Confessions of a Retired
High School Physics Teacher
Q&A with ARTA member, Barry Edgar
ARTA: Can you tell us a bit about your
teaching career? ARTA: How did technology change the way
you taught throughout your career?
Edgar: I started teaching in 1973, teaching math
and science part-time at Westlawn Junior High in
Edmonton. During the next four years, I taught at
Lawton Junior High, Avalon Junior High, Riverbend
Junior High, and Grandview Junior High. After
three years at Grandview, I went on a sabbatical
to study these newfangled things called ‘micro
computers.’ After my sabbatical, I returned to
Grandview as the Science and Computers teacher.
In 1987, I transferred to Ross Sheppard High School
as a physics teacher. Ten years later, I moved to
Strathcona High School where I spent my last
sixteen years as a full-time physics teacher, before
retiring in 2013. Edgar: For making copies of tests, worksheets, and
so on, my fi rst school had two spirit duplicators,
one of which was hand-cranked (the other turned
electrically and had a counter). For important
things, the school had a black ink printing machine.
Five years later, most of the smaller schools got
their fi rst photocopiers. Classroom technology was
chalk on a chalkboard and for audiovisual aids we
used record players (vinyl to today’s people),
16 mm fi lms, 35 mm fi lmstrips, and opaque
projectors. We kept attendance by hand in a booklet.
Five years after that, we had overhead projectors
and a videocassette machine (in colour no less). Of
all of the new technologies, I think that until the
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