Vintage Toronto Ads: The Telegram Cares About Your Kids

Source: The Telegram, February 1, 1969.

And what are your kids doing tonight, besides hanging out in a dimly lit club?

The Telegram’s main venue for listening was the “After Four” insert, which resembled a polished version of a high school newspaper. Articles were a mix of reports by students and younger Tely staffers like future Toronto Star stalwart Peter Goddard. We checked out the edition printed after today’s ad appeared. Among the stories we found in the February 6, 1969 issue were: a profile of a Forest Hill Collegiate history teacher with an impressive collection of Confederate weaponry; a request from entertainment columnist Bill Gray to Michael Caine to stop making so many movies (The Italian Job was almost ready to hit theatres); a two-page spread on police recruits (most painful lesson for rookie cops? You’ll lose many of your old friends); and a roundup of formals, musicals, and United Nations model assembly action from the halls of private and public academia.

We know what at least one kid might have been doing at night. Students sat on the section's editorial board and wrote opinion pieces that showed touches of the melodramatic writing teens are known for, such as Andree Ryckman’s editorial about teachers learning their craft:

Student teachers are not only an imposition, they are a sell-out. Each year, senior students endure nine weeks of these stuttering, bungling, inept “teachers.” These nine weeks are in most cases a complete waste of time. Topics covered by these agents of torture are never learned, never really understood. Re-discussion of this material by the regular teacher is the only way to remedy this situation but of course, the result is boredom. Our teachers sacrifice our interest and perhaps even our chances to understand a concept. After nine weeks of agony even our sanity is threatened…Indeed, something can, and must be done to stop what is an exploitation of high school students.

We wonder how many readers found themselves within the position of the bunglers a few years down the line.