name a new school after Elliott Fairbairn. Thus I got the student's side of the story.
The times during which these attitudes prevailed were entirely different from the present. They are best expressed in the biblical wisdom of King Solomon who wrote "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him, he shall not die."
The masculine pronoun denotes a different life for girls in that era.
This is from the King James version, my preferred among the many. In honesty, I'm moved to use Solomon's rod on the people who try to make the scriptures fit the current attitudes. Not that I want to beat children. There are gentler means of correction or direction. Solomon forbid striking a child in anger. Bernard Shaw rejected this admonition for it requires hitting a child in cold blood.
Dr. Spock started the disintegration of discipline, a movement that though modified still may be partly to blame for young seekers being lured into radical sects.
In Ontario the Hall-Dennis Report in the 1960s turned Spock's slippage into a landslide. The children took the upper hand in schools.
This shift in power hit me like a hammer one day. I can't recall exactly what led to the outburst. The student in the front desk was a model little lad and I thought we had a good rapport. Suddenly he recoiled as if he'd met a rattlesnake and shouted, "Don't you touch me!"
I can admit he may have seen me touch others with too much enthusiasm, but him?
My lunch companion related stories from the years she attended Rolph Street School, particularly the year she was in Grade 8. They were not new to me, but they had curled up in the dark corners of memory. The principal's office was on the second floor in the centre of the building. It opened on the corridor, but another door opened directly into the Grade 8 classroom.
Mr. Fairbairn conducted drills from his swivel chair, tilted back with his Size 12 shoes resting on the desk. He had a bamboo rod that was long enough to reach many desks, a sort of scepter. The students were terrified of him. He would pose a question and indicate with his bamboo pointer the student who should answer.
The master tolerated no whispering, passing of notes, and probably chewing of gum in his domain. I doubt he would use the admonition that some teachers used. If you want to chew gum, you must bring enough for the whole class. There were students who would call the teacher's bluff. Mr. Fairbairn would never risk a challenge like that.
On one occasion the entire class was detained after school because one student had broken the rule of silence. My informant rightly resented such unfair discipline. She said no school should be named for Elliott Fairbairn. Let him vanish.
The third side of the story? It's usually designated as the unknown truth. In this case it may lie with the attitude of the members of the school board who named a school in his honour.