Gordon Bell, Advanced 8
In my last year at GB I was given a class of Grade 8 Phase One -- top students in their grade. In those days the provincial Grade 8 curriculum had a lot of material -- decimals, fractions, percent -- that was review of what had been covered in earlier grades. I decided to skip all that and teach what was essentially the Grade 9 algebra course. We had a lot of fun that year. In June I took this group picture. That night, in the makeshift darkroom I had in my apartment, I made seventeen 8 by 10 copies of it, enough for everyone in the class. I printed it on matte paper and left a white strip at the bottom, wide enough so that everybody could sign everyone else's copies. I understand that some members of the class brought theirs to a GB reunion held forty years later! Leaving that class behind was one of the hardest parts of leaving Gordon Bell. When I look at the picture today I can still put names to many of the students! I am standing in the back row at the right. The tall student at the left, over six feet tall at the age of 13, was Andre Silvanovich. I remember him clearly. Whenever he was disappointed with something -- perhaps a lower test score than usual -- he would tell me that he was going to run away from home and join the French Foreign Legion! In June of 1979 I went to the Gordon Bell graduation ceremonies to see this class graduate. That was the only GB graduation ceremony I ever attended after leaving the school in 1975.