Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/01/2015 (3056 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just to keep you off balance, I like to do stories such as this one in Thursday’s paper, which shows both that I do so go outside the Perimeter, and that I do so not always write about bad kids and bad teachers doing bad things in bad schools.

That was a hoot to go out to Miami and see the seriously woolly social studies project being thoroughly enjoyed by all the kids in teacher Elaine R. Owen’s class.

The R is important, crucial even, because there is also an Elaine Owen who is a trustee on the Prairie Rose School Division school board, in which Miami sits, and the two know each other and live not all that far from each other.

I wish I could tell you that diligent journalism and dogged determination led to that story.

Alas, it was a friend of Owen’s who emailed Big Editor (not her real name) and urged a story about this terrific teacher, and it eventually worked its way down the food chain until it landed on the lowly proletarian drone.

There are all sorts of ways that we find out about things that lead to stories, but the most basic is people telling us. I talk to people, I read minutes, I talk to people, I look at newsletters and bulletin boards, I follow Twitter, I talk to people.

When we went up to Flin Flon, I found out about Cranberry Portage school on the old radar base from Nancy Allan, I found out about the incredible Egg Lake project from deputy education minister Gerald Farthing. When we went up to Grand Rapids this past September, I figured, let’s call the superintendent and see what’s happening at the school while we’re there, and came up with two really good stories.

There’s no way I can promise that we’ll do a story if you get in touch with us, but I’ll listen each time; I wish I could tell you that there’s a magic formula for something happening in a school that innovative and intriguing and unusual enough to pique our interest — Elaine R. Owen certainly met all the criteria.

So if you’ve got a friend who’s a nifty teacher, or your colleague down the hall is doing something really neat, you don’t even need to drop a dime — give them up at nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca