High School Typing Class

It was my good fortune for several years to attend a little rural high school in New Brunswick. Happy times with good friends, exceptional teachers, and a principal of enormous foresight.

Grade Eleven was an important enough year, focused on preparation for the Provincial Examinations. For those of us academically inclined, the “Provincials” carried enormous weight for university admission and scholarships. So you may appreciate the shocked response when, as timetables were handed out, there appeared blocks on Tuesdays and Thursdays for “Typing”.

Let me explain. Those were the sixties, and typing was for girls. Not only just for girls, but particularly for girls who intended to find jobs as stenographers and secretaries, rather than those few going on to university. “Typing” would have been the last choice for university bound young men. Even cooking classes would seem more useful.

None of this was controversial in the 60s. And another feature of high school education in the 60s that was non-controversial is that you didn’t pick your courses– you were simply handed a timetable.

So, with that background, you will understand the consternation which rippled across the room when we were handed our annual timetables with two hours blocked off for ….. typing!

I’m not sure who raised a respectful hand to point out, “Ma’am, I think I was given a girls’ timetable.” In the 1960s that was neither rude nor disrespectful, just an observation.

Mrs. Nelson (“Ms.” hadn’t yet been invented) just smiled and replied, “I’ve been expecting someone would have that question! Actually, you do have the right timetable, and so does every other young man in this class.”

The room fell deathly silent. Mrs. Nelson may as well have told us that starting tomorrow we would all be wearing skirts and high heels. I looked at Seymour, and Seymour looked at Crandall, and Crandall looked at me, and so on around the class, as the shock set it.

Mrs. Nelson continued, “The decision was made by the principal, and has the full support of all staff. Actually, Mr. MacLean expected this reaction, and he would be happy to meet with you all right now, if you’d care to go to his office.”

So we trooped bravely off to the principal’s office, ready to assert our rights. We could hear the girls snickering as we left the room.

“Ah, Gentlemen!” said Mr. MacLean, “I’ve been expecting you!” And there in the corridor in front of his office, he gave us one of the best life lesson I remember from Sackville High School. Actually, one of my most valuable life lessons.

“You know, we can never be sure of the shape of the future, but we can make some good guesses. And one of the things we can guess with reasonable certainty is that computers will become not only more powerful, but much smaller. Someday one may actually fit on your desk. Keyboards will have an important part in your futures. We’re not sure how it will all work out, but a lot of smart people believe that as you go into science and the professions and business, you will likely find yourselves using keyboards to enter information into those computers. And so, as educators, we’re going to make sure you’re ready.”

Now, of course, this was rural New Brunswick in the early 1960s, so we just nodded respectfully and thanked him, and went muttering back to our classes. He may as well have talked about flying cars or putting a man on the moon.

But by the end of the year I could type more than thirty words a minute on a manual typewriter– clackety, clackety, clackety, clackety, swoosh!, ding!, clackety, clackety, clackety, clackety, swoosh!, ding! Pretty respectable (for a boy).

In the decades that have passed my gratitude for Mr. MacLean’s wisdom and foresight has only increased– not only when I watch colleagues hunt and peck, but because I learned that education is all about preparation for the future, often a future whose shape is uncertain and about which you need to make intelligent predictions. It’s not about content, it’s about life skills, learning how to think critically, and being ready for what will come at you.

And in his subtle 1960s way, Mr. MacLean began to break down some of the attitudinal barriers which had no place in the future, and for those things I will always be grateful.