Timothy Allan Johnston
  • Home
  • Photographs
    • H/W 80's Dance Party
    • Cambridge
    • Calgary Rally in Support of Schools
    • 2022 Calendar Images
    • Etta's Album
    • 2021 Calendar Photographs
    • Wardair's Boeing 727
    • Grumman Goose CF-UAZ
    • Mitchell Bombers
    • Warbirds at Calgary
    • Okotoks Photo Walk
    • African Girl Children Exhibition
    • Theatre of the Gods
    • What Once Was
    • Spring Coulee to Vauxhall
    • No Whistle: An Abandoned Rail Line in Calgary
    • Trains and More Trains
    • At the Airdrie Rodeo
    • At the Arrowwood Rodeo, 2019
    • Mossleigh, Rockyford, Rosebud, Chancellor
    • Hand Hills Stampede
    • Millarville Rodeo 2017
    • Barrel Racers for Britney
    • Switching the Highfield Spur
    • Photo Cards Objects
    • Photo Cards Landscapes
    • Photo Cards Railroads
    • Southern Alberta Sweep
    • Southwest Saskatchewan
    • Osprey Family
    • Photo Walk 2015
    • Calgary Stampede 101
    • Gleichen Rodeo 2015
    • Tees Rodeo 2015
    • Millarville Rodeo 2015
    • Tsuu T'inna Rodeo 2015
    • Arrowwood Rodeo 2015
    • Calgary Stampede Rodeo 2015
    • Water Valley Rodeo 2015
    • Millarville Rodeo 2014
    • Longview Rodeo 2014
    • Arrowwood Rodeo 2014
    • Rockyford Rodeo 2014
    • Millarville Rodeo 2013
    • Pick Up Men at the Millarville Rodeo
    • Bar U Rodeo
    • Grace Under Pressure at the Water Valley Rodeo
    • Saturday at the Cochrane Rodeo
    • SBA Remains
    • Chestermere Barn
    • Landscape Print Sale
    • Recent Photographs
    • Pierce Estate Park and Southwest of Calgary
    • Turner Valley Refinery
    • Saturday in Inglewood
    • Within Twenty Miles
    • Saturday Downtown
    • In and Around Calgary
    • Canadian Images
    • Around Alberta
    • Around Alberta II
    • Bow River Ranch
    • Ottawa-Toronto Road Trip
    • Bridges
    • Egypt
    • Athens
    • Mykonos
    • Mozambique
    • Nature
    • Alberta Ballet "Mozart's Requiem"
    • Alberta Ballet "Pomp Without Circumstance"
    • Alberta Ballet "Up Close" new choreography
    • Alberta Ballet "Seven Deadly Sins"
    • Alberta Ballet "Fumbling Toward Ecstasy"
    • Alberta Ballet "Sleeping Beauty"
    • Alberta Ballet "Love Lies Bleeding"
  • Travel Journals
    • India 1986
    • Swaziland 1989
    • Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe 1993
    • Mozambique 1996
    • Honduras and Nicaragua 2000
    • Togo and Ghana 2001
    • Lome, Togo 2002
    • Mozambique 2003
    • Togo and Ghana 2004
    • Barbados, 2004
    • Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, 2006
    • Ghana 2009
    • Mozambique 2010
    • Tim's Canada Road Trip
  • Published Stories
    • Calgary Urban Sketchers
    • Doug Lansdell's Farm Tractors of the Past
    • Threshing Bee a nod to farm life of old
    • Westword Magazine
    • Calgary's Rail Line to the Past
    • A Carmen Red Jaguar
    • Alberta's Bessonneau Hangar
    • A barrel of fun in retirement for Maureen Marston
    • Clark Seaborn's Airplanes
    • 2442: Calgary Transit's Newest C-Train Car
    • No. 31 EFTS De Winton Celebration
    • Dave Richards at Heritage Park
    • Off the beaten path with Charley
    • You Oughta Be In Pictures
    • In the War Skies of Calgary
    • Calgary's National Music Centre
    • The Polar Express
    • Sirens' Song Silenced
    • Nick's Barbershop
    • A Visit to the Calgary Stampede Ranch
    • A Pony Named Midget
    • Bert Jackson, Bow Maker
    • Down Highway 12 and Home
    • A Field Trip to Lake Nyasa
    • "Remembering the Air Base that Time Forgot"
    • A "Daily Diary" History of RCAF Station Pearce, Alberta
    • Constructing the Aerodrome of Democracy: Civil Engineering and the Development of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
    • Stubb Ross
  • Editor's Notebooks
    • Humor in the Classroom (and, sometimes, late at night, on the playground)New Page
    • Experiencing the World of Real Work
    • 100 Years of Renewal
    • An African Opportunity
    • "Flying Right"
    • The Canadian Teachers' federation
    • At the Edge of Learning
    • Distant Shorelines
    • Computer Renovations
    • 75 Years
    • Where Were You When the Blue Jays Won?
    • Deadwood, Wild Horse, Paddle Prairie, Big Stone
    • Gone Flyin'
    • Birthday Gifts from Delhi
    • Stories from the Veld
    • Travelling the Border Country
    • Teachers Teaching
    • Last of the First Days
    • Principal
    • No "Snags" in these School Councils
    • Finding History in my Own "Backyard"
    • Humour In the Classroom
    • A "Learningful" Experience
    • Riding the Muskeg Special
    • The Big Picture
    • A Decade of Faces
  • Contact
  • Cambridge
The ATA Magazine - Editor’s Notebook

Volume 69, Nov/Dec 1988

                                                          Teachers Teaching

When the whole thing began in the spring of 1985, I started having serious doubts about what I was getting myself and the Association involved in. It seemed like a simple concept—get some teachers together to give homework assistance to junior high school students by means of telephone and television. The people at the ACCESS Network were very receptive to the idea, and Homework Hotline went on air that fall. Maybe the short time span between talking about the project and actually doing it worked to the advantage of the show. If there had been more time to dither and second-guess about where we were headed, Homework Hotline may never have made it to air.


But I still harbored some concerns.  For example, the teachers. Now, I believe that any teacher who has the nerve to audition to teach on television probably has the professional act well in hand. The truth of this statement was borne out in our first auditions. But teaching to a television camera and to a classroom are really worlds apart. Teaching on television presents a whole new way of doing things. In a typical four-minute shift, the teacher has to teach a lesson, cannot write on the board in lines longer that two feet, cannot digress to other topics, must confine his or her movement on the set and must continue talking almost non-stop. During this time, the teacher must contend with being wired for sound, talk coherently over the noise from the teachers on the telephones, follow camera cues and fit the commentary to the persistent time signals from the unforgiving floor director. Not easy tasks. And few of our teachers came with the television skills that were needed. The doubts began.

Homework Hotline is a coproduction of the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the ACCESS Network. The basis of this partnership is that each party contributes what it does best. The Association provides people who teach. ACCESS provides people who make fine television. As the first year of the show unfolded it was fascinating to watch the melding of these skills. On the production side, the ACCESS people learned what the teachers wanted to get across and adapted it for broadcast. In return, the teachers learned not only to cope with the restrictions of television but also to turn these restrictions to the advantage of even better teaching. Watching from the sidelines, I saw our teachers adapt and grow, and I saw the show quickly develop into high quality television. My doubts eased and quickly disappeared.


In October, Homework Hotline began its fourth season. Over the years, different faces have appeared, and teachers new to the program have learned about teaching on television. Our veterans just keep getting better at this hybrid form of teaching, and each year this has been reflected in the high production values of the show. The people at ACCESS keep the heat on by continually updating Homework Hotline with everything from new sets to graphic embellishments, puzzler prizes and imaginative promotions.

The program works and the numbers show it. One hundred and ninety-eight programs in three years. Two hundred and sixty-four hours of live, interactive television, plus 99 hours of rebroadcast, and 27,500 telephone calls from all over the province. A combined budget this year of over $365,000, including a substantial grant from Imperial Oil. I think it’s safe to say we’re onto a good thing.

There are some other indicators of success. One is the type of callers who seek assistance. Junior high school students are the people we’re trying to help. But lots of calls come from upper elementary kids, high school and college students and, bless ‘em, adults who need help with specific, one-time problems. Like, how many cubic metres of cement do I need for my new garage pad?

Another indicator, one that I have been told about but have never witnessed, apparently occurs on the premises of a well-known home-furnishings store. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, all the television sets on the display floor are tuned to Homework Hotline. The store’s patrons stand two and three deep and catch bits and pieces of the program. This phenomenon gets right down to why the show has succeeded. ACCESS has provided the blend of enigmatic arts that results in high quality television. As viewers, we tend to take this marvel for granted. But what this contribution allows is that most of the province gets to watch something that is almost never seen by anyone over eighteen years of age, something inherently fascinating. The mystery factor is commonplace to teachers because it is something they do every day. But you might like to consider how very special it is to many people.


It is simply teachers teaching.