... he was principal of one of the other schools and he allowed that girl who was the first Indian to get to grade thirteen not only come top...I can't remember when I was teaching in Chatham, the first Negro boy came to school into high-school and the principal said, at a school meeting, he said, "I want you to remember it's not just a boy, he represents the hopes ...

Interviewer: Did most teachers have B-A's then, in the high-schools? Speaker: When I was teaching? Well when I first started to teach grade thirteen was divided into two sections. There were about seven subjects in each sections, and if you had your grade thirteen you could get what they called a first-class-certificate and you could teach in continuation schools, see a lot of the country schools had just first two years high-school and ah but some of them were teaching in when teachers were scarce ...

Speaker: Well a first class certificate you've got um, you've got to um taken thirteen second you had grade twelve. Interviewer: Well I-see, that's what it meant then. Speaker: And the, ah there was several years when (cough) when they made all the public school teachers have grade thirteen and I taught night-school for several years for people who were trying to get their grade thirteen. Interviewer: What they, they do now in grade twelve and thirteen they graduate people twice I guess. You get a secondary diploma and you go to grade thirteen and honours diploma. I guess they're about the same thing. Speaker: Yes.

... and I can remember there was one book that was prescribed that they had to use and we used it in grade ten and grade twelve and grade thirteen and ah when Lester-Royles first came he was, he and I worked together and by-the-way, he is one teacher I have the most utmost respect for.

... only principal in town that has any backbone at all. Other principals would slam the door in his face, there was no drugs in their school and he knew..." Teaching Miss-Hasting used to say, she was our history teacher, "if I took a class right through from grade nine to grade thirteen, nobody would fail." And I used to talk to Mr-McCracken about it, I said, "if a teacher could carry a class through what it would mean."

And I would get six of Lester's and he would get about six of mine and do you know one time, when the inspectors came they wanted to...they thought that we were holding students back in grade twelve so that they would make a good showing in grade thirteen, we were getting such good results. And it was just that you, you had that same group right through for three years and you knew which ones prodding, which ones needed encouraging, which ones should be stepped on a bit and which ones should be given a little leeway ...

Interviewer: ... well what did you do before you started to teach? Did you just go from grade-eight? Speaker: I just went from- I just- no, no. From- I went from gr-- it was known as um- it- we- g-- I went from grade-thirteen. Interviewer: So you could go in the same school, the Elgin-Ward school? Speaker: Oh no, I went to the high-school. Interviewer: I see.

- Speaker: This is the traumatic experience the first day of high school um well it wasn't traumatic, but it was just upsetting. Anyway, part of it- part of the uniform is this powder-blue blazer. It was quite ugly, to tell you the truth. But by the time

Speaker: And I loved at high-school I loved drama and I was in a lot of the plays and um, oratorical contests and-so-on. Interviewer: This was at-at Humberside? Speaker: Yes. I-I won the gold medal in my Grade-Thirteen for that and I was quite- and when I was a little girl leaving Runnymeade, all my friends came and sat in the front row ...

... my particular friends, my group of friends were all basket-ball players and we had gone all through the high-school years together and there was a group of about seven of us, I-guess that were really very good friends. And it just happened- my grade-thirteen year for various reasons, one of the girls became head-girl, and she had to be in residence ...

... so I failed one subject, didn't get my senior- matric 'cause back then it was senior-matriculation set by the province. Everybody- you could only graduate if you wrote that grade-thirteen exam and passed. And it wasn't at the school, it was down at the U-of-T as a matter of fact, in some great big gymnasium. Miles and miles of desks. Very intimidating, I'll tell you.

And um, as-I-say, I failed one subject so I had to repeat my grade-thirteen. So I was sent of to Jarvis-Collegiate which was a bit of a culture shock. I was in classes with boys and I, I-mean after being at an all-girls school, boys terrified me, Matthew.

... involved in bird-conservation. And um, it's that, that was- it- definitely a calling. No-if-and-or-buts-about-it. Because I, I don't have any biological background other than grade-thirteen, you-know, grade-thirteen biology and I did a, a home-correspondence- course in ornithology. Which is just the basics of ornithology. But I never, you-know, I don't have any degree to back up my, my knowledge in, in ornithology. It's all self- taught kind of thing.

Speaker: Oh well funny-enough that, now that I think about it, I was very serious about pursuing architecture. And I took architecture all the way up through grade-thirteen, drafting. And did quite well in it actually. But decided you-know, (inc) reasons.

I was just finishing my grade thirteen, so I would have been eighteen. And then ah, eighteen, turned nineteen, and then I went to Ryerson.

Speaker: Yeah, well I skipped a couple of grades. They used to skip kids in those days, huh, so I actually finished grade you-know, I guess it was grade-thirteen in those days, right. I- I think I was only just almost sixteen years old. Interviewer: Did you go right to university after that? Speaker: Yeah, went right to university. I was graduated before I was twenty, yeah. Interviewer: In biochemisty. Speaker: Yeah.

... my friends were all- tended to be achievers, and at that point in time, that's when (inc) one still had to write departmental final exams and there was standardized tests for grade-thirteen. Um our high-school tended to have amongst the highest levels of achievement on those tests in terms of number of- percentage of Ontario scholars and things-like-that ...

Well well that- that's what I thought when I finished June sixty-nine my grade-thirteen and I had been saving my money and I decided I'd go to Europe with the money I'd saved for University at that point ...

And um- but anyway the result of that was that it took me four years to do my grade-twelve and thirteen, in those days you had to do nine grade-twelves and uh nine grade-thirteen subjects, so it took me- I maybe could have- I maybe could have squeezed it into three years but I had to raise some money as well so um- 'cause my mother was quite poor and as I've mentioned before my father had died ...

When I started teaching uh, students had to take history, all the way through, up to- not in grade-thirteen but they had to history in grades nine, ten, eleven and twelve, every year and then grade- thirteen was optional but now I think they only have to take one- one history and even along the way so- but taking all those histories, that was part of this sort-of more conservative approach that was in effect at that time you-know ...