Leaning with one arm on his office chair, legs folded and looking out the window, Larry Dick might say he’s done a good job at being a principal.
Might – because he still questions it. After 41 years of working in the district, six and a half of which he spend as principal at Paul Kane High School before moving this year to Bellerose, Dick said he never even meant to be a teacher.
“In fact, I hated school and did not have much use for the power and politics of school,” he said.
But Dick married young, at 19 years old and with a baby on the way, he needed a job. The quickest way in university to get there was a bachelor’s degree in education. Throughout the years he never allowed his personal reasons for getting into education to play a role in the classroom … and he learned to love the classroom.
“And so in terms of working as a person with young people, there was never any doubt,” he said. “My goal may have been suspect because my goal was to show kids that there was a different kind of person standing in front of them than they might have been used to usually.”
His friends and colleagues say he is well read, intelligent, and forceful. Dick adds he is also a provocateur. He is a tall man, towering over most of his co-workers, with a deep voice and calm speech.
Having left his position at Paul Kane this summer, he moved into his new office as principal at Bellerose Composite High School only a few weeks ago. He admits the move was selfish and hurt many people, but was also an opportunity that would not come again at his age of 64.
“It had been so wonderful (at Paul Kane) because it had been blessed by so many wonderful people willing to engage in the discussion process. It was so easy to sit around and talk about and think about learning and education,” he said.
“I wanted to know if it’s this easy at every school, if every school is filled with such wonderful, growing people.”
Doug McDavid, deputy superintendent for St. Albert’s public school board, describes him as a visionary – someone who can lead a classroom and teachers through respect and trust.
“I suspect when I look at the kind of work that Larry has done in the past, one of the things he does is he gets teachers to critically think about their craft and gets them to work consciously at improving it,” he said.
Dick said he believes schools are founded on a currency of marks, a way to control students through the fear of failure. Instead of scaring students, he wants teachers to challenge them to build their own learning, and to show that both sides can work together to achieve a common goal.
In much of the same way, he sees his role in helping teachers discover their strength and not their weakness, to be motivated, and to grow in their abilities. Dick said students learn anything as long as the teacher knows his subject and shows that he cares about their education – even the troublemakers.
“I don’t want children to sit in my office and say that he or she doesn’t care if they learn or not,” he said.
“You may have not gotten through to them yet, but if kids say that about you all the time that isn’t an appropriate behavior for a professional. I am non-negotiable about that.”
Paul Shamchuk teaches English at Paul Kane High School. He worked under Dick and said that while he was a forceful person, it is the concern over what was best for the students that made him stand out.
“In terms of his personal influence on me it was that he always brought out that focus on the kids,” he said.
“The kids are the kids, they are people, they have interests, they have problems, they have issues and lives that you have to pay attention to.”
Dick said people often find him intimidating. He needed to learn not to push his ideas at the expense of other people’s feelings, to respect their opinion and care about all the voices. He still struggles with that but wants to lead by example, not by authority.
A lifelong learner, he said it was time to put his knowledge to the test. And like all leaders, he said you should never stay in one place for too long.
“There was a resonance of a variety of things that led me to a point where I had to make a choice how I wanted to be and I still follow that every day,” he said.
“I am struggling with life in the same way as everybody else. I struggle every day about who I am and where I go and where I’ve been. I am confident as hell but I am really not finished this journey.”
