After completing my Doctorate in Chemistry at UBC in 1970, and finding that the job market had collapsed during several years of post-doctoral work and endless applications to universities and research institutions, I completed a one year program in secondary education at UBC. To my great relief and that of my wife Fran, Ray Zacharias hired me after Gordon Lloyd, as the new principal at KSS, said he wanted me on his staff to teach Chemistry 11 and 12. As luck would have it, my first class of Chem 12’s was one of the strongest classes that had ever gone through the school. Worried about the first set of report card marks I had ever made up, I showed them to Fred Persello, the Physics teacher. 50% A’s and B’s seemed to be highly inflated. He responded that he had an even higher percentage and that I must be a tough marker. I learned a great deal that year from the incredible students who constantly surrounded me, giving me tips on how to improve my teaching and showing me that the human contacts out of class were frequently more important than the day-to-day stuff that went on in the classroom.

By my second year of teaching, my family was completed with the birth of my daughter, Loren (who is now an elementary school teacher). My son, Ken, who was born a few years previously, is presently a highly successful programmer in Vancouver. Both graduated with pride from KSS.

Within a few years I found myself being an unofficial counselor, on topics ranging from boy and girlfriend problems, unwanted pregnancies, rape, drug addiction and problems with parents, on top of the ever popular “Help! I’m failing and need tutoring”. It became very evident that teens frequently need to talk to an adult and that high achieving students have special sets of problems that afflict them.

After a few years, I started to help Ray Shindell with his Gifted and Talented program, Advanced Designed Studies (ADS). Shortly thereafter, we started Olympics of the Mind in the District (which evolved into Odyssey of the Mind and then Destination ImagiNation). It rapidly became apparent that many students exhibited giftedness in some of the most unexpected areas, and were able to create projects that literally staggered the imagination. More than one gifted student said that ADS was the most worthwhile program or course they took in school. Sadly, the program fell under the financial knife because we could not find 20 students each year (which otherwise would have been a miracle since only a small percentage of the population is truly gifted).

In 1988, I was asked to start an Advanced Placement program in Chemistry, which gave participating students the equivalent of first year university Chemistry. Sandy Baird started AP Calculus the same year and we were off and running hard. From a small beginning, the program grew steadily – until KSS became an 8-12 school. The loss of student numbers in grades 11 and 12 was reflected in a loss of time table flexibility and Chem AP began to falter as fewer numbers of still-enthusiastic students were able to fit the course into their schedules. Eventually the course was offered outside of the timetable (after school) and finally was discontinued. (Chem AP is now offered by UCC as an after school and weekend course.)

All through these years, the most memorable parts of my career have been my association with my students: they were “Hebden’s kids” and I was “Doc”. I tried to make myself available almost every lunch hour for extra help and tutoring, which added immensely to my repertoire of teaching skills. If a kid doesn’t understand the first four different ways you have explained something, you can either abandon the kid as a dummy or realize the problem is your ability to find out how that individual learns and invent a fifth way that will get through. One of the most fascinating things I found about teaching is the myriad of ways that kids learn. The more a teacher can tune into each kid’s learning needs, the better the result. I had to keep reminding myself that slow-to-learn kids had taken the trouble to come in during their lunch hour to get help, so it was not a problem of student indifference.

After my first few years of teaching, which were basically a case of “Please, dear Lord, let me survive and don’t let me mess up these great kids”, I found myself inventing new lab experiments and whiz-bang demonstrations. Watching a candle burn “just doesn’t cut it”. (Rumors that I did a demonstration that blew a filter paper soaked with burning phosphorus onto the ceiling, which then began to burn, and that I tried to beat out the flames with a broom which also caught fire, are unfortunately completely true. I often wonder if Gordon Lloyd knew that I tried to burn down his new school two weeks after I arrived there.) As time passed, I started to give Chemistry Magic Shows, which were enthusiastically attended. After the first couple, which I did by myself, I enlisted students as performers. They were sent out to our “feeder” elementary schools and amazed the young students and their teachers with their showmanship and wild “stinks and bangs”. Then followed the Chemistry Club, which continued the Magic Shows and invited the whole school in to the Chem lab to do such things as make paint, make slime, create their own demonstrations and generally have fun with chemistry.

Early experiences with students who were involved with drugs, some to the point of suicide, led me to start giving special lectures on Marijuana to my Chem 12 students. The problem was that any student who made it to Chem 12 could not have been a heavy drug user or they wouldn’t have had any thinking ability left – I was “preaching to the converted”. Students pointed out that I should be talking to younger students, but I didn’t teach any and would just be seen as another “talking head” (a fourteen-year old kid has had thirteen years practice at tuning out adults). My students suggested we form a Drug Awareness Group. We brought in counselors from the Raven and Phoenix Center to train my group in drug facts, presentation skills and how to deal with the various situations they would encounter. Then, I turned them loose, sending different groups of two or three to talk to each grade 8 and 9 class, and then to grades 6 and 7 classes in our feeder schools. The impact they had was incredible. The message sank in, and more than one student was able to tell of younger students that came to them later to thank them for helping them get off drugs. Wow!

In 1988, Gordon Lloyd had been promoted from principal of Kam High to a being a District Principal. One day that year he stopped me in the hall with a huge grin in his face as he announced he had submitted my name for a special award. A few months later I was shocked to find that I had been awarded a Certificate of Recognition for Excellence in Teaching by the Ministry of Education. Then in 2000, I was again left speechless when I received a telephone call from the B.C. Science Teachers Association, telling me I had been selected as the Science Teacher of the Year for 2000. It took a few minutes of back and forth banter before I realized the call was for real and not a joke. I always felt uncomfortable with such awards because on a daily basis I saw numerous outstanding teachers all around me who were equally deserving of recognition, if not more so.

In my first few years of teaching I realized that writing notes on the board, period after period, was as thrilling as watching mud dry. Hence, I started to make up packages of notes that could be photocopied and handed out, so that more time could be devoted to teaching and questioning. Eventually, these notes were so voluminous that I arranged to have them published in 1980 by McGraw-Hill Ryerson – Chemistry: Theory and Problems, Book 1 and 2 were born. By the late ‘80’s, book sales were diminishing sufficiently to cease their publication. However, shortly after that the Ministry of Education asked me to write the text for the Small Schools Project for Chemistry 12. The idea was that an experienced Chemistry teacher would prepare material that was heavy on detailed explanations and could be used in outlying schools that did not have a teacher expressly trained in Chemistry. My old sponsor teacher from my student teaching days, Duncan Morrison, was to be my editor. By 1990 we had completed and published the Chemistry 12 Project. As a result of changing Ministry objectives, the entire Small Schools Project was abandoned after five or so years. Then, in 1997, my wife and I entirely re-wrote the material that formed the basis of the Small Schools Chemistry 12 text and re-published it as Hebden: Chemistry 12, A Workbook For Students, followed the next year by Hebden: Chemistry 11, A Workbook For Students. We formed a company (she’s the CEO) and still publish them to this day.

My last year of teaching, 2002-2003, was spent trying to beef up the chemistry resources of the District. Over the years I had given well over a dozen different seminars for Chem teachers, ranging from government exam preparation to teaching tips, new demonstrations and new lab experiments. I was relieved of one block of teaching and hired by Ross Spina, in the School Board Office, to use that extra block of time to assemble a set of resources that could be used with little or no lab assistant time.

Anyway, during my last year, Rosemary French and I came up with about a dozen new low-maintenance labs and several new demonstrations that would allow the Chem teachers to at least survive in times of fiscal restraint. The catch to all these new labs was that I quickly found many schools had little of the basic equipment needed for my pretty new labs. So, Sharon Dodd (the Chem teacher at Brocklehurst Secondary) and I assembled a list of required equipment for all the schools and submitted it to Ross Spina. He didn’t hesitate to arrange for the purchase of the new equipment, bless him!

And with that, I felt my last tasks were complete. In June of 2003 I retired after 28 years and Kam High ceased to exist at the same time. I have always felt that Kam High was blessed with incredible teachers who worked with and produced incredible students. Most especially, I always felt that Kam High was especially blessed by having sound administration and exceptionally strong English, Mathematics and Science departments. I feel so privileged to have been a part of the history of such a remarkable school.