If you follow hockey in Westlock at all, you would probably recognize the name of Mike Ivey.
A graduate of the Westlock Minor Hockey Association, Ivey currently plays with the Westlock Senior ‘AA’ Warriors, who just kicked off their 2014-2015 season.
He also coaches the Westlock Rock junior lacrosse team, which won silver in their league championship this year and gold in 2013. “It was still pretty unbelievable ... to be back in the final,” he noted.
Currently, the R.F. Staples School graduate is now working as a Grade 5-6 teacher at Busby School, a 15-minute drive from his hometown.
“I feel pretty lucky to be back in the area,” said Ivey, who graduated from the University of Alberta in April. “It’s nice to know lots of people .. and it’s rural. I’m not a big city guy.”
The Pembina Hills school division welcomed an unusually high number of new teachers this school year — a total of 28 teachers.
Ivey is among the new crop of teachers, but whereas his counterparts generally hailed from elsewhere, he was one of the few actually be from the Westlock area.
Ivey said he thought R.F. Staples was a great school, noting that because he was involved in hockey and school sports, he knew a lot of the staff personally.
As to why he went into teaching, Ivey said it was “kind of a combination of things.”
The first reason was tied to his experiences with his educators: Ivey said he saw how much his teachers enjoyed their jobs and he wanted to have a similar career.
The second reason was actually tied to his time in sports.
“My main thing was I coached a lot of hockey and a lot of lacrosse as I grew up, I kind of felt like I wanted to teach because I enjoy it every day,” he said.
Although not unheard of, it is somewhat uncommon for men to choose to teach elementary education.
Initially, Ivey said he was leaning towards being a high school teacher, but he enjoyed working with younger children at the Barrhead hockey camp.
He recalls being “pretty outnumbered” while studying to be an elementary teacher. “In a class of 60 there were three other guys,” he noted.
Oddly, Busby School itself had a lone male teacher for many years: Rick Mueller. This year, there are two men teaching the elementary grades.
“ It’s nice to have a combination of male and female teachers,” he said. “We can relate to the boys and girls in different ways.”
Ivey said his goal is to make kids enjoy coming to class, in the same way that he tried to make his hockey camp protégés enjoy coming to the rink. And so far, it’s been a very enjoyable experience.
“It’s been unbelievable. I couldn’t ask for a better class to start with. They’re so much fun,” he said.
“I think that starts with the rural families. You kind of get to know the rural families ... These kids are being brought up right.”
