Submitted by Pamela Dyrda
OAPO Personalities – Ann McLeod
Born in Cape Breton, Lumby’s retired teacher Ann McLeod started at Saint Francis Xavier University taking Science and Pre-med to become a doctor. While taking a year off in Montreal she started teaching. Because of a great need she obtained her Teaching Certificate through night school and summers at McGill and ending up teaching in Montreal for the next 15 years.
Next, she headed to the Nass Valley at the Nisga Village and taught K-grade 5 and lived in a very isolated teacherage in a Fly-in community where they would boat out or fly out once a month, at Kincolith, BC.
Then she spent a year in Houston, which is a forestry, mining and tourism town in the Bulkley Valley. There at the Northwest Collage she taught Upgrading English as a second language. This was contingent on the number of students and after a year she flew to Vancouver to look for work. There she answered an ad and was accepted to teach in Tokyo Japan where she stayed for 2 years teaching kids and teens English. She also taught Businessmen for companies.
When she returned to Canada she experienced “Reverse Culture Shock” and returned to Tokyo for three more years of teaching. Here she was the Head Teacher and supervised the teacher training. She was also the curriculum co-ordinator. Her title was Cross Culture Awareness Supervisor for the Burkley House Language Center. They taught company managers in the oil and financial fields and the “Big Wigs” such as presidents of companies.
She travelled back to Canada in 1991 working at the Dorset Collage which was a private school and a counsellor for ESL (English Second Language) for International Students grades 10-11. From there she taught at Excel Richmond where she taught English Immersion for a couple of years.
In 1997 she went to Yellowknife and subbed K-12 for a year. In 1998 she was Head of the English Department at Dorset college in New Westminster.
From 2002-2004 she went back to Kincolith in the Nass Valley with the new Primary Program. 2004-2010 she was Principal at the Gitwinksihlkw Elementary School when she retired and made her home in Lumby.
With her vast English experience and unending stories, I can’t wait to hear them all. Ann will take over the column in October.
