Lyonel Doherty

Times-Chronicle

Ask some people and they will say Southern Okanagan Secondary School won’t be the same without Dave Wilson.

The veteran phys-ed teacher/basketball coach is retiring after 26 years of bringing out the best in students.

While he could have made a lot more coin managing bars or submarines, yes, submarines, he wouldn’t have made the difference in the lives of our most valuable resource – the youth.

Wilson accepted a position at SOSS in 1994, spurred on by Marty Whiteman who put the bug in his ear.

“I loved it when I came here. I loved the kids. We were on the quarter system at the time, which was totally different and unique,” Wilson reminisced.

He noted the school and the old gymnasium had such character. They had uniforms for physical education classes and even a washing service for the department.

“It was just . . . different. I really thought, wow, this is unbelievable what this school is doing and how close the community and the school worked together back then.”

Wilson recalled a strong sense of community pride, which was “part of the charm” that he always felt coming to work every day.

But he said the district later began hiring administrators from big cities who didn’t really understand the town. Then, the school was the victim of fire in 2012, and from there, “things changed,” Wilson said.

“Now with the smart phones and the technology . . .  kids are different . . . they’re not raised in the same sense of community that other kids were (back then). For me, there is clearly a disconnect. I never thought that I would ever suffer the generation gap; I always thought I would be cool and hip and connect with the kids.” But he did.

Wilson is quick to note there are some really talented students filtering through SOSS right now.

“We’ve always had some really talented kids go through this school. But then there are the other ones that really struggle and you can understand that; I always tried to connect with those kids.” 

Wilson said teaching really takes a toll on you due to stress.

“You really just want to do the right thing but you’re not given all the information, and sometimes you say the wrong thing or you do the wrong thing, and you can’t take that back sometimes with those kids, they’re just so sensitive.”

Wilson said the mental health of students is a big issue today. He pointed to the reporter’s smart phone, saying this particular technology is a big driver in that.

“Kids are struggling a lot more,” he stated, adding that COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem.

The educator believes this generation, including himself, protected their kids too much.

“I think we were not willing to let them kind of figure it out for themselves.”

And when you add the addictiveness of social media, keeping them inside instead of playing outside, you see more of these struggles manifesting themselves. “I really feel for them. I feel like they’re a lost generation. It was very hard for me as a teacher (dealing with that).”

Wilson said he wished the education system took a harder line on social media devices in schools because youth need more physical exercise, plain and simple.

Dave Wilson dresses up for “Spirit Day” at SOSS.
(File photo)

Late in his career he discovered a new style of teaching math, which rarely involved homework or textbook study. It was called The Thinking Classroom.

“I loved it. I would get so much more engagement in my kids,” Wilson said, explaining the students would work in groups of three, where they shared ideas and learned from each other.

“People would ask me, what am I teaching? And I started saying, ‘I teach life.’ And in that classroom I was. Sometimes the teaching I was doing wasn’t necessarily about how to do a calculation, it was how to get along with each other, how to be respectful.”

Wilson tried to teach his students how to listen to others instead of “telling” others. He also spent a lot of time teaching empathy.

“I think those are the skills that are important. That’s how you survive; get yourself around other people.”

Wilson recalled the “teacher collaboration” model that he really promoted in the district, which was so far ahead of the curve for embracing it. 

Students were let out of school on certain days while teachers brainstormed how to better engage their pupils. 

“We were doing some great things and many teachers in my era will tell you that those were two or three of the best years of their lives.”

In terms of sports, Wilson misses the good old days when basketball reigned supreme at SOSS. 

“The provincial championships .  . . those were fantastic (days). That was fun. In the old gym, some of the crowds and the tournaments, just the enthusiasm, it was great. Did you ever watch the movie Hoosiers? I always felt we had the Hoosiers of Canada in this gym.”

Thinking back to the highlights of his career, Wilson will never forget the day one “cocky” basketball player walked into his class and asked him if he could talk to his students. Sure. Why not?

The student proceeded to tell his peers that they needed to listen to Wilson because he was teaching them right . . . because Wilson taught “him” right.

The other highlight was helping save a student from a sudden heart attack. He commended fellow teachers Mike Russo and Steve Podmorow for their role in bringing the boy back to life with an AED after he was clinically dead.

Another “powerful moment” is when he challenged a Grade 10 student to go one week without bringing her phone to school. She reluctantly accepted and the transformation began.

“She was a completely different person. She was like she was in Grade 8, engaged, happy, fun.”

She said the interview she had with Wilson and Russo literally changed her life.

Wilson noted that anecdotal assessment is much more valuable to teachers than testing. 

“If you can spend two minutes with a kid and talk to them about what they’re struggling with and tell them what they are doing well, that will serve you better than marking 20 tests.”

Wilson said you have to build that sense of trust and connect with the kids, noting that fellow teachers like Alison Podmorow do an amazing job with that.

Looking back, Wilson said he could have easily followed a different career path in bar management or submarine manufacturing, but teaching was in his blood and he doesn’t regret it.

As Wilson rides off into the sunset, he’s going to miss engaging his students and playing pranks on fellow teachers.

He’ll never forget the prank he and Rod Kitt played on Dan Fuller who took his class to a paintball game on Remembrance Day.  

Wilson came up with a scheme to write a letter to Fuller using the superintendent’s official letterhead.

The letter stated how inappropriate it was for Fuller to engage in such activity on Remembrance Day.

“We put it in his letter box and he opened it and said, ‘What the hell is this?!”

Wilson said Fuller was so upset and ready to explode, so they had to let the cat out of the bag quick before his rant got worse.

While Wilson doesn’t have a bucket list per se, he wants to travel to Africa on a safari. And being an avid scuba diver, he wants to mingle with great white sharks while inside a cage. 

Kind of like in a classroom . . . just kidding.