Talk about a golden opportunity.
On Wednesday, March 3, the students of Grenoble Public School watched as an unfamiliar bus pulled up outside their school. It contained a highly trained, yet unlikely bunch of substitute teachers. Paralympians, world champions and Olympic medalists would spend the day at Grenoble, located in Flemingdon Park. The school had the good fortune to be selected a participant in the Canadian Sports Awards' Athlete's Road Trip.
Classes took turns with each athlete on a rotating schedule. Grade 5 student Hussein Houssein started his day in the gym, learning the basics of sledge hockey.
"I've learned that you can do whatever you want in life, even if you are disabled," said Hussein.
The bell rang shortly after Hussein and his classmates finished a quick match of wheelchair basketball. They slipped into their jackets and headed outside to join the rest of the school for their daily dose of physical activity, led in the main schoolyard by their special guests.
A medley of hip-hop tunes pumped through the sound system as Men's Eight rower Mark Laidlaw, wearing his gold and silver World Championship medals, led everyone in a dance routine along with the other athletes.
The excitement of the day was almost too much for many of the students to bear, the crowd dancing and screaming to vent seemingly endless reserves of energy. After the music died down, Laidlaw and the other athletes took time to sign a few autographs and slap high-fives before heading into classrooms for question-and-answer time with the kids.
"They sure look like they had fun and it all starts with that," said Laidlaw, recanting how meeting Olympic athletes inspired him during his younger years. "I hope they can carry forward the momentum we had from the 2010 Olympics and that will keep the kids energetic and enthusiastic about sports. Sport will help them in school, it will help them in life and I think it's fantastic if they are motivated by us."
Laidlaw was committed to a few one-on-ones with students, so he headed to a classroom while more excitement began to develop outside.
After being delayed by traffic, Olympic gold medal snowboarder Jasey-Jay Anderson arrived, greeted by a handful of fans waving flags and chanting "Canada! Canada!"
"Does anyone want to see a gold medal?" asked Anderson.
Grenoble's physical education teacher David Fry was sharing in the pride of having a gold medal in his school. He hoped these experiences will motivate his students to win one of their own in the future.
"It's a wonderful opportunity for these kids to feel proud of their country and we definitely have seen an upswing in that pride. People are very, very proud in this community, but this has taken that to a whole new level," said Fry. "Having the Olympics in Canada has been so wonderful in many ways. It's wonderful for the country and for the kids it has brought things to the classroom that they otherwise would never have seen."