Lessons in lifelong friendship

Teacher, author known as Mr. B ‘profoundly influenced’ students and kept in touch for decades

By: Janine LeGal

It’s uncommon for teachers to maintain contact with students after classes are over, but it came naturally to John Barsby, who often developed such friendships as an extension of his genuine interest in seeing his young charges learn and succeed.

The impact he had on their lives was immeasurable, the learning and the memories both precious.

The much-loved and unforgettable mathematics teacher died at age 78 on Nov. 17, 2023, owing to complications from heart and kidney disease.

Barsby’s sister Patricia Whitmore remembers her brother for his intelligence, knowledge and sense of humour and cherishes the memories made over their lifelong bond.

“He loved to travel and visited many parts of Europe, China, Australia and probably other regions, as well as within North America,” said Whitmore. “He was an avid reader and skilful book buyer and seller, a lover of good music and old gramophones, a keen gardener.”

But most important to him, Whitmore recalls, was ensuring that his students did well.

“His ability to enable his students to absorb and understand the information that he provided (meant everything to him).”

Barsby graduated from high school in Dominion City, then pursued a bachelor of science (honours) at the University of Manitoba. Upon graduation in 1967, he won the gold medal for highest standing in honours science and later completed his master of science and bachelor of education degrees.

One of the words most often used to describe him is “brilliant,” not only for his intellect but for his ability to extend warmth, kindness and acceptance to students from all over the province. He illuminated the lives of his students over decades, aiming the spotlight on them and what they could accomplish.

His teaching career began in Snow Lake in the late ’60s before a move to Winnipeg, where he taught at Gordon Bell from 1970 to 1975.

While there, he took on the job coaching the team for the academic quiz game Reach for the Top. The team he coached won the Manitoba playoffs, and then went on to the Canadian final in Newfoundland.

Shirley Lowe, class of 1974 at Gordon Bell High School, was in Barsby’s math and calculus classes and joined the math club and Reach for the Top club.

“I was on the team which won the provincials in June 1974,” she recalls. “After graduation, we kept in touch. John was a lifelong friend. There was a lighthearted side to John. Over the years, a few of us would get together over a meal. He always looked forward to the mini-reunions with his former students.

“He was at Gordon Bell for only five years, but it felt like I knew him much longer. John had a passion for teaching, learning, laughter and life. We will miss him.”

Barsby later moved on to St. John’s-Ravenscourt (SJR), where he taught until his retirement in 2004.

He documented his years in education in his book, Fifty Years in the Classroom and What I Learned There, copies of which are available at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location.

Equal to his love of teaching was his love of writing. He penned both fiction and non-fiction, submitting many stories to the Free Press story contest, which won him a number of accolades. Others were published in the Globe and Mail.

Longtime friend Murray Colp met Barsby in their early years on campus; they both launched their teaching careers in Snow Lake. Their paths joined again at SJR, where they each spent more than two decades until their respective retirements.

“John was a true and honest friend. He was genuinely interested in one’s life, ideas, activities, cares and concerns,” says Colp, who remembers Barsby as kind, thoughtful, caring and humble.

‘He had an excellent memory, remembering details of his own life almost from infancy, remembering students’ names and even test marks and he could quote vast amounts of poetry, including Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Tennyson and many others. And he could (and often did) recite the entire Dr. Seuss classic Horton Hatches the Egg. And his memory was sound right up to his death.”

Colp says Barsby thought of his students as family and was as proud of their successes as a parent would be.

“Often, particularly around Christmas time, a small cohort of past students would arrange to visit him at his home,” he says.

“These events he very much looked forward to. He rarely missed class reunions at school as again these were events where he could catch up with the lives of past students, many of whom had become good friends.”

“Mr. B.” or “Sir,” as he was fondly addressed in school, received numerous awards for teaching excellence, including the Prime Minister’s Award and laurels from the Descartes Foundation, the University of Manitoba and the Mathematics Association of America.

Barsby also received the Murray McPherson Mathematics Award in Manitoba.

Winnipeggers of a certain age may remember a cable television show called Math with Marty. Hosted by Martin Green, it was a bit of a cult hit favourite in the early 1990s; episodes featuring Barsby making math accessible can still be found on YouTube.

“It’s impossible to calculate, even estimate, the impact that Mr. Barsby had on us, those privileged to have had him as a teacher, mentor and friend,” says former student Dennis Bayomi.

“At Gordon Bell in the ’70s, John’s success with our Reach for the Top and math competitions was legendary, igniting in many of us a lifelong interest and fascination in math and learning in general.

“We could see that John was headed on a highly successful journey, establishing himself as one of Canada’s premier math educators.”

Bayomi says that a year ago, a dozen former Gorden Bell students had a virtual reunion at which Barsby read from his new book and shared memories from his time at the school.

”Although saddened by our loss, I’m forever grateful to have been profoundly influenced by Mr. B.,” he says.

Barsby kept meticulous records of his experiences, observations and memories, the love for his profession clear in every sentence of his memoir:

“I look back on my years of teaching with enormous pleasure. I especially remember the magic that so often unfolded in and out of the classroom. There are many moments — moments of laughter and of joy — that are etched forever in my memory.

“I was very lucky in my career. I taught under several outstanding school administrators. I had many wonderful colleagues. And year after year I had many fine students.

“When I went into teaching in 1967, I was convinced that the work of a teacher was of great importance, that the education of the young was one of the most vital endeavours in any society. I still think that.”