1973 Silvacan Elementary: Teaching in a One-Room School

 I continue my memories in establishing and teaching in the isolated one-room school in a mill camp on Takla Lake:

    Because we were so isolated from the Stikine School District headquarters in Fort Nelson, and it was impossible for me to even communicate with them, (the only “phone” in the mill site was a radio phone in the mill office) which really wasn’t there for me to use.  Besides it was unavailable to me, except for an emergency, and the fact that it was a radio phone, meant that there were privacy concerns, as the radio conversations were not secure.  They could be listened to, by the camp office manager and others with radio scanners.

    Unlike in “regular” schools, I had no fellow teachers to talk to, or to share ideas with and with whom I could borrow prepared work.  

    While I enjoyed being around kids and working with them in school, we soon discovered that there was never any respite from them.  In the camp there was no radio, or TV reception.  There was no playground, and the parents of the children worked longer than the normal 8 hours a day, so it was not surprising for my students to always come to our little trailer to visit during the evenings and after-school hours.

    If they spotted my wife or me outside doing something, the kids were always quick to join us so that we often felt burdened with providing entertainment for them.

    While I was struggling trying to stay on top of my workload, my wife had her own challenges.  She had agreed to run a kindergarten class, which was held each the morning in the mudroom of our tiny travel trailer teacherage.  It was something she had never in her life considered, since she had spent her university days getting her degree in Art History.  Our quickly established school had not yet received any kindergarten supplies for her young and often mentally under-developed students, so she also had to do a lot of improvising.

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1973 Silvacan Elementary School: So Much Work For The Teacher

 The photo was taken a couple of years later, when the school actually had our own school building , and the teacher (me) actually had a desk.  It does show me busy at night preparing work for the next day.

Despite the small number of students I had, I quickly discovered it was almost an overwhelming job to teach in a one-room school.  Since I could only spend time with one grade at a time, I had to create work for all the other grades; something that they could work on independently, and could finish without a lot of help from me, and I had to supply enough work for all the different grades to do to keep them occupied for 5 hours every day.

I didn’t have any workbooks, or even a mimeograph machine (an old technology that allowed one to crank out (literally) duplicate copies of worksheets from a typed-up or drawn stencil).  Before photocopiers, mimeograph machines were the workhorse for most teachers at the time.

Most teachers also had access to already prepared worksheets that they could use, unfortunately, but because of the remoteness and isolation of the school, no such timesavers were available to me, I had to create my own from scratch.  I had no teacher's guides to help me digest topics, give me directions on what points to stress, or to provide me with additional problems for the students to solve. 

  In all of the schools I had ever been in, all of the answers to the problems would have been there in a Teacher’s Manual, but unfortunately, since I hadn’t been supplied with any Teachers Manuals, when it came time for me to check the work that the class had done, I had to first, calculate all of the answers myself,  before I could spend the time checking their papers.

Everything was left up to me.  I had to read all of the material, and think up all of the work exercises for the various grade levels, because I had no teachers guide to help me.   Once I figured out what I would do, I had to make the worksheet by typing it out, if I needed more than one copy, I had to type layers of carbon paper (another old technology)and correct all the layers manually, if I made a mistake.   I typed all the worksheets sheets out on the portable typewriter I had fortunately brought with me from Indiana.

     I found myself busily preparing late into the night, striving to come up with enough appropriate activities for all the different age groups.  I quickly discovered that if I wasn’t really well prepared and supplied with a lot of work, things quickly turned to chaos in our school, because the students got done and then started messing around.  

While quick learning is generally considered a positive thing in the classroom, I was always dismayed to discover just how quickly my students were able to complete the worksheets and assignments that had taken me so many long hours to create the night before.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: The First Week Of Silvacan Elementary School

 The photo shows some of my students headed for the Camp Recreation Hall, which doubled as Silvacan Elementary School.

    Since there were no real school supplies available, because the school district had not been able to find a teacher, and hadn't totally committed to supplying anything in the remote community until they were sure of one, for the rest of the week, our school activities depended almost entirely consisted upon what could be done on blank sheets of paper, and the things that my wife and I had brought with us, ie, some magazines, and my guitar.

    The following week, various sized boxes started appearing from the Stikine School District office.  I excitedly open them to discover some text books, art supplies, and a chalk board on stands.  Getting a chalkboard was not only a real boon to my job, and made the camp recreation hall which was filled with a pool table and a Coke vending machine, seem a bit more like a classroom.  It allowed me to write and demonstrate things to my group of students, instead of having to show them things individually on a piece of paper.

           The arrival of some text books, while another big step in creating a school, also caused me some problems.  I was flying blind, none of the school books had any of grade designation, and I didn’t have any kind of information to tell me what subjects were supposed to be taught in the various grades.  I didn’t know what books were meant for what ages, but at least I had some things to work from.  I found it also frustrating that none of the books had any kind of teacher’s manual to help me, but I plowed through, the best I could.

    After a few weeks had passed, a few of the mill workers moved their  families to live at the camp, and our school enrollment increased.  Silvacan’s Elementary’s student population reached a staggering 12 students.  It was a K-7 school, but I didn’t have kids in every grade. Enrollment was something like 5 students in 1st grade, 3 in third grade, 2 in fourth grade, 1 in fifth, and 1 in 6th.  The school population was in continual flux, as families moved into the camp and others returned back to civilization, but through it all, the First Nation's Jack family made up the bulk of the students in our school.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: The Very First Day of Silvacan Elementary School

             The day I opened Silvacan Elementary School was certainly unlike opening day of any other school in BC.  First off, because the Silvacan Elementary was in the enormous Stikine School District, which encompassed the entirety of the whole northern half of BC, and the school district wasn’t sure they would be opening a school at the mill site, because they hadn’t been able to find a teacher (until I took the job) there were absolutely no school supplies at the mill. 

            There were no books, no desks, no chalkboard, and no necessary school supplies, like paper or pencils.  There was nothing, just the mill’s recreation hall, complete with its pool table, Coke machine, and stale cigarette-smelling air.

            Another unique aspect of Silvacan Elementary’s opening, was that it took place late, two weeks after all of BC’s other schools had opened, because of delays in my wife and I being issued our Canadian Immigration papers.  That problem was resolved when a custom official who knew of our urgency because the BC schools had already started, just secretly told me to just say I was on vacation when I crossed the border.

    That first day of school was certainly not one where a lot of academics were taught.  Frank had driven down to the Jack family that morning and returned with 5 of the Jack kids, (with ages ranging from about seven to 12) which he dropped off at the “school”.  I had moved one of the Rec Hall tables, and some chairs into a corner.

            I had a lot of experience working with kids, both in my education training, and working at the Evansville Boys Club, for several years running  recreation programs.  I thought I was ready for anything that rambunctious children could throw my way, but I wasn’t ready for these extremely shy aboriginal kids.

        I had no experience being around First Nation children.  They meekly entered the room which was in the logging camp’s Recreation Hall and I welcomed them and motioned them over to sit around the  table which I had set up.  Once I had them seated, I began to talk to them in an attempt to find out their names and ages, so that I could get a sense of where they were academically. 

        To my dismay, despite my gentle questioning, all I got in reply were bowed heads and silence.  I couldn’t get them to even look at me, let alone speak.  It was a horrible feeling of inadequacy that overtook me.  (I learned later that First Nations people consider it rude to look people straight in the eye, so they probably had negative opinions of me from that first introduction.)

Luckily, after a time, I gained the confidence of Ralph (photo) who I determined was at about at the third grade level.  Ralph began to open up a bit.  Soon, the others began to timidly join the conversation.

      I got another surprise, when I urged Ralph to recite the alphabet for me. 

He confidently began:

“A,B,C,D,E,F,G…”

“That’s great, Ralph, go on.”

“H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,

I was beaming.  “Keep going Ralph”

“Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,”

“Great, finish up,” I encouraged, and nodding my head to indicate that he was doing great.

“X, Y, ZED.”

“ZED?”, My head jerked back in surprise, I had never heard of “ZED”,  “What’s ‘ZED?, I asked, Do you mean “ZEE”.  

“No,” Ralph replied confidently, and all his siblings confirmed and chimed in, “ZED!!!”

This first lesson in the school was a lesson for me.  I had just discovered that Canadian English and American English were not the same.  Canadians didn’t have a “ZEE” at the end of their alphabet, they, like Ralph said, had “ZED”. 

        The rest of that first school day was spent having the kids drawing some pictures, after I scrambled around and found some paper, some pencils, and crayons, which my wife and I had fortunately brought with us when we crossed the border.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

We Now Have Fiber Optic Cable To Our House

     Surprisingly, in our very small (800 people max), rural and isolated community, (100 miles in either direction to a larger urban center) we are now getting fiber optic connections to our houses.  A crew came out yesterday to put the cable into our house.

    It was a complicated chore, involving digging a tench and burying the cable across our driveway and lawn, then tunneling under our sidewalk, before actually getting to our house.  

    I was busy playing music at our jam, as they finished doing there work, and it was dark when I came home, but this morning when I took a look at what they did, I was impressed.  The cable is now buried, and the crew did a really nice job of cleaning us after themselves.  They had raked and smoothed out the gravel in our driveway back into place, and sewed some grass seed on the trench that crossed our lawn.  All of the work didn’t cost us anything.

    I don’t know if we will be taking advantage of the fast internet that the fiber optic cable can provide, since I already have Starlink satellite internet, so don’t really need the fiber optic service.  I would have preferred that the phone company would have upgraded their cell phone tower to go from G-3 to G-5.  Oh well, maybe someday.  

     The photo below shows the fiber optic connection box on our house.  The crew found a beat up statue of a dog amongst the flowers along our sidewalk and in a joke, placed it at the foot of the cable.  The white object on the left is the water hose that goes to our forest fire sprayer on our roof.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: I Become Silvacan Elementary School

 The photo shows the Camp’s Recreation Building (on the right), that also served as our school.

    Since all of the other public schools in BC had already begun classes two weeks earlier, I had to do some quick preparations and create a school and begin teaching immediately.  This was a big job because, I WAS the school, as I quickly learned.  Not only was I the only classroom teacher, I soon discovered that I was also the principal, the maintenance man, the janitor, the secretary, the health nurse, and the “school bus” driver.  

             There was no one there to help guide me in these tasks, or to tell me what to do.  I had to figure everything out for myself.  It certainly didn’t help that I had never even been in a Canadian school to witness the daily routines or the educational materials used, and since there had never been a school at the Silvacan mill, there were absolutely no educational supplies at all, since the school district hadn’t been sure that they would be able to find a teacher.

            During my four years of university, which gave me the training and education to earn my bachelor degree in elementary education, no one had ever even mentioned teaching in a one-room school, let alone explain how to manage one.  All of my practical, hands-on experience had been in large multi-teacher city and suburban schools.  What I found myself thrust into, was a totally new and unknown experience.

    Frank (the Silvacan Mill’s Camp Boss) told me that the school, (named Silvacan Elementary School) would be held in the camp's "Recreation Building".  I quickly planned for classes for the next day, although I hadn’t a clue as to how many students I might have, what grades they might be in, or what their abilities might be.  

            Since it hadn't been a certain that there was going to be a school at Silvacan, the mill workers didn’t yet moved their families to the camp.  There was however a First Nation's  family that lived in a cabin (photo below) down by the dock on Takla Lake, where our had plane landed, who had school-aged kids, and they turned out to be my only students when the school opened.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

1973: Exploring The Mill Camp

   We looked into the recreation building which housed a pool table and coke machine and some tables and chairs.  We walked down the wide dusty “main” street of the camp. Past the metal Atco portable bunkhouses and a couple of small frame houses which lined the road until we saw the mill, which was just a big metal framed structure, with some open sides and a tin roof.

When it was time for us to eat, we made a delightful discovery; the cookhouse where we were to eat all of our meals was amazing.   Isolated mills make a point of feeding their workers well to keep them happy.  When we opened the door, took in the warm, delicious, and fragrant  aromas, then looked down the steaming counter at the wide variety of offerings, we knew that living in this remote corner of BC wasn't  going to be a year of total depravation.  There was so much good food available for the taking, and we could eat as much as we wanted—it was going to be a smorgasbord for every meal. Steaks, Chinese food, Yorkshire pudding, all kinds of fancy desserts.  Here is how replied to my parents who were curious about our eating arrangements:

       Meals? 

            We have no meal tickets, everybody knows everybody.  Up here we are trusted to pay $150 for the whole month for the two of us.   That gives us three meals at day.  We haven’t paid yet because we are waiting for the bank to send us an account number.

        Meals, who cooks:  

            Harold and Nuella, are our cooks.  They really are friendly people and very good cooks.  Tonight we had big, big steaks, peas, sauerkraut, wieners, potatoes, salad, fruit juices, and cake.  We are free to take all of the fruit and cookies we want.  It is a really good deal.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca