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Learning through play - Delores Los

"You don't 'control' kids. You engage them. When children are engaged in an activity - really engaged - they don't get in trouble." Pemberton über-teacher Delores Los It was the fall of 1972.
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"You don't 'control' kids. You engage them. When children are engaged in an activity - really engaged - they don't get in trouble."

Pemberton über-teacher Delores Los

It was the fall of 1972. Delores Los had just returned from a two-year CUSO stint in Nigeria. Her post-grad course in the U.S. wasn't starting until the New Year. Most people would have been happy to just kick back and enjoy the time off. But not Delores.

A restless soul at the best of times, the 23-year-old Albertan was looking for something to channel her considerable energy. Even if it was only for a few months: a temporary teaching post, a coaching stint - didn't matter as long as she was working with kids.

What she hadn't counted on was how hard that next stage would turn out to be...

Pemberton's Delores Los is a force of nature. Nothing, it seems, can hold her back. And her style is overwhelmingly positive. She, as many people have discovered, is the kind of person who changes lives.

That's why her Labrador story so intrigued me. It was the only time in our long, meandering conversation that I sensed a feeling of loss in Delores's narrative. "There was a letter waiting for me when I got home from Africa," she tells me. It was an invitation, she says, to teach kids in an isolated coastal fishing community on the northeast coast of Canada. "They needed a temporary teacher for kindergarten to Grade 3. Nine students in total.  Mostly Irish immigrants' kids. I didn't think it would pose that big a challenge."

Turns out it did. First off, there was no place for her to stay. "The question on my arrival was 'Who'll take the teacher?'" she says, a note of sadness lingering behind her words. "It was such an interesting community..." I can only imagine what 'interesting' means in this context. She shrugs. "I ended up sharing a room with children I taught. It was very, very difficult." A long sigh. "I lasted from October to December. But I couldn't stay longer. I was suffocating."

The local people took her departure hard. "I went to the general store to say goodbye," she recounts, "and the lady who ran it said: 'Things must be very bad here. You survived two years in Africa but only managed three months with us...'"

It was a hard pill to swallow. But Delores's new academic pursuits in outdoor education at Massachusetts's Springfield College soon perked her up. "I volunteered and worked in every outdoor ed situation I could," she says. "I wanted to learn as much as possible."

Delores landed her first 'real' job with the Calgary Board of Education. It was just a temporary teaching post, she says, but she attacked it with all the zeal she could muster. She smiles at the memory. "I said to myself: 'Hey - this is an amazing opportunity. I've got to go in there and surprise these kids.'" And that's exactly what she did. "There was no babysitting," she explains. "That's a waste of their time and a waste of my time..."

Indeed. Her style was to challenge them. Cajole them. Encourage them. But never condescend to them. It was all about respect with Delores. And always providing the unexpected. "I surprised them all the time," she says. And laughs happily. "That way, the students didn't mind seeing me again."

Delores had found her passion. Working with children was what she was born to do. And she spent the next five years 'planting' outdoor education schools across Western Canada. But it was while working for the North Van School Board in 1979 that her life took another twist.

"I was driving to Vancouver," she recalls, "and I saw this guy holding a kayak paddle hitchhiking on the side of the road." On a whim, she decided to stop. "I told him I kayaked too - and I gave him my phone number. A couple of days later, he phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to go paddling with him... and, well..." Turns out Delores had picked up a kindred soul. She and husband Zdenek have been paddling - and hiking and climbing and cycling and travelling and farming and parenting - together ever since.

That was a big year for Delores. For soon after meeting Zdenek, the young teacher received a teaching invitation from the Coast Mountain Outdoor School in Pemberton. "It didn't have a great reputation," she says. "But I thought - 'Why not? I'll go work there for a little while and if I don't like it, I can always leave.'"

She never did. Delores Los devoted the next 15 years of her life to that school. "It was such a small district, that you could run outdoor programs for Grade Ones to Grade 12s," she says. "And each year could have its own distinct program."

But what she doesn't dwell on is how much work that entailed. Countless meetings with teachers up and down the corridor; endless brainstorming sessions on finding new ways to engage the students; constant program-tinkering to keep them engaged.

The results, however, were impressive. "Everyone looked forward to our programs," she says. And laughs. "Even the parents. So much so, that we eventually had to limit their participation."

The school also provided Delores with a unique perspective on Sea-to-Sky culture. "I met a lot of parents from the corridor over the years," she confides. "And from every walk of life - moms, dads, executives, ski bums - you name it. It was quite an eye-opener."

It was a sad day for Delores, therefore, when the local board decided to close down the school in 1993. And she wasn't alone "There was a huge outcry from the community," she says. "It was a very upsetting time for me. That school was so good for the kids. So good for the teachers too. I could see them buying into the program more and more each year." She thought about leaving Pemberton then. "I could have gone elsewhere after that," she confesses, "but we lived in such a very special spot that I decided to stay."

The school board quickly found her a teaching job in Pemberton. But it wasn't the same. And for the first few years, she admits she chomped at her newly imposed limits a bit. "I kept asking myself: 'how am I going to make this work? How can I come up with a program that fits within school district parameters while still managing to teach something to the kids?'

And slowly but surely her new initiatives began to get traction. "There's no point in teaching children if they don't want to learn - it's useless," she explains. And laughs. "Kids aren't meant to sit still for hours at a time. So if you really want them to learn you have to keep them active." And active she kept them. Her impromptu run-around-the-school "exercise breaks" and supervised snowball battles are stuff of legend in the Pemberton Valley.

But Delores's community involvement radiated far beyond the school grounds. Where would Pemberton be today without the Spud Valley Jackrabbit cross-country ski club that she helped launch 30 years ago? Or the ever-popular Spud Valley Loppet (celebrating its 22nd anniversary this coming Sunday)? Or the running programs that she organized at Signal Hill Elementary School? Or the Grade-3 overnight camping trips? Or the 10-day canoe adventures.

And the list goes on and on and on.

Regrettably, Delores retired from teaching three years ago. But she's still mentoring kids. As was mentioned last week, she's now working her special magic at the Ski S'Kool program at Whistler Olympic Park where she promotes and coordinates the program for Sea to Sky corridor elementary schools. "I love helping kids have fun learning new skills," she says. "That's what gets me going."

Still, she wants me to understand just how committed she is to her own family - her husband, her daughter, her son. As she says: "Even though I've been able to be very involved in the local community for the last 30 year, and have worked on programs that encouraged kids to be physically active, my own family's health - mental, physical and social - has always come first."

No doubt. Whether hiking up Kilimanjaro or walking to Cape Scott, paddling Desolation Sound or cycling the Oregon Coast, Delores and her clan have stretched the boundaries of experiential learning at every opportunity. And that, she insists, is the way everyone should approach life.

"I hope our family's outings, and trips," she concludes, "may inspire another family to try something new, exciting and physically challenging. So don't be afraid. Don't be intimidated. Get outside and have fun!"