Keep Up If You Can

by Sherk, Bill; Whibbs, Shannon

• ISBN13: 9781459703575
• ISBN10: 145970357X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-05-15
• Publisher: Dundurn Pr Ltd

Summary

Bill Sherk taught history to Toronto high school students for more than 30 years. With his dynamic, creative, and occasionally unorthodox teaching style, he instilled in his students a passion for history and learning. Sherk was loved by his students and remained in their memories long after graduation.  Keep Up If You Can is a light-hearted and touching memoir that will appeal to anyone who's had a special teacher impact their life. Fun facts:   - He learned the names of all his students on the first day of school.  - He assigned ancient names to his ancient history students. They called him Sherkules ( SHERK-yoo-leez).  - After reading Webster's Dictionarycover to cover, he encouraged his students to coin new words, and many of these were published in his three dictionaries.  - Firmly believing in physical activity, he would leap atop his desk and give his students an aerobic "Sherkout" to a rock-and-roll beat.

Author Biography

Bill Sherk is a feature writer for Old Autos and also writes a weekly syndicated column, Old Car Detective, for thirty Canadian newspapers. He is also the author of Ill Never Forget My First Car and Old Car Detective: Favourite Stories 1925 to 1965, Sherk lives in Leamington, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 11
With Special Thanks	p. 15
How Did I Do It?	p. 17
A Note to Teachers	p. 19
Introduction	p. 21
My Frantic First Year at Northern Secondary School	p. 23
On the Run to Fourteen Classrooms	p. 25
The Day the F-Word Popped Up in Class	p. 27
My First In-Class Movie Was a Disaster!	p. 29
The Day I Fell Asleep in Class	p. 32
Cartoon Maps on the Blackboard	p. 34
Three Cheers for Jim McQueen	p. 39
Keeping Lessons Fast and Lively	p. 41
She Was Only Fired Twice!	p. 44
My Next Nine Years at Northern	p. 45
The Man with His Face on Our Ten-Dollar Bill	p. 47
Engine Transplants Before Heart Transplants	p. 49
Her Dog Had Fleas	p. 52
History Teacher Pumps Gas at Local Station	p. 53
Effective Writing for Nineteen Years	p. 56
A Turkey Almost Landed on the Moon	p. 59
"Flushed With Pride"	p. 60
"Cooks, Gluttons, and Gourmets"	p. 62
Julius Caesar Was in My Class! Cleopatra, Too!	p. 63
Pronouncing Ancient Greek Names	p. 67
Where Has Ancient History Gone?	p. 68
The Story of Henry Heme	p. 69
Master of Originality	p. 71
Marking … Marking … Marking …	p. 74
The Great Bicycle Race	p. 78
Robin Hood at Massey Hall	p. 80
Reading the Dictionary One Page a Day	p. 82
Catching a Streaker…	p. 89
See This Piece of Chalk?	p. 91
Spelling Mistakes	p. 92
September a Special Month	p. 97
Memory Power	p. 99
My Twenty-One Years at North Toronto Collegiate Institute	p. 103
Arriving at North Toronto	p. 105
Are You "Sesquilingual?"	p. 106
Letter from Pierre Berton	p. 108
Two Visits to Stonehenge in One Day	p. 110
"StayinÆ Alive" in the Stone Age!	p. 112
Hi-Jinx 1979	p. 114
"See You Later, Exfiltrator!"	p. 117
Five Hundred Years of New Words	p. 118
Get Ready for a "Sherkout"!	p. 121
Elvis: Live from the Grave!	p. 127
Were You Born in Farch?	p. 130
Memorizing "High Flight" and Other Poems	p. 131
Where Do You Come From?	p. 134
From Model T Ford to Mustang Convertible	p. 136
The Grapes of Wrath	p. 140
Did Columbus Really "Discover" America?	p. 143
Guidance Report by Air Mail	p. 145
From Robert E. Lee to Lee Iacocca	p. 147
Interview Your Grandparents	p. 149
Three Students "Moon" a School Assembly	p. 151
Rock Around the Block!	p. 152
A Most Unusual Question	p. 155
Voting on Date and Format of Test	p. 156
"You're Giving Me a Zero?"	p. 159
"I Hear You're Writing a Screenplay!"	p. 160
History Jokes I Told in Class	p. 163
Alexander the Great Died of a Fever…	p. 165
Wardrobe Changes in Thirty-One Years	p. 166
An Italian Motorcycle in My History Class	p. 169
High School Reunion in 1966	p. 172
Reciting the Alphabet Backwards	p. 176
How the Future Became the Past	p. 179
When I Was in High School …	p. 181
No Smoking!	p. 182
Three Magic Words	p. 184
My First Call on a Cellphone	p. 186
My Farewell Address	p. 187
Life After Teaching	p. 191
"Are You Still Working on That Screenplay?"	p. 193
"David Letterman Calling!"	p. 195
My Former Students Pop Up Everywhere	p. 199
Rocking Back and Forth	p. 201
Cab Ride in Toronto	p. 202
I Pay Less Than $20 for Gas	p. 203
Who's Afraid to Go to Mars?	p. 205
William Shakespeare or William Sherkspeare?	p. 206
Farewell to Jack Layton	p. 208
In Closing…	p. 209
The Cars We Drove in High School	p. 211
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