Chapter 12: Epilogue

The students of Sir Alexander Graham Bell Elementary returned from spring break in various stages of eagerness to resume their studies. They swiftly discovered the third term of this school year was promising to be different than any experienced in the entire nation's pedagogic history.

Just after 7:00 on that bright, sunny Monday morning, the Bell El assembly room was rapidly filling up with teachers from Edison Elementary, a school located in the other end of town. Bleary-eyed individuals gratefully gulped down the coffee and tea thoughtfully provided by the school board.

The teachers were dressed, although they were told clothing was optional. Most had interpreted that line on their instruction sheets as meaning "dress casual", and were wearing blue jeans and T-shirts. None dared be nude. After all, although it was now legal in town, the practise was still confined largely to the general vicinity of the "nude schools" of Bell El, St. Dunstan's and Buchanan. The other elementary schools were still firmly textile.

The school board was well aware that this would prove problematical the minute the Grade Six students from St. Dunstan's other feeder schools hit Grade 7, to say nothing of when the students from Buchanan's own textile feeder schools started going to high school. They'd be psychologically unprepared for their new environment. The changes between elementary and middle school were radical enough, the changes between a textile elementary school and a naturist middle school were enough to send some students into severe shock.

After the report on the first two terms at the three schools had been received by the Board, it had voted to convert the other elementary schools to Naturist effective that fall, and the other middle schools effective the following year. Most middle and high schools were already conducting sports (at least swimming) au natural, and the board made that official policy effective with the upcoming school year. Any middle or high school whose staff and home-and-school association both voted in favour of it, could go fully naturist with the elementary schools, starting that September.

So every elementary school in town was sending its staff — teachers and administration — over to Sir Alexander Graham Bell Elementary to see how they did it, how the students coped, and (more germane to many of these teachers present) how the staff coped. The middle schools' staff were headed over to St. Dunstan's, and the high schools were trooping over to Buchanan. First up were the bright lights of Edison.

"All right, everyone," called out the principal of Edison, "if you've got your coffee and doughnut and picked up a copy of the presentation package, let's grab a seat and get started."

The serpentine mass of sleep-deprived teachers gradually washed over the chairs and settled down for the presentation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, starting next year, we will be a naturist school. We will have to deal with the same issues that this school's staff have dealt with, and we need to be prepared. We're going to learn from their experience. That is what this day is all about - learning from our colleagues. We'll start with a short video, then we'll have a question-and-answer session with a couple of the teachers here, and then we'll sit in on their classes. Grade six teachers will sit in on their grade six class, grade five with their grade five, and so on. Edison is about three times the size of Bell, so we have about three teachers for each one of theirs."

Within seconds of the start of the video, nobody needed caffeine in their beverage to stay awake. A few felt the need for a hip flask to fortify their drink, regretting their lack of foresight.

First came the scenes explaining naturism, all shot at the local naturist resort, Sunny Acres. By no small co-incidence, the individuals portrayed were largely drawn from the families of students of the three naturist schools in town, as well as Gymnos. It showed kids and adults happily playing, swimming, sunbathing and chatting in the buff. All the time, the voice of Miss Thompson discussed the many benefits of the nudist lifestyle, including improved body acceptance.

The second half of the video portrayed life at the naturist schools. It had brief shots of lectures in classrooms, swimming and other sports classes, lunch rooms and libraries. In every shot but one, both kids and staff were sky-clad. The sole exception was an Industrial Arts class, where someone dressed in overalls and welder's gloves and mask created a neat bead to join two pieces of metal — it had been thrown in to show that when it was needed, yes naturists wore protective clothing. Another scene, shot at Buchanan High, was of the administration staff, showing the ladies — all in their 40's — wearing no more than the students and staff.

The lights came up, and Edison's principal introduced Miss Thompson, the by now heavily pregnant Grade 3 teacher Mrs. Phillips and their principal. Both of the teachers wore leather sandals, the principal stuck to sneakers and ankle socks. They had light make-up and unobtrusive ear-rings, and both principal and Grade 3 teacher wore wedding rings — the still single Miss Thompson wore a shiny new engagement ring. The principal and Grade 6 teacher wore delicate gold bracelets around their wrists. And that was it.

To state that this created quite a stir understated things. Everyone began whispering among themselves, especially about Mrs. Phillips.

"Yes," said Mrs. Phillips, overhearing the questions, "It's a boy, we think." The audience laughed. "And the sandals are very practical — my ankles have been swelling and the sandals allow for that."

One of the teachers stuck up her hand. "You must be saving a fortune on maternity wear!" More laughter, as Mrs. Phillips nodded and grinned.

"How about the Grade 5 and 6 classes? How are they handling puberty issues?"

"A lot of them have older siblings, and see the changes they're about to go through. We've actually had fewer issues than prior years in terms of difficulties, because everything is so, er, 'out in the open'. They seem to be freer at asking questions about their own bodies, and we've been able to really get through to them about the issues. The reports from St. Dunstan's and Buchanan are that behavioural issues, while they haven't gone away, have declined, especially among Buchanan's Grade 9, former St. Dunstan's students. The threat to send them to a 'textile' school is enough to get most to stay in line."

"Excuse me, what do you mean by 'textile' schools?"

"Schools like what yours is this year, where kids wear clothes. Elementary school students are in that 'natural nudist' age group," Miss Thompson explained.

A teacher in the back wanted to know, "How long did it take you to get used to being nude all the time?"

Miss Thompson's colleagues looked to her. "I was a naturist when I was hired here. It didn't take me any time. Maybe you should address this?" she asked, tossing the baton to Mrs. Phillips.

"My conversion was somewhat ... messier." Miss Thompson and her principal broke into grins at the memory. "It involves two of my students and a rather large, deep mud puddle, refreshed by recent rain. It took me about, oh, 10, maybe 15 minutes? It was tougher for me than for Julie, my kids were dressed, other than the mud-wrestling couple, and I wasn't a naturist at the time."