Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1975-06-26, Page 26,o A 1f she's 3y, I Miss, .,5 9, Wider; 4 WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR A STORY— Sarabel McLean si is on a little chair in the kindergarten -room at the old Seaforth Public School- ,surrounded by her last clash, in 1951. When Miss McLean• retired that year she had .been Seaforth's only kindergarten teacher for 41 years --- and she was 83 years old. ,R. te. (I3Y StiSaa White) There's ,,only one thing missing',!, the voice on the phone. said to me the mailing after the Expositor's last Centennial issue came out in April. "There should be a story about Miss McLean'_!, •I;Yotg'Te_,,sight you know", 'l said, and that is how this sentimentif and peculiar story got started. The voice on the ' phone belonged to Mrs. Dave,,Singiter of Hensall; a faithfulIE4jositat reader who, was,,a, kindergarten pupil of Miss McLean'S-har only a few mbnths in 1935. Miss McLean was Sara Isabel, only:daughter 'of Murdo Young McLean, first Expositor publisher and his first wife; Jennie Sniith. She was also my great 'aunt, and earliest tutor and friend. What did Miss McLean do that was so special? Well, she taught ' kindergarten for • 41 years. "That's admirable, but... hardly worthy of a full page story", the uninformed reader might-say. But that reader wouldn't know that Miss McLean didn't start her kindergarten teaching career until she was 43 and that she retired at the ripe old age of 83. Miss McLean started the first kindergarten class at Seaforth 'Public School in •191(), probably because she felt that the early stimulation of young minds was the best way to ensure that small fry would continue to grow in wisdom and in stature. She faced some opposition in her early years: 'In a story she wrote when the new public school was opened in 1952 she cbinmented• quietly: . "As the Board received a grant Of $40-for my certificate, the kindergarten 4 was,. ..not such an expensive proposition as many people thought." In an age, when education did not have• the cure-all reputation that it has had recently, it's pretty certain that many people felt a kindergarten was an. unnecessary frill, the same way many feel nowadayS about a day core centre. However, Miss McLean kept right on teaching, until in the end she had pretty well the whole town won over --- after all, in the end, she had taught most of them. Handling a kindergarten class any time, at.any age, is no mean feat. But the thought of an 83 year old woman teaching two classes of little dears a day boggles the mind. And, Miss McLean taught many of the same little dears at First Presbyterian Church Sunday School, where she presided 'over the priMary class for 6 0 years. Strange? "Didn't people think it •was a -little strange, a woman her age teaching small' k ids? I asked Pat Bennett who went to kindergarten under Miss McLean before 1920 4- and has lived in and around Seaforth for many year'. "I don't think anyone connected her with old-age' because she wat always with the young", Mrs. Bennett replied. If those who weren't taught by Miss McLean and who didn't know her will bear with us-a Rale longer; we'll try to explain the magic that she held, and still holds, for thOSe of us who' knew her. Probably the best tribute to her came from one of her 'pupils, James R. Scott, who was 'book editor of the Toronto Telegram at the time. In his ,cOltimit, One day in 1951, Mr. Scott wrote: "Right now 01. were lucky anil Miss McLean 'said to me; 'Sit down and tell you a Story', I'd. put down the hest; hook that's ever been Written irr thy lifetime and listen liaise Uetean." ' Miss MeLean'S• sOry tell* ability 'N/aS• legertdary. A .10* people in town have a recOrclind of her I `tilling. of her hest, called "Why the ehimeS, raPg!.% 'She told,,-Stories 'over CKNX radio, slie told stories to I het grandniecos and- nephews. • But- her best stories were probably told the little children sitting around her in their little chairs in her kindergarten class. Forty years' later, Mrs. Sangster remembers .that Miss Madan had tiNf'd .versions of 'Little Red Riding good. lory ,one 'arid another tliat wasn't quite so gory. She'd ask the children to choose which version they wanted to Music was another must in Miss McLean's kindergarten class. "I can see her now, sitting up at her baby grand piano, playing, Pat Bennett said. "And she didn't look at the music, she looked at the children. I could take you right down there now and show you where it stood". But of course, the piano is long gone now, as is MisS McLean's kindergarten room; the old school is used, for storage by Genesco shoes. New Shoes There was a „song that her kindergarten olats sang every time a student' came to school wearing new shoes, Mrs. Sangster remembers. "One day I had n ew shoes on and everyone pointed it out, but Miss McLean just ignored them, because I was desperately shy. She must have assed the situation„" and realized the little girl was far too shy to stand in a circle while everyone sang about her new shoes, Mrs . ,Sangster, who was then Janeth Simpson, says. Miss McLean encouraged all of her chil4fen to sing, even those who di t have too much sense of melody.She wrote in 1952 "who would take the joy out, of life for thafchild by telling him he cannot sing? He will find but soon , enough some day." Miss McLean understood children, their need for security, reassurance, and independence. "She never said we 'had to' do things," says Jean' Scott, who was in her first kindergarten class 65 years ago. Mrs.Bennett agrees, "There were no commands or demands. She'd say 'we'll all do this or do that! --- suggest, and' kids followed her like a 'circus." She taught her classes to share, . Mrs. Bennett says. "Everybody took part, nobody was left alone". Mrs.Sangster remembers, "She'd never hold one person's work up and say 'see what a lovely job Johnny did.' ". Miss McLean herself wrote that it bothered her when a mother who'd come 'to her class Christmas party Of closing day would ask why • her child was different from some Others. "Wouldn't it be better if she just accepted him as he is and not comPare him with some other child? No child has a monopoly of all talents; but each one haft some good in 'him that can be fostered and trained.", Net Bad . Not a bad. philosophy from someone who was practising the currently in-vogue child centred teaching before the jargon about lassrooms had "been heard of: One er student of Miss McLean's told me about a Kindergarten teacher _ who suggested that one °flier children, Who grew 'tip to be an Ontario scholar, was retarded, 'because the child Wasn't as boisterous as other students. Miss McLean was strict. Mr. Sangster says jokingly that she was "in complete command of all the . little monsters." She felt children had to learn to' sit quietly sometimes and "to understand that if they did something wrong, they'd have to take the consequences", Mrs. Bennett says. Children liked that, because they knew she loved them, she adds... "She let every child know he or she was a human being, not just another number and she had time to listen. Whether you were worth $1000 or 'nothing, y 'ou were the same to Miss McLean", says Mrs. Bennett who remembers being dragged along Seaforth snow banks by her sister, Pearl McFarlane, on her way. to kindergarten. It was a novel idea, in 1910, or even 40 years ago, to send a young child out to school. "Mbther didn't want to part with me", Jean Scott remembers. Mrs. Sangster says her mother drove her into kindergarten every day from - the seventh of Tuckersmith because she was an only child and didn't have anyone to play with. Even then, she says, ,kindergarten was' regarded as rather a luxury. But Miss McLean's kindergarten was full of warmth for the kids who were torn from mother's apron strings. "She made you feel it was your home for the morning", Mrs. Bennett says. And although she feels that school in general "didn't do much for me at all" she says she "wouldn't have missed a day of kidnergarten for the world." There"' were lots of little ceremonies' and rituals at Miss _ McLean's _kindergarten. There was a clock face painted on the floor of the room "and that's how we learned to tell time", Mrs. Bennett says. The children would stand at the numberrs on the clock and Miss McLean would say, "Now y ou're at 2 o'clock", and so on. A Treat When anyone had a birthday, they could bring a treat to school forthe whole class. Jean Scott has a 65 year old scrap book full of the weavings and paper foldiins and blotters she made at kindergarten. Ono keepsake is stained with strawberries, froth •the treat Miss Scott brought to class when she had her birthday all those years ago. Another student, Anne Huff 'nee Troutbeck, who was in one of Miss, McLean's last, classes says she still has the blotter she made for Mother's Day in kindergarten. The last day of kindergarten was another big day. Mothers were invited and Mrs.Sangster remembers one -of my aunts, Elizabeth or Helen McLean, bringing down ice cream for the whole class. Mothers also came 'to kindergarten for a Christmas party. Miss McLean wrote that the tree decorations were made by the children. She used to bring ' tree trimmings from home but then one child asked to put something he had made .on the tree. It was, she wrote "such a joy for the children and how stupid I felt that ,I had so long deprived them of that joy ." Books were as important as life to Miss McLean and she passed ' on her love of reading, to her students. Some children brought their own books to share with the class. One little girl said sadly that she didn't have any books at h ome and Miss McLean grieved for her. Then one day she said she had a book and brought 'it to school, Miss McLean wrote. It was a folder than an implement company sent out as an advertisement. "There were pictures in it .of horses, men and machines, a house and a barn. The children looked at the pictures and. we talked about them .and no one said 'It isn't dutch Of a book' andone little girl was happy." "If she's 83, I'm fve" it was Jim Scott who said in his Telegram column about the time when Miss Mclean retired "If she's 83, I'm five", who best described what impact his old teacher's love of books and imaginatifin had on a lot of people (this writer included). "It was Miss McLean who first taught me that the things a man can 'make Up' in his mind are more important than a red and wb ite bill or a new pair of skates. It was Miss McLean (although she never said it) who made me know that the creative imagination is the sublime gift which takes men away from the monkeys and lets them come close to God." It's hard• to believe that Miss McLean was perfect. I don't suppose she was, perhaps those ' who knew her as children or years ago tend to glorify her. She had a dignified, straight stance and Jim Scott called her (at 83) "the only person in the whole town whose shoulders are thrown back like that." She also had a very quick sprightly step. As a child I always assumed to myself that her family nickname, "the Skipper", came from the way she walked. I was upset when I found out that my father's label was a seafaring term. Sarabel was called the skipper because she liked to run things, including her own family. Aunt Sarabel was a brave, plucky 'liberated" woman for her time.But she gave up driving a car earlier than she gave up teaching. My father, her nephew Andrew (she always called him Andrew) tells this story. "The Skipper bought the first car we ever had, to drive Gran around (her step mother, Caroline Robertson McLean). She bought a Model T Ford and George McGavin tried .to teach h er to drive. "A pedestrian walked in front of her car when she was turning at the corner where Bob and Betty's is now. The Skipper told him what she thought of him. But she forgot to apply the brakes. The car ended up against a building. That was 1924 or '25 and the Skipper never drove again." It's hard to write something that isn't gushy about a woman who took me hand in hand with her to the library, almost as soon as I could walk or so it seems looking back.) I was only seven when she died at 87 but I know that Aunt Sarabel wouldn't want gush, she'd want the truth. Maybe the truth is that quite a few of the more than 1000 children Aunt Sarabel taught gr ew up to be more alive, interested and "together" people, because they went to kindergarten with Miss McLean. THE HURON EXPOSITOR, JUNE 2, 1975 --S •