The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Nicholas Tkach

Reprinted from the ATA Magazine (volume 58, number 3, March 1978). At the time of publication in 1978, Nicholas Tkach was an associate professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, University of Alberta.

The Depression reached is lowest point in Canada in 1932, and though signs of recovery on the national scene were noticeable after the winter of 1933, such was not the situation on the Canadian prairies. Rather, it was in the latter year that the price of wheat fell to 54.3 cents a bushel¹—an all-time low in Alberta’s history. The result was a fall in per capita income in Alberta that exceeded that evidenced in other parts of the country. For example: “According to Professor Mackintosh, while Canada’s per capita income declined…less than 50 per cent from 1928–9 to 1933, that of Alberta fell more than 60 per cent.”²

Casual labourers, semi-skilled workers, followed by skilled labourers and other workers, began to lose their jobs. Invariably, the school teachers too had to face the rigors of the Depression. From an average salary of $1,055.17 received in 1928–29,³ the rural school teachers’ average salary dropped to $841.57 in 1932–33^{4 —“}hardly more than the $800 that the Edmonton public school district paid its first instructor way back in 1885.”⁵ Informative as these averages may be, they fail to indicate the “range” in salaries paid and, further, they tend to obscure male/female differentials for identical qualifications.⁶ To illustrate, salaries for the 1932–33 year varied from $3,850 for 837 males who held an academic, high school and First Class Certificate, to a dismal $350 for 15 males who had a Third Class Certificate. By contrast, 1,552 females who were holders of the First Class Certificate received $700 less than their male counterparts.

Concerning the differences in payment for men and women, John W. Chalmers asserted that

The early schedules contained two long-vanished features, one that disappeared early; the other more recently. The first was a sex differential; the second a differential according to whether the teacher taught in the elementary or secondary grades. As a rule, women teachers or elementary teachers or both (the two were almost synonymous) were covered by their own schedules.⁷

Since, as Chalmers claimed, practically all elementary teachers were women, then the lower salaries paid to female teachers from 1905 to 1932–33 and on invalidate the contention that the “sex differential disappeared early.” Significant too is the fact that the policy of paying increments for experience was not generally accepted until 1938.⁸ Hence, any claim that average male salaries were higher because of alleged lengthier experience is misleading.

Other variables that were not taken into account in the calculation of “statistical means” were partial or defaulted payments. An example of the latter was described by John C. Charyk.

Money was so scarce in the hungry Thirties that it became a Herculean task to finance the operation of the rural school with any degree of success. The farmers did not have the wherewithal to pay their school taxes, the district as a consequence found it impossible to pay the teacher’s salary and the teacher in turn could not pay for her board and room. The net result was that many districts became insolvent and had to close their schools.⁹

Such economic conditions experienced by the rural school teachers have been officially recorded by school inspectors in their annual reports to the minister of education. J. F. Boyce from Bassano, for example, reported that teachers in his district had to accept $40 to $50 a month until the school taxes were paid. When these, as was often the case in 1931, were not collected the teachers were not fully paid. In other isolated cases, payment of salaries was simply defaulted.

Concerning Charyk’s claim “that many districts…had to close their schools,”¹⁰ little evidence of long-term closure or extensive curtailment of educational opportunities can be found in the annual reports submitted by top departmental officials. In fact, J. T. Ross, deputy minister of education, emphatically stated that “to the oft-repeated question, have many schools been compelled to close, or have many children been deprived of educational facilities, the answer is emphatically, No!”¹¹ On the contrary, he reported that “more school rooms were in operation than ever before…and the total number of pupils enrolled exceeded that of any preceding year.”¹²

Considering the fact that in 1931, 12 per cent of Canada’s 4,105,000 civilian labour force was unemployed and that agriculture’s relative contribution to employment fell from 45 per cent in 1891 to less than 30 per cent in 1931,¹³ it is evident that alternate occupational opportunities were negligible. There is no question, then, as to why employed teachers were so cooperative with the boards that were anxious to keep the schools operative.

But oppressive economic conditions were not the only problems that confronted the rural school teacher. Rural life, especially for those raised in urban centres, presented unique challenges to many uninitiated pedagogues. Principal among these were loneliness and living accommodations. Describing the former, Max Braithwaite wrote:

I stepped out of a frost-covered CNR passenger car onto the worn, wooden platform of …a prairie town. Since then, I’ve been convinced it was then and there that I began to lose my mind.

This was my first real experience with loneliness, the most desperate and deadly of all conditions. For the whole of my stay in this desolate district, I was to fight against it with every stratagem I could devise, and I was to lose.¹⁴

Though Braithwaite probably exaggerated his experiences in Saskatchewan, his account was, in many instances, equally applicable to the Alberta scene.

Nor was isolation a circumstance unique to the early thirties. Until the mid-fifties, it was not uncommon for teachers in ungraded schools to reside a distant one-and-a-half miles from the nearest neighbour. Further, with the rural-urban demographic shift and expanded farm operations, there were fewer residents in the nominal 4 x 4 districts. The sparse population meant fewer people to visit and fewer organizers for communal activities.

Added to these adversities—those that prevailed during the thirties and on—were the snow bound roads. Necessitated reliance on primitive means of transportation further curtailed social contact. Then, considering that the nearest post office and/or general store was often four or five miles away, and the nearest town 15 to 20, one could understand the loneliness that was often experienced, particularly during the long, cold winter months. No wonder those with vision or vivid imagination

longed for the wit and sophistication of New York City and…yearned for a place at the round table in the Algonquin Club…to parry witticisms with the likes of Robert Benchley, James Thurber, Harold Ross, Franklin Pierce Adams and others.¹⁵

Not all isolated teachers had such grandiose dreams, but, undoubtedly, many were at least envious of the modern amenities that were available to their urban colleagues.

Depressing though geographical isolation may have been, it did not tax the character of the rural teacher as much as did cultural isolation. If, as was often the case, a young teacher taught in an ethnic community, he or she could soon, and often did, feel like an outcast.

Another serious problem for the rural teacher was inadequate accommodation. When schools were first constructed, Alberta trustees found themselves responsible for providing living quarters for their one-person staff. Often this was done on a rotation basis—a practice that helped many a farmer meet his school-tax obligations. Generally, though the homes in those days were over-crowded, the farm family took every possible measure to make the teacher comfortable. Furnishings were few but they were the best the household could afford. Conveniences, too, such as plumbing and proper heating were practically non-existent.

Often, when an area was just settled, the houses were too small to accommodate a lodger, so as soon as a school was built, a teacherage was provided. No pretentious architectural structures were these buildings. Usually they were small frame shacks heated by a single stove and based on a concrete foundation. In many respects, other than providing a degree of privacy, these teacherages were rarely an improvement over boarding out.

But if life for the rural teacher was far from comfortable, it was no more demanding than that experienced by the average farm resident. Again Braithwaite’s portrayal of rural conditions in Saskatchewan was equally accurate for agrarian Albertans. The following excerpt brings to mind many a household during the thirties in Alberta.

The McDougall house was small and cold. There was no insulation in walls or ceiling and the house was heated as many homes, by the kitchen range and an ornate heater in the living room. Neither was kept burning all night. It just wasn’t practical. McDougall had no coal to burn, and he couldn’t be expected to stay up all night to shove wood into a stove.¹⁶

In general, farmers got little money for their produce, were forced to default on their mortgages and “through poverty, debt, and worry, steered a bitter course.”¹⁷

By comparison, the lot of some teachers was enviable; not necessarily financially, but in terms of hope and optimism. For the committed pedagogue, his vocation was a calling and his services—educating youth—were often viewed as the key to solving the economic and social ills of the world. Inevitably, such conviction gave the visionary inspiration that helped him face the day-to-day trials and frustrations.

And indeed these were manifold. Teaching in ungraded classrooms, cluttered with dull pupils with the advent of dull times,¹⁸ was in itself a Herculean task. Added to this burden was the dearth of instructional facilities. A blackboard or two, a few wall maps, a globe, a sectional bookcase with approximately 25 books, and a few workbooks were often the only equipment the teacher had to work with.

Despite the limitations under which the rural school teachers worked, their efforts were generally most commendable. Relevant excerpts from inspectors’ reports illustrate this.

The actual teaching equipment in the schools is very limited in most cases, but a large number of the teachers are well supplied with materials of their own which they use in their work, primary material, seat work cards, maps and prepared exercises. (Inspector W. H. Swift, Athabasca) ¹⁹  

Many teachers in the inspectorate have provided themselves with low-priced printing sets and are doing excellent work in the preparation of flash card materials in reading, phonics, number work and spelling. The teachers’ efforts are well rewarded in the reflected progress of the pupils. (Inspector A. L. Doucette, Vegreville) ²⁰

Nor were positive reports the only rewards the rural teachers received for their endeavours. More so than in most professions, there were unmeasurable compensations such as children’s affection and esteem. In season, bouquets of wild flowers—crocuses, buffalo beans, tiger lilies or delicate lady slippers—brought by some admiring pupil, adorned the teacher’s desk. Further, though discipline problems did occasionally occur, there were also times when teachers and pupils happily worked and played together.

It seems fair to say that most of the rural teachers who taught during the thirties and on, looked upon their profession as one in which “the heart and the mind” joined together in pleasure.

Footnotes

¹Alberta Department of Agriculture. A Historical Series of Agricultural Statistics for Alberta. Edmonton: Government Printer, no date, p. 34.

²  Easterbrook, W. T., and H. G. J. Aitken. 1956. Canadian Economic History. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, pp. 493–494.

³ Annual Report of the Department of Education, 1929, p. 95.

⁴ ----- 1933, p. 93

⁵ Chalmers, John W. 1968. Teachers of the Foothills Province. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 4.

⁶From 1905 to 1925, the tables in the annual reports listed the differences in male/female salaries for identical certificates as was determined by the different school systems—rural, town, village, Roman Catholic and consolidated. Since 1926, data included only average teachers’ salaries for all schools according to certificates and sex and aggregate averages for the types of school mentioned above.

⁷Chalmers, p. 55.

⁸ Annual Report of the Department of Education, 1933, p. 93.

⁹ Charyk, John C. 1971. The Little White School House. Vol.1. Saskatoon: The Western Producer,  p. 206.

¹⁰----- p. 206

¹¹Annual Report of the Department of Education, 1933, p. 9.

¹² ----- p. 9

¹³  Safarian, A.E. 1970. The Canadian Economy in the Great Depression. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, pp. 4–5.

¹⁴ Braithwaite, Max. 1975. Why Shoot the Teacher. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, p. 1.

¹⁵ Braithwaite, Max. 1971. The Night We Stole the Mounties’ Car. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, p. 11.

¹⁶Braithwaite, Max. 1975. Why Shoot the Teacher. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, p. 12.

¹⁷McGregor, James G. 1972. A History of Alberta. Edmonton, Hurtig Publishers, p. 263.

¹⁸ Annual Report of the Department of Education, 1931, p. 67.

¹⁹ Annual Report of the Department of Education, 1930, p. 48.

²⁰Annual Report of the Department of Education, 1931, p. 49.