In the first reading from the journal Historical Studies in Education, “‘Through no fault of their own’, Josephine Dauphinee and the ‘Subnormal’ Pupils of the Vancouver School System” by Gerald Thomson, the story of a teacher, Miss Josephine Dauphinee and her teaching of segregated special needs children is explored. Thomson uses various pieces of evidence from articles, quotes, and consensus data to display the segregated schooling of children considered to be mentally unfit for regular schooling. This article helps to display the various arguments for both creating separate schools for mentally challenged children, and for eugenics. The main teacher this article focuses on, Miss Josephine Dauphinee, was seen as a pioneer for the teaching of special needs children, but she was also, like make middle class progressive women at the time, a lobbyist for the use of eugenics on societies mentally handicapped.The author takes these arguments and explains the reasoning for them. Many at the time, like Miss Dauphinee, believed that “feeble minded” children were negatively affecting the learnings of other children. Their presence in classrooms was viewed to be disruptive to the learning of other pupils, and would hold back the class. It was also feared that, like a disease, their apparent slowness in learning could spread to other children. So, it was deemed best to separate them into their own schools. These schools were also seen to provide another service, which was social control. They could teach these mentally disabled children to do what society expects of them, and thus keep them from becoming a burden. Often, those seen as mentally disabled were also viewed as society’s criminals and poor. So teaching these children would hopefully keep them from falling into this category. Many also pushed for the sterilization of mentally handicapped peoples and children, in an attempt to lessen the section of the population that was mentally handicapped, and to further protect the strong-minded majority.

         The next article by Cynthia Comacchio, “‘The Rising Generation’: Laying Claims to the Health of Adolescents in English Canada, 1920-70”, from the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, explores the growing concern of the health of adolescents. Though traditionally, and even today, adolescents tend to be the healthiest of all age groups, a concern over their mental and physical health began to appear in the 1920’s, and only grew from there. Comacchio explores this growth and its origin. Comacchio finds that there was a concern, due to the bodily changes of puberty at the time and developing mind, that this stage in life was where physical and mental health were the most closely related, and to ensure the wellbeing of one’s self for the rest of their life, they  must focus on this stage of life. Comacchio also suggests that the establishment of adolescents as a distinctive age group, what would soon be known as the “teenager”, helped bring further focus to the health of adolescents. As the teenage years became an established time in life it brought about more study, and scrutiny. With this extra attention came the focus on health, especially due to puberty hitting at this stage in life, and the maturing of males and females, and more importantly the female reproductive system. There was a large concern about the sexual health of teens, this led to a special focus on sexual and health education in schools, which the author follows the development of until a couple decades after the end of World War II. The main point of this article was to identify why there was a sudden surge to evaluate the mental and physical health of adolescents, and argue why this subsequently led to the implementation of specialized teachings of sex and health education in schools. This also helps give a broader understanding of Canadian history, and how we have come to establish sexual education and health classes in modern day schooling.          

          The next article, also from the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, is written by Mona Gleason, called “Race, Class, Health: School Medical Inspection and ‘Healthy’ Children in British Columbia, 1890-1930”  and shows how the idea of “healthy” children and families was constructed, and how this led to the idea that anyone who could not meet this new standard was inferior and unhealthy, thus creating a new social boundary. Gleason explores how “health” was defined by the dominant culture, formed mostly of white middle-class individuals, and then placed onto children by both healthcare and educational professionals. Often it was minority ethnic groups that were thought of as “unhealthy”. They were seen to have poor hygiene and were carriers of disease, making them a threat to all others, who they could contaminate. This idea, along with the spread of common diseases at the time, which Gleason tracks the reported numbers of throughout the focused on decades, led to official intervention into schools by healthcare officials. These officials urged inspection of both children and the school’s facilities to keep the young population healthy and safe, and decrease the risks of spreading disease. Gleason displays the bits of resistance seen, as a fear rose from the entrance of healthcare professionals into schools, and the push for “invasive” procedures such as vaccinations. Gleason also focuses on the shortcomings met in this push for healthier learning institutes. Many schools, especially rural schools, were often underfunded, and tended to be “dirty”. Also, it often fell onto teachers and parent s to diagnose “healthy” and “unhealthy” children, and for parents to seek treatment, which was something hard for parents of marginalized groups or lower income. While pushes for healthier school standards were a bit harder to accomplish than thought, this article does contribute to a wider understanding of public health. It shows the advances made to ensure a healthier population, and the want to decrease unnecessary disease spread, and deaths. The switch towards a more academic and scientific understanding around health, instead of the older religious view of it, is also seen. This helps add to the historiography of Canada by showing the evolution of health standards and teachings of health in children and families.   

          All three of these articles have shown pushes towards more specialized teachings in school, and a focus to make schools a healthier, more productive place. The first and second articles by Thomson and Comacchio show the beginnings and early stages of separate and targeted schooling for both those children with special needs, and sexual and health education. This segregation has in way continued to today, as many schools have separate classes and programs for both of these. All three articles also show that in the push towards a “healthy” society and its youth, often those who were disadvantaged, of lower income, or racially different got the short straw and usually bore the blame for unsanitary conditions and spread of disease, both mental and physical. These ideas perpetuated further segregation of the disadvantaged classes, as mainly white middle-class individuals distanced themselves, in fear of becoming “unhealthy”. Though, despite this, these articles still show a push to make society a better one. It displays the developments in the medical world, and the entrance of everyday cleanliness and health standards into many institutions. As in the last article, new developments like health inspections in schools started to become common practice, and teachers as well as parents became more aware of children’s health and needs, as they were charged with diagnosing children. Another new development was seen in Comacchio’s article, as the adolescent age group becomes a heavily studied life stage, and leads to the creation of sex education, as well as a deeper understanding of the changes being made, mentally and physically, at this age. Altogether these articles show a greater want for a thriving, healthy society, made up of individuals that can actively and positively participate in it. These show how some of our modern day health standards, teachings, and practices have come to be in Canada, further adding to our understanding of Canadian history.     

Bibliography

Thomson, Gerald. “‘Through no fault of their own’: Josephine Dauphinee and the ‘Subnormal’ Pupils of the Vancouver School System, 1911-1941.” Historical Studies in Education 18, no.1 (Spring 2006): 51-73.

Comacchio, Cynthia. “‘The Rising Generation’: Laying Claims to the Health of Adolescents in English Canada, 1920-70.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 19, no.1 (2002): 139-178.

Gleason, Mona, “Race, Class, Health: School Medical Inspection and ‘Healthy’ Children in British Columbia, 1890-1930,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 19, 1 (2002): 95-112.

Image: Common Mitrewort, taken by Katryna Barone