The three sources from this week discuss Canada’s education curriculum reform in an attempt to make schooling more progressive. As seen in Amy von. Heyking’s, “Selling Progressive Education to Albertans, 1935-1953,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, progressive schooling chose to focus on the sciences, social aspects, and individual teachings of children. The new system was to better prepare children for the real world, and its main focus was that children would grow and learn in a more personalized, interactive environment. Progressive teachings tried to lean away from formal structures and textbook learning, but as seen in the last source, also from Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Neil Sutherland’s, “The Triumph of ‘Formalism’: Elementary Schooling in Vancouver from the 1920s to the 1960s”, some schools and teachers stuck to formal teaching methods. Both these sources used primary sources in their research, focusing on certain schools, and teachers. The other sources analysed, Robert M. Stamp’s memoirs,  “Growing Up Progressive? Part I: Going to Elementary School in 1940s Ontario” and “Growing Up Progressive? Part II : Going to High School in 1950s Ontario”, shows the changes that came with progressive teaching, and the teachers that chose not to follow it. Stamp’s elementary experience was largely shaped by progressive teaching, with new subjects, or at least new subject names, new teaching methods, and new classroom structures. Though, as seen in Heyking’s research and Stamp’s personal experience, each teacher had their own methods of teaching, and whether they class would be learning progressively or not was really up to them. Stamp describes each of his teachers, stating his memories of the grade and class, and the teaching methods and personality of teachers. Some were kind, fun, and used activities to help kids learn. Others were more strict, preferring to teach from the book. As stated in both Heyking and Sutherland’s articles, often it was the teachers that affected the students learning, and the use of progressive or formal teaching. Though, as seen in these articles as well, the more educated the teacher became, due to the change in curriculum and training for it, they often became more progressive teachers, and passed this mindset and learning method onto their pupils. But, like Sutherland shows, there were those who outright denied the progressive change. This can be seen in Stamp’s memoir from high school, where he states the vast difference in his learning from elementary school. In high school the teachers taught almost completely from the textbook, he says that, unlike elementary teachers, they were not progressive at all, but stuck to formalism. It is safe to assume that the diverse teaching styles that Stamp went through were common for children at the time, as Canada switched curriculums. This switch heavily affected teachers, who, as stated previously, had to be re-educated and retrained in the new progressive ways. This largely benefited them, as many teachers became better educated in general, and were subsequently able to provide better for their students and increase their knowledge. The larger amount of authority also given to teachers, as they got some flexibility and freedoms in what to teach and how, as well as to determine how well a pupil was progressing, increased the amount of respect for teachers. This also benefitted students as the new well educated teachers provided them with a better learning experience, and the new, targeted subjects helped increase their know-how of the world around them. The new focus on social components in schools also helped increase their abilities to socialize and participate in the changing world. Altogether, these sources add to our general knowledge of Canadian historiography by depicting a pivotal time in Canada’s educational systems. These sources display the changes that came about, both progressively and formally, that have led to the curriculums we have today. It also shows a shift in values and a greater sense of understanding of the individual, as progressive reformers focus on the needs of every single person. This also continues with the idea that education was, in part, used to implement new social norms, changes, and controls to the Canadian public, through the social group most impressionable; youth.   

Bibliography

Heyking, Amy von. “Selling Progressive Education to Albertans, 1935-1953,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012: 340- 354.

Stamp, Robert M. “Growing Up Progressive? Part I: Going to Elementary School in 1940s Ontario.” Historical Studies in Education vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 187-98.

Stamp, Robert M. “Growing Up Progressive? Part II : Going to High School in 1950s Ontario.” Historical Studies in Education vol. 17, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 321-31.

Sutherland, Neil. “The Triumph of ‘Formalism’: Elementary Schooling in Vancouver from the 1920s to the 1960s,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012: 375-397.

Image: Purple Mountain Heather, taken by Katryna Barone