Part One by Dave Jaffe
During the just recent 2016 U.S. presidential campaign a friend of mine looked south and said, "If Donald Trump wins the election, the United States will get a government like the ones they've imposed on many other countries."
My friend may be right or wrong. Yet on November the 8th, 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump led the Republican Party to victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many Americans are already started protesting about a Trump presidency. Still, hundreds of millions of people around the world live or survive under terrible governments that would never have taken power if the U.S. government hadn't helped these rulers take control of their country. And sadly enough most Americans don't even care or know about what harm their powerful country has done to so much of sthe world.
Take Brazil for instance which is the biggest country in South America. In 1964 a group of Brazilian generals overthrew a democratically elected government in this Portuguese speaking country. For the next 20 years or so they ruled the men and women of Brazil with an iron hand.
They slashed social programs to the bone, crushed strikes, throttled all democratic movements, and handed large parts of the country's resources over to big businesses many of whom were American-owned. The United States government back in Washington, D.D. helped the generals come to power. The American government had already set up the infamous School of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia where Latin American generals were taught how to seize power and also inflict torture on political prisoners.
In turn, the Brazilian generals helped the U.S. government overthrow mildly leftist and straight socialist governments all across Latin America in the 1970's. At last due to the struggles of unionized workers and union leaders like the famous Lula, democracy returned to Brazil and then later to the rest of the continent.
Yet when Lula led his Workers Party to power in a democratic election in the 21st century, then U.S. president George W. Bush didn't like this result at all. And for the last five years at least, the U.S. government has openly plotted against Lula's successor., Dina Roussief. At last in 2016, Roussief was removed from power by the Brazilian legislature. Now Brazil is run by elected conservatives who want to put Roussief in prison.
"This is a constitutional coup," one Brazilian legislator said. And there's no doubt that the C.I.A.
and the National Endowment for Democracy helped the Brazilian right wing take power.
Monday, 14 November 2016
Saturday, 29 October 2016
Ten Months As A Teacher by Dave Jaffe .Last Part - Part Eight.
Part Eight
Books can sometimes predict your future.
In the early 1960's John Updike's book 'The Centaur' was published. It told a story about a high school teacher in a small town in Pennsylvania. The book took place in the late 1940's, and the male teacher with a young son to support and a wife and mother to feed, couldn't quit teaching though he hated the job.
I first read Updike's book in early 1964 and didn't understand the story. It seemed too complex for me at the time. Plus the plot took part of its framework from Greek mythology. This made the book even harder for me to understand. When I was asked by one of my classmates at McGill University whether I enjoyed the book, I said, "There's some good writing here about a basketball game."
That was the only part of the book that I connected with.
Yet about ten years later I came across the book again and enjoyed it immensely. "This is the story of many teachers," I told a friend of mine after I'd finished reading it. Of course, Powell River was wedged in between the sea and the mountains, while 'The Centaur' took place in eastern America's farm land. And it seemed that B.C. teachers in the early 1970's were paid a lot more than American teachers of 30 years before. Still these differences aside, I saw parallels between my ten months in Powell River and the teacher in 'The Centaur'.
So ends my story about my attempt to be a full time teacher.
Books can sometimes predict your future.
In the early 1960's John Updike's book 'The Centaur' was published. It told a story about a high school teacher in a small town in Pennsylvania. The book took place in the late 1940's, and the male teacher with a young son to support and a wife and mother to feed, couldn't quit teaching though he hated the job.
I first read Updike's book in early 1964 and didn't understand the story. It seemed too complex for me at the time. Plus the plot took part of its framework from Greek mythology. This made the book even harder for me to understand. When I was asked by one of my classmates at McGill University whether I enjoyed the book, I said, "There's some good writing here about a basketball game."
That was the only part of the book that I connected with.
Yet about ten years later I came across the book again and enjoyed it immensely. "This is the story of many teachers," I told a friend of mine after I'd finished reading it. Of course, Powell River was wedged in between the sea and the mountains, while 'The Centaur' took place in eastern America's farm land. And it seemed that B.C. teachers in the early 1970's were paid a lot more than American teachers of 30 years before. Still these differences aside, I saw parallels between my ten months in Powell River and the teacher in 'The Centaur'.
So ends my story about my attempt to be a full time teacher.
Friday, 28 October 2016
Ten Months As A Teacher by Dave Jaffe. Part Seven.
Ten Months as A Teacher: Part Seven
Although I'd left behind me the career of regular teacher in a regular school, I still had some contact with Powell River and did do some teaching long after I left this coastal town.
I revisited Powell River twice after I left it in 1970. I visited it for a couple of days in 1972 and then again for a day in 1987. On the second time I found that the town had indeed changed for the better. Now there was a mall there. Also the town had a regular bus service as well as a community centre and a library. Still, as said before I found Powell River to be isolated and hard to reach except by plane.
In the 1980's I started to teach ESL or English as A Second Language. I did this as a volunteer and never got paid for doing it. Still, there were rewards. In this volunteer job the students were mostly from east Asia and Eastern Europe. No Chinese Leanna Leakeys or Slavic Rick Malimas showed up to disrupt my classes. Nor was I teaching sometimes rowdy students crammed into classes with 30 desks or more.
Instead I taught one student at a time and the students were grateful to see me and learn from me. I gave them lessons in speaking English in the students' living rooms and they said nice things to me. "You are one of the best teachers I've ever had," a thirtyish Chinese mother of a very young son said after I'd taught her for about three months. "I've learned so much from you."
A blind Russian man welcomed me every time I came to teach him. "We are always glad you come, here," his wife told me. What a difference this was from the way some of the students in Powell River had talked to me. Of course not everything went smoothly. A young Vietnamese who'd been imprisoned by the communist government in Vietnam, pushed another young man off his apartment balcony breaking a few of the victim's bones. This young Vietnamese fled his apartment and came to me to ask for help. I referred him to a lawyer.
Another one of my students frightened his wife, who confessed her problem to my supervisor. Yet despite these events I always felt gratitude from my students. As time went by I started to pick up skills and one of them was learning to write as a journalist. I also discovered the world of phonics. Now I realized that I could have used this knowledge of journalism and phonics to teach my English classes in Powell River. Yet it was too late. The opportunity to do this had long passed.
So as I aged I was learning to regret what I had and hadn't done in the past. Yet as time went by, my ten months in Powell River shrank in significance. New events filled my life as time and overshadowed my earlier life Still I call my time in this mill town ' a growth experience'. Or as young people say today about something positive, "It was all good."
And so despite my complaints, in the end I did learn many things from my ten months as a classroom teacher.
Although I'd left behind me the career of regular teacher in a regular school, I still had some contact with Powell River and did do some teaching long after I left this coastal town.
I revisited Powell River twice after I left it in 1970. I visited it for a couple of days in 1972 and then again for a day in 1987. On the second time I found that the town had indeed changed for the better. Now there was a mall there. Also the town had a regular bus service as well as a community centre and a library. Still, as said before I found Powell River to be isolated and hard to reach except by plane.
In the 1980's I started to teach ESL or English as A Second Language. I did this as a volunteer and never got paid for doing it. Still, there were rewards. In this volunteer job the students were mostly from east Asia and Eastern Europe. No Chinese Leanna Leakeys or Slavic Rick Malimas showed up to disrupt my classes. Nor was I teaching sometimes rowdy students crammed into classes with 30 desks or more.
Instead I taught one student at a time and the students were grateful to see me and learn from me. I gave them lessons in speaking English in the students' living rooms and they said nice things to me. "You are one of the best teachers I've ever had," a thirtyish Chinese mother of a very young son said after I'd taught her for about three months. "I've learned so much from you."
A blind Russian man welcomed me every time I came to teach him. "We are always glad you come, here," his wife told me. What a difference this was from the way some of the students in Powell River had talked to me. Of course not everything went smoothly. A young Vietnamese who'd been imprisoned by the communist government in Vietnam, pushed another young man off his apartment balcony breaking a few of the victim's bones. This young Vietnamese fled his apartment and came to me to ask for help. I referred him to a lawyer.
Another one of my students frightened his wife, who confessed her problem to my supervisor. Yet despite these events I always felt gratitude from my students. As time went by I started to pick up skills and one of them was learning to write as a journalist. I also discovered the world of phonics. Now I realized that I could have used this knowledge of journalism and phonics to teach my English classes in Powell River. Yet it was too late. The opportunity to do this had long passed.
So as I aged I was learning to regret what I had and hadn't done in the past. Yet as time went by, my ten months in Powell River shrank in significance. New events filled my life as time and overshadowed my earlier life Still I call my time in this mill town ' a growth experience'. Or as young people say today about something positive, "It was all good."
And so despite my complaints, in the end I did learn many things from my ten months as a classroom teacher.
Thursday, 27 October 2016
Ten Months As A Teacher by Dave Jaffe - Part Six
Ten Months as A Teacher - Part Six by Dave Jaffe
My teaching days in high schools were definitely over but what lay ahead for me? Here I was an ill at ease 28 year old who didn't belong as a teacher in a classroom or maybe anywhere else. What was I going to do for the rest of my life? Suddenly the answer popped up.
In July or August 1970 I wrote a story on a cinema chain in Canada after a group of yippies protested against the high prices of tickets that were charged for viewing the movie 'Woodstock'. I sent the story to 'The 'Georgia Straight'. The Straight printed the story. "You could be a writer," my dad told me. I was staying with my father as I searched for another job.
About five years later that's what I was. I wrote for small papers criticizing powerful men and standing up for the underdog. I was now launched on a sometimes paid career. Goodbye teaching in classrooms. Hello left wing propagandist! So ended my very brief career as a classroom teacher.
My teaching days in high schools were definitely over but what lay ahead for me? Here I was an ill at ease 28 year old who didn't belong as a teacher in a classroom or maybe anywhere else. What was I going to do for the rest of my life? Suddenly the answer popped up.
In July or August 1970 I wrote a story on a cinema chain in Canada after a group of yippies protested against the high prices of tickets that were charged for viewing the movie 'Woodstock'. I sent the story to 'The 'Georgia Straight'. The Straight printed the story. "You could be a writer," my dad told me. I was staying with my father as I searched for another job.
About five years later that's what I was. I wrote for small papers criticizing powerful men and standing up for the underdog. I was now launched on a sometimes paid career. Goodbye teaching in classrooms. Hello left wing propagandist! So ended my very brief career as a classroom teacher.
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Ten Months As A Teacher - Part Five, by Dave Jaffe
Ten Months As A Teacher by Dave Jaffe. Part Five
The superintendant of the Powell River School system showed up in my classes in the spring of 1970. I'd thought when I first spoke to him in 1969 that he was a sympathetic person. He may have been but now he judged me as a teacher and his report on me was anything but positive.
"This man is not a good teacher," the report said in effect. "This teacher is inefficient and doesn't know how to fulfill his duties." This is how I remember the report. Yet whatever it said precisely it was surely negative. The report didn't surprise me because I certainly didn't do things that other teachers had like get involved in after-school activities.
The superintendent made his report in May I think. With less than two months left in the school year I just about signed off from teaching. I'd tried to teach my classes Shakespeare's 'MacBeth', William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies' Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' and some mainstream poetry. Obviuosly I'd failed at my task.
After I'd read the report, I read a play with a Grade Ten class. The play was on the Grade 12 cirriculum but who cared? "It passes the time," I told a fellow teacher. "And the students seem to enjoy it." Sometimes with other classes I would tell the students about poverty in The Third World. Most students got bored and some of them even went to sleep as I droned on.
When the school year ended I got a present from my home room Grade Ten class. I was surprised and even kissed the young lady who gave it to me. Yet before that happened and school closed up for the summer, I'd clashed with about four students in one of my Grade 11 classes. They threw eggs at my basement suite windows one night. So some students liked me. Others surely didn't.
Then it was all over for me. So for the very last time in 1970 I hopped on a Greyhound bus one June day and made my way back to Vancouver. I felt relieved to leave Powell River. Yet I also felt defeated. After all, I had failed at my first big job of being a teacher.
When the bus dropped me off on Denman Street in Vancouver's West End late in the day I shuffled back to my father's apartment . For the next two months I once again plugged back into the joys of living in a city. I watched one film after another, some of which I'd seen before. And how nice it was to sit in a restaurant or a library for hours on end and never worry about upcoming classes. I felt lucky beyond belief to live in a city with its nice gyms, shopping malls, swimming pools, well-stocked libraries, buses and trolleys, tidy beaches and lovely manicured parks.
And there was another positive feature of living in Vancouver. "No one knows me here," I explained to a friend. "I want to live anonymously. I couldn't do that in Powell River." For a while I did feel happy.
The superintendant of the Powell River School system showed up in my classes in the spring of 1970. I'd thought when I first spoke to him in 1969 that he was a sympathetic person. He may have been but now he judged me as a teacher and his report on me was anything but positive.
"This man is not a good teacher," the report said in effect. "This teacher is inefficient and doesn't know how to fulfill his duties." This is how I remember the report. Yet whatever it said precisely it was surely negative. The report didn't surprise me because I certainly didn't do things that other teachers had like get involved in after-school activities.
The superintendent made his report in May I think. With less than two months left in the school year I just about signed off from teaching. I'd tried to teach my classes Shakespeare's 'MacBeth', William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies' Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' and some mainstream poetry. Obviuosly I'd failed at my task.
After I'd read the report, I read a play with a Grade Ten class. The play was on the Grade 12 cirriculum but who cared? "It passes the time," I told a fellow teacher. "And the students seem to enjoy it." Sometimes with other classes I would tell the students about poverty in The Third World. Most students got bored and some of them even went to sleep as I droned on.
When the school year ended I got a present from my home room Grade Ten class. I was surprised and even kissed the young lady who gave it to me. Yet before that happened and school closed up for the summer, I'd clashed with about four students in one of my Grade 11 classes. They threw eggs at my basement suite windows one night. So some students liked me. Others surely didn't.
Then it was all over for me. So for the very last time in 1970 I hopped on a Greyhound bus one June day and made my way back to Vancouver. I felt relieved to leave Powell River. Yet I also felt defeated. After all, I had failed at my first big job of being a teacher.
When the bus dropped me off on Denman Street in Vancouver's West End late in the day I shuffled back to my father's apartment . For the next two months I once again plugged back into the joys of living in a city. I watched one film after another, some of which I'd seen before. And how nice it was to sit in a restaurant or a library for hours on end and never worry about upcoming classes. I felt lucky beyond belief to live in a city with its nice gyms, shopping malls, swimming pools, well-stocked libraries, buses and trolleys, tidy beaches and lovely manicured parks.
And there was another positive feature of living in Vancouver. "No one knows me here," I explained to a friend. "I want to live anonymously. I couldn't do that in Powell River." For a while I did feel happy.
Monday, 24 October 2016
Ten Months As a Teacher - by Dave Jaffe: Part Four.
Ten Months as a Teacher. Part Four by Dave Jaffe
I faced classes and young faces that were sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile but usually indifferent. The fault might have been mine. "You were a lousy teacher," a partner of one of my students said. "My girlfriend said you were the worst teacher she ever had."
Although this young man's comments angered me at the time he said them, he was probably right. I was a lousy teacher. I often didn't prepare for many of my five classes, three grade 11's and two grade 10's. I didn't read about the background of the novels, plays and poetry I taught. I often went into classes thinking, what am I going to teach right now? And I took no part in any of the extra cirricular activities that teachers usually headed up. I was supposed to help produce a play but I didn't even start the production. This was a major mistake on my part. For most teachers in the school coached sports teams, started new activities or did other things after school with the students. I did nothing.
So while I struggled on with my teaching, life in Powell River outside of Max Cameron just went on. There was a whole social world out there that I never got in contact with. Young people paired off into couples and then often got engaged. Singing groups, choirs, churches, political gatherings, and soccer and hockey leagues kept on going. I knew nothing about any of this. Yet it was a whole side of life that I ignored.
"You should come to school dances," one teacher told me. "If you show up at them, it can make your time in the classes easier." I didn't follow this advice, yet I should have. Like the true recluse I was, I stayed away from crowds. Every time I could, I sneaked off to Vancouver. I usually arrived in the city at night time, and came back to Powell River on a Sunday. I loved these two to three day breaks and spent hours wandering in Stanley Park, going to movies, and browsing in book stores and the Vancouver Public Library. In the library I did look for things and projects I could do with my classes.
These weekend jaunts kept me sane as my classes and teaching went downhill. I yearned to move back to Vancouver and soon I did.
One man who helped shovel me out of teaching and back to Vancouver was the superintendent of the Powell River school system. I went to him in November of 1969 and told him of some of the problems I faced as a teacher. He listened to me with some sympathy. But going to him may have been a mistake as I found out later.
I faced classes and young faces that were sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile but usually indifferent. The fault might have been mine. "You were a lousy teacher," a partner of one of my students said. "My girlfriend said you were the worst teacher she ever had."
Although this young man's comments angered me at the time he said them, he was probably right. I was a lousy teacher. I often didn't prepare for many of my five classes, three grade 11's and two grade 10's. I didn't read about the background of the novels, plays and poetry I taught. I often went into classes thinking, what am I going to teach right now? And I took no part in any of the extra cirricular activities that teachers usually headed up. I was supposed to help produce a play but I didn't even start the production. This was a major mistake on my part. For most teachers in the school coached sports teams, started new activities or did other things after school with the students. I did nothing.
So while I struggled on with my teaching, life in Powell River outside of Max Cameron just went on. There was a whole social world out there that I never got in contact with. Young people paired off into couples and then often got engaged. Singing groups, choirs, churches, political gatherings, and soccer and hockey leagues kept on going. I knew nothing about any of this. Yet it was a whole side of life that I ignored.
"You should come to school dances," one teacher told me. "If you show up at them, it can make your time in the classes easier." I didn't follow this advice, yet I should have. Like the true recluse I was, I stayed away from crowds. Every time I could, I sneaked off to Vancouver. I usually arrived in the city at night time, and came back to Powell River on a Sunday. I loved these two to three day breaks and spent hours wandering in Stanley Park, going to movies, and browsing in book stores and the Vancouver Public Library. In the library I did look for things and projects I could do with my classes.
These weekend jaunts kept me sane as my classes and teaching went downhill. I yearned to move back to Vancouver and soon I did.
One man who helped shovel me out of teaching and back to Vancouver was the superintendent of the Powell River school system. I went to him in November of 1969 and told him of some of the problems I faced as a teacher. He listened to me with some sympathy. But going to him may have been a mistake as I found out later.
Saturday, 22 October 2016
Ten Months As A Teacher by Dave Jaffe
Ten Months As A Teacher - Part Three
I soon realized that there were very few places to hang out at in Powell River once school was out. I was used to going to libraries, gyms and movie theatres in Vancouver. Yet in this town there were no shopping malls, no regular bus service and no inside swimming pools. As for a library, a woman opened a library for three hours once a week in a church basement. The high school I taught at, namely Max Cameron High School had a small library where I did find some books I liked. Yet compared to small cities that I'd gone to in the past, like Vernon in the Okanagan, Powell River struck me as a culturally deprived area.
So where did people hang out? If they were adults they ended up at local hotels that had a liquor license. I wasn't a great drinker so once the school day ended I would walk down the hill to my basement suite I rented in a house. There I would put pop records on the record player I'd brought with me. Like many lonely people, music became my close companion.Still, very soon I started to feel bored and shut in, especially after the rains came.
This town of about 10,000 had only one big main road that ran north for a few kilometres and ended at the fishing town of Lund. "There's not much to do around here," one of my students told me. He was right. I'm a city person who'd by now in 1969 had lived in three cities, namely London, England, Montreal and Vancouver. Powell River struck me as a barebones of town. Also the people there quickly saw me as a freaky character.
"My grandmother thinks you're really weird," my landlord's granddaughter said to me. "You don't have a car or even a television. She's never met anyone like you." The lady was right: I was a weirdo then and now. In the cities I'd lived in till now, I could hide my strangeness. Yet in Powell River I stuck out like a sore thumb.
The pulp mill kept churning out its products day and night. This was the reason for the town's existence. After two months in this town, I felt I was living at the ends of the earth and was thinking of quitting my job and vanishing back to Vancouver. I didn't do this because of some of other teachers. Sue was a transplanted American who taught English just as I did to grade 10 and 11 students. Like me she faced some hostile students.Tony was a man from Britain who sometimes felt frustrated by the young people he met in his socials classes. I've already talked about Rodger in another part of my blog. We became friends and this short but very knowledgeable British-born teacher was invaluable in his advice and encouragement. Another teacher who helped me was Cliff, a somewhat older person than me, who gave me topics to discuss in my classes.
Without these people around I wouldn't have finished my ten months of teaching, that's for sure.
I soon realized that there were very few places to hang out at in Powell River once school was out. I was used to going to libraries, gyms and movie theatres in Vancouver. Yet in this town there were no shopping malls, no regular bus service and no inside swimming pools. As for a library, a woman opened a library for three hours once a week in a church basement. The high school I taught at, namely Max Cameron High School had a small library where I did find some books I liked. Yet compared to small cities that I'd gone to in the past, like Vernon in the Okanagan, Powell River struck me as a culturally deprived area.
So where did people hang out? If they were adults they ended up at local hotels that had a liquor license. I wasn't a great drinker so once the school day ended I would walk down the hill to my basement suite I rented in a house. There I would put pop records on the record player I'd brought with me. Like many lonely people, music became my close companion.Still, very soon I started to feel bored and shut in, especially after the rains came.
This town of about 10,000 had only one big main road that ran north for a few kilometres and ended at the fishing town of Lund. "There's not much to do around here," one of my students told me. He was right. I'm a city person who'd by now in 1969 had lived in three cities, namely London, England, Montreal and Vancouver. Powell River struck me as a barebones of town. Also the people there quickly saw me as a freaky character.
"My grandmother thinks you're really weird," my landlord's granddaughter said to me. "You don't have a car or even a television. She's never met anyone like you." The lady was right: I was a weirdo then and now. In the cities I'd lived in till now, I could hide my strangeness. Yet in Powell River I stuck out like a sore thumb.
The pulp mill kept churning out its products day and night. This was the reason for the town's existence. After two months in this town, I felt I was living at the ends of the earth and was thinking of quitting my job and vanishing back to Vancouver. I didn't do this because of some of other teachers. Sue was a transplanted American who taught English just as I did to grade 10 and 11 students. Like me she faced some hostile students.Tony was a man from Britain who sometimes felt frustrated by the young people he met in his socials classes. I've already talked about Rodger in another part of my blog. We became friends and this short but very knowledgeable British-born teacher was invaluable in his advice and encouragement. Another teacher who helped me was Cliff, a somewhat older person than me, who gave me topics to discuss in my classes.
Without these people around I wouldn't have finished my ten months of teaching, that's for sure.
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