On the Passing of Mr. Maloney

Recently I learned that Mervin “Ed” Maloney, one of my favorite high school teachers, passed away. He retired when I finished Grade 11, and I hadn’t heard from him in over fifteen years, knowing only that he had left Shauanvon for Mossbank. However, on hearing of his passing, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because the man was one of the greatest teachers I ever had, first in a line of the very great who I had at SHS. A teacher of twelve years myself, I was moved by it all the more.

                When I think back to what those of us who had him appreciated about him, it’s easy to dwell on the idiosyncrasies first. The smoking, the same outfit for days on end, the rumour of a bottle hidden in the school’s furnace room. But these are all just touches that add to the overall story, make him that much endearing a figure.

Because Ed Maloney was first thing in life a truly great educator.

His last three years of teaching were my 9^th, 10^th and 11^th of school. I’ve been in this job long enough to know that here are some teachers who retire ten years after they should have. Mr. Maloney, though, remained inspirational up until the end. I had him first for English classes, and I remembered days where we were “forced” to read for pleasure, logging the books and pages as the year went by. In the end I came to treasure those accounts of what I’d read when. Through his classes I began a love affair with grammar and philology, two things that are essential in my daily grind as an ESL and Creative Writing teacher. Also, I recall from him the first ever positive yet constructive criticism—written and verbal—on my creative writing, on a short story I had written in Grade 9 as a sequel to “The Sniper.”

In Grades 10 and 11 he taught me History, and ignited in me a lifelong love for the story of humanity. I recall writing an essay on Napoleon’s march to Moscow, and asking Mr. Maloney what a Cossack was. “Okay,” he said, and sat in the desk next to mine to recall every considerable detail he knew about these mounted Russian warriors, for me and me alone while my classmates sat captivated by his storytelling; I felt like I was being given a private lecture.

It was after studying World War II that he brought in a group of veterans to speak to our class about their service. This included my uncle Len Illebrun and Robbie Norton. Mr. Maloney encouraged those of us he knew that were passionate about the subject to ignore our teenage reticence and ask these guests what we could, and at the end of the afternoon Mr. Norton asked me to chat with him again sometime. A friendship began that day that would see Robbie stand as my best man at my wedding in 2006.

All in Mr. Maloney’s class.

Now, there’s no doubt I’m glossing this. I know many of the girls didn’t like him, saying that he favoured football and hockey players (though I was neither by high school), and more than once he punched me quite hard in the arm for a wrong answer. And, anyone who would be a Leafs fan has to have something off. But the man was a great teacher.

When I was in my second or third year of university, he sent me a Canadian History Quiz he’d copied from a magazine, scrawling atop it in that familiar hand the fourteen year old in me still recognized: “Paul, this is so easy!” I completed it and sent it back. At the King’s one night the following summer, he bought me a beer and told me the two answers I’d got wrong and why. Four years he was retired by then, and there were three or four of us at that table that night, still being taught.

I keep a photo of a man named Samuel Crowther in my classroom. He was an iconic teacher here in Strathmore, a dedicated and self-sacrificing educator. I keep the photo to remind me of what I need to strive for. Mervin “Ed” Maloney was another true teacher, igniting a fire in me that was fanned by other greats at SHS such as Penny Selvig, Tim Miller, John Cazakoff, Audrey Carleton, and Mark Benesh. On the other side of my first decade as an educator and a writer, I have seen what a thing it is to be the right person for the right kid at the right time.

His passing has reminded me why I teach. It is my hope to do half the job he did and be content.