Winnipeg Free Press > Opinion > Bloggers > Telling Tales Out of School

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Telling Tales Out of School

with Nick Martin

  • Becoming a one-sport child

    I’m glad I’m not a parent having to decide whether to move my son or daughter to Glenlawn Collegiate next fall so they can train daily year-round with the Manitoba Soccer Association’s regional training centre.

    View Full Post | 11/03/2010 2:08 PM | 0

  • WSD and its secrets

    Sometimes the stories are so bizarre that I couldn’t make up this stuff.

    View Full Post | 10/03/2010 3:17 PM | 1

  • The editor chides me about Red Loin

    The editor gave me a bigtime chewing-out this morning, accusing me of shoddy journalism and of failing to do my research before writing a story about the U of M engineers' Red Loin magazine.

    View Full Post | 9/03/2010 1:08 PM | 14

  • Get up early Saturday and yell at me

    I was doing three indoor soccer matches last Saturday at Coverall starting at the crack of dawn, and called a girl for kicking the feet out from under another girl. The alleged fouler's coach erupted at me, yelling that the alleged foulee had stepped on the ball.

    View Full Post | 5/03/2010 12:39 PM | 8

  • Babinsky proclaims, and we scribble

    I flashbacked to Coun. Harry Lazarenko as I was listening to WSD trustee Mike Babinsky after the closed-door huddle Monday night......

    View Full Post | 2/03/2010 12:02 PM | 5

  • Kid, get off the couch

    It’s hard for me to believe that it’s 24 years since my father died, and that I’m only two years younger than he was when he suffered a massive heart attack while pushing a little bit of light snow off his driveway.

    No, wait, don’t run away, I’m not going to go all morose and maudlin, and I will tie this into education.

    I did the story this week about the physically inactive Grade 12 kid in Selkirk who’s refusing to do the out-of-school physical activity required for his compulsory phys ed credit, without which he’s not eligible to graduate in June.

    Last year in Grade 11, he refused to design and carry out the detailed activity plan which his gym teacher expected, though his mother signed off on the boy’s log, declaring that he’s done the activity necessary to get his Grade 11 compulsory credit.

    This year, says mom, she’s not signing.

    I so, so wish that the compulsory phys ed credits had been around in the early 1960s when I was in high school, and that gym teachers had been the professional and caring physical educators which kids should feel blessed to have these days.

    My gym teachers were varsity coaches who reluctantly had to oversee us nerds and bookworms doing pushups and toe touches, in order to get a pay cheque. One gym teacher in particular openly displayed his disgust in having to spend his day having us in his gym.

    I was done with minor hockey at age 10 and with baseball at 14. No fair play rule ensuring you’d even get on the field then, no soccer, no volleyball, no school running club, virtually no intramurals. I never made a school or competitive team in my life.

    And above all, no physical educator working with me to show me the benefits of an active lifestyle, no skilled teacher showing me the dozens of options available to me for enjoyable and healthy life-long leisure.

    I was getting pretty chunky in my 20s, and by the age of 33 I was just plain fat. Pretty miserable, too. I remember that I was covering the Ontario Liberal leadership race in Toronto in February of 1982, snacking away on potato chips as I wrote, looking forward to dinner and a few frosty ones, and when I looked in the mirror, I hated the person I saw.

    I was well on the way to a heart attack, I’m sure. By that time, my mother had already suffered a debilitating stroke, thanks in no small part to being a heavy smoker, sedentary, and decades of eating a classic deep fat and lots of gravy English and PEI-Irish cuisine.

    It was only four years later that my dad dropped dead. He smoked, he was sedentary, he ate all the wrong things in far too great portions, and he brought the office home with him every night, sitting on the couch doing paperwork in front of the TV.

    My dad had been an athlete, a strong one, trying out for Newcastle United just before joining the RAF for pilot training early in the war. He never played again.

    But back to me, and my original point about phys ed and physical activity.

    I’m completely non-athelic, I don’t have an athletic gene in my body. My dad was an athlete, my wife is an athlete (her photos are on the wall of a certain Winnipeg high school), my kids are very good athletes.

    What I am is healthy.

    Back in 1982 that day when David Peterson became Ontario Liberal leader, I decided to make a sudden and radical change in diet. I started walking a lot, and then I started to run. By the spring of 1982, I’d run my first 10-k, and a year later ran my first full marathon.

    I really wish I could sit down and talk to that kid in Selkirk — I hope he’ll listen to his gym teacher, because there’s an horrendous number of sedentary, unfit kids out there, and they’re going to grow into unhealthy adults.

    I’m closing in on 62 now, and I remain as non-athletic as ever.

    But each Saturday and Sunday I referee half a dozen indoor soccer games in about a 27-hour period, six hours of running and occasional walking. And I do run, staying with the ball, I don’t stand at centre and turn in a circle to make calls — as bad as those calls I make may be, I’m on top of the play. I play two hours of low-skill but enthusiastic volleyball on Wednesday nights, and I go to Reh-Fit three times a week, two-and-a-half-hours of pretty intense activity each time: bike, treadmill, weights, abs, rowing, wind sprints, enjoying all of it.

    We kayak for close to six months of the year, what’s become an absolute passion, and we love walking on nature trails, I still run half marathons and once the ice is gone, I’ll be running 90 minutes outside on nights when I don’t have an outdoor soccer match to ref. We even hack around with tennis rackets at the outdoor courts.

    When I go into Mountain Equipment Co-Op or Manitoba Marathon race headquarters, I’m not an interloper, I feel at home and that I belong, and at my age that’s a nice feeling.

    Dude, loosen up and go and talk to the gym teacher. He or she will go over dozens of activities, a few of which you might even enjoy, and which will make you a whole lot healthier and happier person as you grow up.

    View Full Post | 26/02/2010 12:34 PM | 10

  • Get over it — this was settled in 1999

    It seemed like old times at the Winnipeg School Division budget forum Monday night — which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

    View Full Post | 23/02/2010 5:36 PM | 7

  • Lost in the labyrinth of Facebook

    I checked in today on Facebook, and it tells me that I can add Mike Babinsky as a friend.

    View Full Post | 22/02/2010 6:15 PM | 2

  • My polling numbers plummet

    There’s been more turmoil than usual — if I was a character on Fringe, I’d wonder if William Bell was messing around with the doorways between parallel worlds.

    View Full Post | 10/02/2010 4:20 PM | 4

  • U of M's distinguished man of minerals turns 90

    Here's The Buzz for Friday, Feb. 5.

    View Full Post | 5/02/2010 12:37 PM | 2

  • Ranking the high schools

    It’s not news that Manitoba does not compile and make public a school-by-school breakdown of Grade 12 marks in each subject, graduation rates, dropout rates, attendance, and postsecondary participation and success.

    View Full Post | 3/02/2010 12:04 PM | 9

  • Which trustees are out of control?

    Bartley Kives reported earlier this week in our pages that Mayor Sam says some school boards are out of control.

    View Full Post | 28/01/2010 11:18 AM | 8

  • School taxes cash grab 101

    So before I get an email from Oliver Stone about conspiracy theories, let's expand on my story in today's paper and talk about how a school board might use the confusion over reassessment to pull off a cash grab.

    View Full Post | 27/01/2010 1:23 PM | 3

  • I apologize, like, I'm so totally sorry

     

    View Full Post | 26/01/2010 10:34 AM | 0

  • I needed no-fail policy in Grade 7

    I should have failed Grade 7, even though I had an average in the 90s.

    View Full Post | 20/01/2010 4:24 PM | 9

  • My federal vote is up for bids

    Steve, Iggy, Jacko, Elizabeth: here's the deal.

    View Full Post | 18/01/2010 2:43 PM | 0

  • I dropped my WSD season ticket

    I've had people asking me why I no longer spend my Monday evenings going to Winnipeg School Division board meetings.

    View Full Post | 14/01/2010 11:46 AM | 4

  • School volleyball coaches deserve this kind of money

    I was watching the late stages of the bowl game on the telly Thursday night, and nearly choked on my red pepper hummus when they said that the University of Texas football coach is paid $5 million a year and the coach of the University of Alabama $3.9 million.

    View Full Post | 13/01/2010 9:52 AM | 2

  • Lord Stanley and 200 avenue de la Cathédrale

    College universitaire de Saint-Boniface -- educator of choice for Stanley Cup-winning students.

    View Full Post | 8/01/2010 10:56 AM | 1

  • How raises above inflation fuel education costs

    Manitoba's public school teachers are making four or five times the current rate of inflation.

    View Full Post | 6/01/2010 1:25 PM | 28

  • What the trustees spend on themselves

    Hands up if I didn’t get around to getting you miffed in the school-related stories that ran over the holiday period.

    View Full Post | 4/01/2010 2:37 PM | 4

  • Using a water fountain 101

    I was in the Duckworth Centre the other day for an interview, and noticed a spiffy large sign above the drinking fountain in the lobby.

    View Full Post | 21/12/2009 3:44 PM | 4

  • Decisions can have fallout

    I expect we’ll be hearing more soon about the proposal to establish an aboriginal public school division in the city, but meanwhile, I’m wondering if a seemingly unrelated situation in Winnipeg School Division will play a role.

    View Full Post | 17/12/2009 10:54 AM | 0

  • Tough kindergarten justice in Texas

    Having signed up for a bunch of education-related news services, I received an email item about a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, a group with which I’d probably be BFF if I was living in the 13 Colonies.

    View Full Post | 7/12/2009 6:42 AM | 5

  • A week away on campus

    I’m just back from a wonderful time in Upper Canada and FOOF country (which, of course, you know means fine old Ontario families).

    View Full Post | 2/12/2009 3:53 PM | 0

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