Eleanor Deckert
The time: post-World War II, 1948. The place: the classrooms of rural British Columbia.
The issue: What is the purpose of education?
Quotation source: British Columbia Teacher’s Federation Magazine, December 1948.
“The High Mission of Education, says Warren R. Austin, US Representative to the United Nations, is to help our people realize that peace is the only practical condition of existence.”
“Education today has the supremely difficult task of preparing people to live in an atomic age – when millions have never adapted their ways of thinking to the electrical age or even the steam age!
“As teachers face their task of helping our youth become competent in international relationships, they need encouragement and optimism. Yet where, they are asking,where in this world of mounting international tensions, can anyone find hope for peace?”
The students: Grade 1-8 in one room. Children of immigrants for whom English is not the language spoken at home. Children of couples who have not received very many years education. Children whose families are on the move, seeking work, following crops, construction, hopes and dreams. Children who must walk distances to and from school in all weathers.
Quotation source: “Guess Who” Junior Primer reader, 1951, Teacher’s guide.
“Guess Who provides extra learning opportunities for those children who need additional help before beginning Fun with Dick and Jane. The Guidebook suggests procedures for meeting individual needs, especially those of the immature or the frequently absent child.”
The school district: Birch Island School District #26 (Roundtop – Blue River)
Population: “1995: this school district has the smallest population of British Columbia’s school districts.” (North Thompson Reflections pg. 67)
Quotation source: North Thompson Reflections.
The teachers: “The typical teacher was young (some still in their teens), inexper-ienced, female and single. Most had two years of post-secondary training.”
“1941 was typical of the period; of the 13 teachers who left the region in June, only one returned in September.”
Quotation source: British Columbia Teacher’s Federation Magazine, December 1948.
$12,000 for Teacherages Proposed for Birch Island
Because it has been impossible to secure suitable housing for either married or single teachers in parts of the Birch Island school district – thereby causing the district to lose opportunities of securing the service of needed teachers – the trustees have decided, after considerable study, to immediately undertake the construction of four or five teacherages where suitable buildings are not otherwise obtainable.”
The future: Students wishing to continue their education past Grade 8 had two options: work at home on correspondence lessons or live away from home. Some in Kamloops, some at the Coast, and some whole families moved away so their children could continue their education.
Modern improvements: In the December, 1948 issue of the BC Teacher’s Federation news magazine, advertisements include: art supplies, leather work kits, new Grade 10 science workbooks, home education booklets about nutrition (planning meals and cooking canned food), a 16 mm film projector, speakers, amplifier, record player and tape recorder, and a free dental hygiene program.
Teacher’s guidelines are available for radio broadcasts for learning French, classical music, and a guidance program for adolescence.
