twenty-fi rst century, the photocopier caused the
biggest change in teaching. We could put up-to-date
material into our students’ hands, and running off ,
collating, and stapling a test for a class took fi ve
minutes instead of a whole hour.
The calculator arrived in the mid 1970s, replacing
the slide rule and Knott’s Tables. The computer
arrived in the late ’70s and the internet in the late
’80s. Except for computer classes, most teachers
had one computer to work with (often connected
to a TV monitor so students could watch videos).
Then, in rapid succession, we saw the appearance of
email, the World Wide Web, mobile (dumb) phones,
document cameras, smart boards, computer tablets,
social media, and smartphones, to name only a few.
Personally, I avoided things that I thought
wouldn’t improve what I was doing. (I fought
against replacing my chalkboard with a white board
until the white board was forced on me.) Any new
technology has a learning curve, and computers
have a steep one. The internet was cool but hard
to fi nd things with Veronica and Archie (some of
the earliest search engines) until Netscape arrived,
so it was too unreliable to use in class. I attended
PD sessions where the presenter had
downloaded all the sites so it
simulated being on the
net! That worked
without crashes. By
the turn of the
century, the
internet was
fi nally stable
enough to
use in class. In the ’70s, we thought that computers
would revolutionize teaching, but for decades they
were mostly used like an expensive set of fl ash
cards (in my opinion). Once computer technology
matured, it did fi nally become embedded into
education in a far-reaching way. Surprisingly,
computers have increased — not decreased —
teacher loads.
ARTA: What was your favourite subject or
aspect of the subject to teach?
Edgar: I’m a math and science teacher, but science,
especially physics, has toys to play with, and I
gravitated to that subject. Science establishes truth
through experiments, and the lab was always the
part of the courses that I liked best.
ARTA: Is there a concept you taught at
the beginning of your career that is not
taught today?
Edgar: Skills not taught anymore include
calculating square roots, using a slide rule,
operating a movie projector …. Curriculum
changes always drop some topics and
pick up others. We used to teach
weather maps, boiling points,
coeffi cients of expansion,
mineralogy, plate tectonics,
and astronomy in junior
high. Relativity, colour
theory, generators and
motors, and simple
electric circuits
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