I began Grade One in 1948 and graduated from Grade Twelve in 1959. The first few years were in a one room school and then we moved to a larger town where the school had two grades to a classroom. Most of our teachers did their job effectively and were the sort of persons we liked and respected. I want to tell you about three of my high school teachers: two that were not so good and one who I still look on as the epitome of what a teacher should be.

The first I will call Mr. Aggrieved-victim. He let us know that he felt the world had done him a nasty turn in sending him to teach a bunch of unruly louts such as we were. Any time something didn’t go quite as he wished it was treated as a personal affront. He had a very short fuse, which led to a couple of scary incidents. He was organized, knew his stuff and how to teach it, yet we felt a profound sense of relief when he did not appear in our classroom the next year.

The second I will call Mr. Bumblebore. We heard a rumour that he needed one more year of teaching in order to qualify for a pension and it seemed the only plausible reason for his presence in our classroom. He was calm, but always seemed as if he couldn’t quite figure how to present his lessons. He would drone on and on while we tried to study the lesson on our own, or doodle in our notebooks, or read something else. It was a mercy that he only taught two subjects.

The third was Mr. Nargang, who deserves to be called by his real name. He was a short little man, with nothing imposing in his appearance or manner. But he was interesting. He respected his students, we respected him and we learned more from him than from any other teacher.

He was also the school principal. One day after lunch we were due in Mr. Bumblebore’s class. Three of us boys decided we could learn just as much by sitting outside and visiting. We hadn’t considered that the place where we chose to sit was directly beneath the window of the principal’s office. After a few minutes the front door of the school opened and Mr. Nargang came strolling out and walked over to us. “You know, it would be best if you boys would go back to your classroom.” Then he walked back into the school. It didn’t sound like an order, he didn’t seem upset, but this was Mr. Nargang and we didn’t want him to be disappointed with us. We stood up, walked into school, walked up the stairs, entered the classroom from the back and quietly slid into our desks. Mr. Bumblebore appeared to take no notice of our arrival.

We encounter the same people in the working world. There is the supervisor who lashes out at the whole crew when one person makes a mistake. Another supervisor finds a private time to talk to the one who made the mistake and quietly asks “What happened?” And then there is the guy who has been promoted once too often and winds up with a responsibility he has no idea how to handle.

This can happen in any organization, at any level, including in government. One may feel a need for change and feel it must happen immediately. However, if one acts in haste one might well make things worse, rather than better. My observation from school and the working world is that when one tries to govern by fear, he shatters the relationships of trust and confidence that he needs in order to govern effectively. And when trust is betrayed it will not be easily restored.