Hazeldean School, by Ruth Lane Kanter

Mr. Wooten, the principal of Hazeldean Elementary during the 1950's, tries to civilize the children in his care.
Date: 1954 to 1959

In my tender years, I came under the civilizing influence of Mr. Wooten, the elderly Principal at Hazeldean Elementary School in Edmonton. I was there between the years 1954 and 1959. Mr. Wooten's accent seemed English, but rumour had it that he was from Victoria, B.C. where the colonials are more British than the Brits.

He was indeed an Anglophile and taught us to play cricket in the gymnasium. The game involved two parallel runways with a 'wicket' at either end (each wicket like three bowling pins; whether we got points or penalties for knocking them down with the cricket ball I can not remember). Oh yes - there were the flat cricket bats too. The rules of the game were fiendishly complicated, and Mr. Wooten would not allow us to cheer and carry on like Americans. Just a polite smattering of claps was all the enthusiasm we were permitted to show.

More about games. The only time I saw Mr. Wooten really angry was when there was booing during one of our sporting events. That he would not tolerate.

Another of his educational efforts was reading Ernest Hemingway's 'The Old Man And The Sea' to us students over the public address system. All of us, from grades one to six, were forced to listen to it. The symbolism and themes went right over our heads, I'm afraid; but when we were assigned to draw illustrations for the book-wouldn't you know it? My picture just happened to win first prize for the whole school!

Also, during the monthly school assemblies, Mr. Wooten showed us Danny Kaye movies that had been made for U.N.I.C.E.F. Once again, rumour had it that Mr. Wooten was a pacifist and maybe even a socialist. He certainly did seem keen on the U.N. Strangely, none of this seemed to soften the school's policy on corporal punishment under his command. Though some may have judged him an eccentric for his political sympathies, our family knew him as a helpful and caring educator. He arranged for my younger brother to be tested for dyslexia at the University of Alberta, although at that time this condition was little known even among professionals.

The only run-in I had with Mr. Wooten was over a 'play-fight' I had with one of the other girls. She had got her dress dirty and her mother was upset. I was trying to explain to him that we were fighting just for fun-like puppies, or kittens, or the wrestler, 'Whipper' Billy Watson. Mr. Wooten's watery eyes looked at me earnestly through his dated spectacles. "Do you think fighting is fun?" he asked. Only one answer would do. "Nooooo," I replied. I never fought for fun again.