While millions of women marched for feminist causes around the world on the weekend, I was reading about a Mennonite woman who was quietly smashing her own glass ceilings 60 years ago.

Her name is Vera Good. She's 102, one of seven children who grew up on a farm in the rich soil near Hawkesville.

In her long life, she pioneered educational television, was one of the first educators to start programs for gifted students, and became the first female school inspector for the government of Ontario.

"She is one of the most amazing people I've ever met," said local author Nancy Silcox, who has just published a biography entitled "The Exceptional Vera Good: A Life Beyond the Polka Dot Door."

Teenagers from traditional Mennonite families often left school right after Grade 8. The boys would help on the farm and the girls would help their mothers at home. Later some would get a job in a factory.

But Vera loved school, and just kept going. She knew from an early age that she wanted to teach teachers. She got several degrees, including a PhD from Columbia University in New York City.

She witnessed the birth of India as an independent nation as Great Britain was withdrawing. She was there as a volunteer with Mennonite Central Committee to provide relief to the many displaced and impoverished people there in the unrest of the regime change.

She had the chance to hear Mahatma Gandhi, pacifist leader of the Indian independence movement, speak in January 1948.

"Even today, I can close my eyes and see him — a small, brown man who wore only a white wrap and sandals," she told Silcox. "I was close enough to him to see the wrinkles on his face."

The huge crowd was quiet and respectful as he spoke, she recalled. But the very next day, Gandhi was assassinated.

By that time, Vera had been a teacher in a schoolhouse in Breslau where eight grades of children were packed into one room. You needed to be organized and effective, in order to survive.

On her return, she gravitated to the more progressive boards near Toronto where she was able to put some of her innovative ideas into practice. The baby boom was in full gear by then and schools were popping up everywhere. Good was in high demand as a principal.

She was an early believer in the so-called "discovery" method where children learn by doing and experimenting, each at his or her own pace, rather than having information passed down by the teacher at the front of the room.

She also believed strongly in special education for gifted children, which she had seen while studying at Northwestern University near Chicago.

Some people would question why they needed to spend resources on gifted children who seemed to "have it made" already. But she reminded those people that "society depends on the brightest minds to lead us" and "these potential leaders need to be encouraged and stimulated to achieve their potential."

Finally, Good found she couldn't get promoted further. She was very unhappy. "She was very alone in a man's world," Silcox said.

But she changed direction once again. She briefly was a school inspector for the government, assuring quality control. Then she was caught up in a wonderful initiative when Ontario decided to launch educational television programming for children under her supervision.

She became executive producer of numerous programs, including "Polka Dot Door" which became a familiar part of so many childhood routines.

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At the time, teachers were worried about educational television at home because they feared it would take away their jobs. Part of Good's job was to convince them that television was their friend.

For so many generations of children who enjoyed those programs, it was.

To find out more about Vera Good's remarkable life, you can pick up Silcox's book at Words Worth Books in Waterloo or at Coles bookstores. Silcox will be interviewed about her book on TVO's public-affairs show, "The Agenda," on Tuesday Jan. 23.