After decades of dedicated service, Beth Johnston and Mimi Brown have bid farewell to the classrooms they’ve called home for so many years. As we celebrate their remarkable careers, we reflect on the lasting impact they’ve had on students, colleagues, and the entire school community. Thank you, and Vivat!
Beth Johnston
Beth Johnston has spent more time working in high school science labs than most career science teachers. One of her first-ever jobs as a student was as the lab tech at her own high school in Ontario; well before teaching was on her radar. “After school I would go and report to each one of the science teachers and I would do any odd jobs they had for me. And it could be anything from counting how many frogs or how many preserved worms we had for the bio teacher to prepping solutions and cleaning up labs for the chemistry teacher. I really enjoyed it,” Beth recalls. “At the time, it didn’t even cross my mind that this would be my world later on.”
Post-high school, Beth completed a foreign exchange trip in Denmark before joining the Canadian Coast Guard for two years in Atlantic Canada. She anticipated marine engineering would be a lifelong job, but she wasn’t able to pass the eye exam to go to sea – so that closed the Coast Guard door. “I had to take a step back and reexamine what my path could now look like. Upon reflection, I realised I've always been a teacher because I always worked with the Girl Guides and Brownies growing up. As an older guide, I would work with the younger ones and teach them knots and camp skills, and I always loved it,” Beth says.
She earned an honours degree in science from the University of Waterloo, followed immediately by a bachelors of education from Queen’s University. “I figured if I was going to teach, I was going to teach science and math. I’m pretty good at math and I’m a very practical person, and I knew there was always a need for math and science teachers,” she says. “I stacked my cards as best I could, so I stacked them in math and science. Plus I was a woman, and there weren’t many women teaching those subjects back then.”
That said, the gender imbalance didn’t phase her. Two years in the Coast Guard, in some cases as the only woman on board a ship, helped give her the confidence as a woman in STEM. Beth came to SMUS in 1998 after working for Albert College in Belleville, Ont. Her husband, Rob, got a job with B.C. Ferries and Beth arrived in Victoria hoping to stay with an independent school.
She was hired as a math and junior science teacher at the start of the 1998-99 school year. Beth says it was early on in her time at the school that she realized that SMUS “wasn’t just a stepping stone, it’s a final destination.”
Over 25 years as a SMUS teacher, Beth moved away from math and focused her time teaching chemistry, physics, marine studies and computer science. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with amazing colleagues, but also the most wonderful students,” Beth says. “They’re why I love teaching. Working with kids is what fills my bucket.”
Beth’s time at SMUS included two maternity leaves for the births of her children, Remi and Meg, but also two personal leaves to battle cancer. She was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the spring of 1999. After a year of intense chemotherapy, she returned to teaching in 2000. Unfortunately, in the spring of 2018, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer and spent four years fighting it and the side effects of treatment.
She says the support, care and love she received from the SMUS community during her cancer treatments stand out as core memories from her time here. “The people here very much made me feel like an important part of the SMUS family,” Beth says.
For those lucky enough to have known Beth, she hopes she’ll be remembered for her creativity, her laugh, her colourful lab coat, and for her clear commitment to helping her students succeed. “I always pushed my students in the science lab so they would feel a bit uncomfortable to build confidence and skills,” she says. “When you go through choppy waters and you’re uncomfortable and not sure you can do it, you get so much more out of that experience when you do get through. My lab was always a safe, controlled environment to help build them up. I wanted them to think the problem in front of them was scary so they would get that much more out of the learning experience.”
With retirement now here for Beth, she knows she will miss working with students and colleagues every day. That said, she’s looking forward to travelling with her husband and children (during times of the year not tied to a school calendar), running 10-km races, and outrigger canoeing.
“I want to thank my husband, and I want to thank my kids, because they made me a better teacher for my students. Being a mother to the two amazing children that I have has made me a better teacher because they exposed me to things that I could bring into the classroom for the benefit of students,” Beth says. “I also want to thank the teachers who came before me; who brought me in, mentored me, supported me, and embraced all the new and crazy ideas I had when I wanted to do something different for students. It’s been a great ride.”
Mimi Brown
In the months since announcing her retirement, Mimi Brown says she’s adopted a new mantra: “Each thing with love.” She sees this as a way to acknowledge the positives in her life and show gratitude for what she has and can contribute to the world.
As she reflected on her career during this interview, she came to the realisation that love and acknowledgement have actually been a through-line of her time in education. “One of my strongest memories as a student at Oak Bay High was having a teacher who would stop, make eye contact with me, and ask me to read something aloud. It wasn’t ground-breaking, but he gave me the feeling of being acknowledged that I still remember to this day,” she says. “I was seen and I felt myself light up. It was someone having faith in me, noticing me, believing in me, that allowed me to believe in myself. And consciously or subconsciously, that’s what I’ve tried to do with all of my students.”
Mimi’s career as a teacher has included time working in France, Colorado, and Victoria, primarily as a French teacher, but also having taught English, Spanish and science.
It wasn’t until she was in her early 20s and backpacking through Europe and northern Africa that she realised she wanted to learn French. “As I travelled around with a friend, two monolingual young women, I realised it was ridiculous that I only spoke one language. We were meeting people who spoke many, many languages, and I thought, ‘I want to be like that. I don't want to just know one language,’” she says.
After her travels, she lived in Quebec to immerse herself in and learn the French language, before returning to Vancouver Island to complete a French language and literature degree from the University of Victoria. “I loved the language. There was something about it that captivated me,” she says.
As for teaching, she realised that was her calling when she took advantage of a one-year program straight out of UVic where she taught English in Aix-en-Provence, France. “I discovered I had this ability to look at each kid and build an authentic connection with them real fast to help them feel a sense of belonging,” she says. “Even after 29 years, I still love creating that for students.”
Mimi joined the SMUS modern languages department in 2008. She says she chose to remain at the school because “very quickly I saw the culture of the school, which I really loved. The students were engaged and polite, and I loved the camaraderie with the staff.”
She recalls the moment she realised SMUS would be a long-term workplace for her. She was in a meeting that first year where colleagues were discussing how to support a student to ensure they could succeed at SMUS. “I listened in awe while people contributed their observations, insights and ideas to help this student. I realised that every kid could receive this kind of focus, attention and support here, and this was the school I wanted to be at.”
Over 16 years at SMUS, Mimi prioritised acknowledging and supporting students every day. One intentional change her students experienced in recent years was a new way that she ended class. “They're not allowed to leave the classroom unless I'm standing at the door and I say goodbye individually to each one. It’s a bit of a hangover from COVID times when we broke early for spring break. I had a bunch of students who I never saw again because I was diagnosed with cancer while we were doing remote school. I had a year off, and by the time I came back they were all gone,” she says. “I value the relationships I am fortunate to get to build with these kids, so it’s important to me for the last couple years that they know that I acknowledge and I see them before they walk out the door.”
Retirement will include canoeing, travelling, and time with her family: her husband, Marc, and her five children. It also will include a next chapter and a different career path. “I don’t know what that looks like just yet, but I know it will be purpose-driven and aligned with my values. I want to be promoting gender equity, sustainability and the Indigenous ways of knowing,” she says. “I’ve had a really amazing career, but this experience of stepping out of my comfort zone in a terrifying way made me incredibly strong and I want to see where that takes me next. Each thing with love.”
