Talk:Saint John's School of Alberta
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Th similarities to this school - at least in the past - to the abuse within Indian Residential Schools is frightening. With the enrollment dwindling, one can only hope this last of 3 schools will be forced to close sooner than later! People and institutions do change, but they should at least acknowledge their pasts. I started with this on a school project because I met someone who told me that he's attended a school every bit as nasty and awful as the Indian Residential Schools. He appears to be correct. Fremte 18:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC
I quote from the Wikipedia guidelines "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." Comparison to the Residential Schools is dead wrong and opinion. Please respect the guidelines before spouting off your opinion. Enrollment at the remaining school is not dwindling. The Alberta school has evolved. It is well-funded. Students attend by choice. All three schools have some distinguished and not-so-distinguished alumni who very much appreciate their experience.SJSlug 02:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
- I don't agree re comparison: run by religious groups, excessive discipline, admissions by founders as excessive, lawsuits regarding past conduct. It appeared pretty objective when I did the project. There are residential school students who also feel their experiences were positive. If you want to use a different adjective in place of "dwindling", perhaps "decreasing". If you have some information to expand these articles about the schools please do. I never intended to offend anyone and still do not. With respect, Fremte 17:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Exceptions to the text:
Declaration of Possible Conflict of Interest.
My name is Sherwood Botsford.
I have worked with the schools since January of 1976 I have 4 years experience working with St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, and 12 years working at this school During the remaining time, I was active in their outdoor program. I am currently employed by the school.
The article has a certain degree of bias. In accordance with Wikipedia principles, however, I will first try to discuss this on the discussion page to see if consensus can be reached.
Punishments
Six to eight kilometer runs are used as a discipline. The students are not forced to run. They can do it at whatever pace they wish. Of course this occurs during their free time, so there is some incentive to get back to the school. Remember that these are healthy young men. As a discipline this is less arduous than a game of hockey.
Moving logs as a discipline: The school has camps for teaching various skills in the bush on the property. Students may be assigned to cut and move firewood from the bush to these camps.
Janitors & Chores
The school has a Janitor that comes in 4 days a week. This has been true for several years.
For the last 20 years the school has had a full time maintenance man.
The boys still do chores. I agree with the school's notion that hard work is good experience.
Most boys spend about 4 hours per week doing cleanup in the residential wing, helping with kitchen cleanup, or cleaning/training/feeding the school's huskies.
Boot camp
The school does NOT resemble a boot camp. Pavement is a 10 minute walk from the school. There are no barriers to a student leaving at any time.
The only fences at the school are around the kennels to keep the dogs in, and around the sports fields to allow us to board cows and horses for the summer and save on mowing the grass.
The food is wholesome, with good variety, lots of veggies. I have eaten food at several universities, government facilities, and bush camps. The meals at St. John's compare favourably with the best of these.
Correctional Facility
The school has never been a correctional facility. The National Topographic Service of Canada acknowledged the error immediately on being notified and the notation was corrected on the next printing of the map. This statement makes the author look like s/he is muckraking, and reflects poorly on his/her objectivity. If you take a closer look at the map you will see a lot of other errors too not just in terms of labeling but locations. The school driveway is shown as meandering twice across a 60 foot deep ravine. Throughout the entire map the river bank is mis-positioned by up to 90 meters. This was not one of NTS's better examples of the cartographer's art.
Fatalities at the School
If the author is going to mention the loss of life on Lake Temiskaming, the author should also cite the coroners report, which found that the school could have prepared better, but had done nothing that was actually negligent; and also examine the changes that happened in the management of the outdoor program due to this tragedy. The author should also mention that the majority of the trip survivors returned of their own free will to the school the following year, and that none of the parents of the deceased wished to bring suit against the school.
The mention of boy on a snowshoe march may be a confusion of two incidents. Ted Milligan was involved in a volunteer training program at the Manitoba school for the annual Interschool Snowshoe race between the two schools. Near the end of a training run he collapsed from hypothermia. During his collapse his heart was kept beating by artificial means for something like a hundred minutes. He fully recovered and the treatment given him is part of the standard protocol for dealing with severe hypothermia.
The other case concerns Markus Janisch. He was a Manitoba student who was on the Interschool team. He collapsed during the race, that year held at Alberta, and died at the school from a brain aneurysm. It was an undetectable birth defect that the doctors said would have killed him soon regardless.
Please note that both students were in a voluntary program.
I submit that the author has a non-objective view of the school. I would invite the author to visit the school while it is in session to examine it, speak with boys and staff and see for herself.
Sgbotsford (talk) 20:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
- Nothing is stopping you from submitting factual corrections to the text, i.e., removing errors of fact. If there is unwarranted opinion, you can also improve the tone of the article per WP:tone "reliable sources". It is not okay to use your own original research per WP:NOR, though I think you're thinking the article already contains this. However, because the article contains reference citations for the points made, it may be more a matter of writing style.
- Personally, I am familiar with the school, having attended a single unfortunate year in the mid-1970's (and I remember you - you were definitely there in fall-1975). Just make sure you do not edit the parts of the article that refer to the history of physical discipline-cum-abuse with wooden paddles. Perhaps the 50 mile snowshoe "races" are shortened, and boys who cannot keep up are no longer physically assaulted by other boys while teachers watch with tacit approval. The "boot camp" description seems apt to me. As for the correctional facility moniker, perhaps this was a mistake as you say, though your perception may be historical revisionism, though being physically beaten for leaving AWOL - 10 strokes of the paddle (or swats in the jargon of the school) perhaps less resembles a boot camp as it does the Indian Residential Schools. Well, as you imply, the school may have revised its program. 71.17.132.157 (talk) 23:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Re Exceptions to text
Please edit factually and there will be no quibbles from Fremte. Others will review changes also it seems. Maybe fill in details of other related articles also. Probably these are all only of limited interest anyway, though this one might be the most popular because this school still exists. The others are Company of the Cross and the other St John's school articles. Re invite to visit the school, been there. Fremte (talk) 04:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
How about asking St. Johns of alberta when they finally stopped beating children, it seems they were still doing it in the not too distant past given the child welfare investigation I got through a freedom of information request.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.45.104.4 (talk) 21:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Quotations of material
This will ultimately need to be summarized in narrative, article form, and the original quotations put into Wikisource with references from the article to here. This will be a pretty big job I think. --Fremte (talk) 16:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
