Family Feud Canada celebrity host Gerry Dee surprises Hamilton classroom

When Hamilton educators saw a Canadian celebrity waiting in the lobby of their remote kindergarten classroom on a Thursday morning, they were extremely shocked."

We really didn't think it was a possibility, so when we saw his name there, the three of us were sort of making faces at each other on the virtual screen," said classroom teacher Christine Stephen. We were very, very excited."

In a Jan. 5 tweet, actor, comedian and current host of Family Feud Canada" Gerry Dee invited educators to send a link to their remote classrooms for a chance at a surprise visit.

I will jump on and chat to your students. Gives you a little break!" the tweet reads.

Dee is a former gym teacher who produced and starred in Mr. D," a CBC sitcom based on his experiences as an educator.

New to Twitter, Stephen made an account and sent Dee a message with the link to her Janet Lee Elementary School classroom - but she didn't really expect him to show up the next day.

It showed that he read my message and that he followed my Twitter account, so I was hoping," she said. But I also didn't know how many people had contacted him."

The visit was as much for the adults as it was for the kids. In fact, Stephen said the kindergarteners, who are typically four and five years old, didn't seem to know who Dee was.

He sort of played a guess who?' kind of thing with the kids," she said. Astronaut, doctor and, finally, actor were among the guesses.

But Stephen said the kids were giggly and excited and smiling" nonetheless.

They could see that myself and my teaching partners were excited, so they sort of started to feed off of that," she said.

Stephen and her family had tickets to his April 2020 show in Hamilton, which was cancelled amid the pandemic. Her two high-school-aged kids, who she said are huge fans," also joined the class to chat with Dee.

It's been an excellent treat for us right now," she said, adding that the last two years have been unbelievably tough." It's put some pep in our step, for sure."

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com