The Alberta Teachers’ Association

A worldwide reversal of economic fortune occurred when the stock market fell in October 1929 and ushered in the Great Depression, words that still conjure up dark memories for many people. Life in Alberta during the Depression—also known as the dirty thirties—was characterized by social upheaval and the worst economic conditions the province had ever faced. Prices for agricultural products plunged, severe and prolonged drought struck the prairies, and young men rode the rails across the country in search of work.

Richard Bennett, Conservative prime minister during the Depression, established military-supervised relief camps for young men, an act that did not make him popular. Indeed, Bennett’s relief initiatives did not measure up to the New Deal of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt government in the United States, and he lost the federal election to Mackenzie King’s Liberals in 1935.

Provincially, John Brownlee, under the banner of the UFA, served as premier from 1925 to 1934, followed by R G Reid. To the credit of Brownlee and the UFA, Alberta obtained mineral rights from the federal government in 1930, an event that proved important for the province’s economy in subsequent decades.

The UFA remained in office until 1935, but this agricultural movement that had become a political party did not fare well in dealing with the harsh realities of the Depression, especially in rural Alberta, and in 1935, a Social Credit government under William Aberhart came to power. Social Credit was never seriously challenged for most of its tenure as the province’s government. Ernest Manning, who took over from Aberhart in 1943, was premier until his resignation in 1968.

The hard economic times spawned radical new social and political philosophies. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the forerunner of today's New Democratic Party, held its first meeting in Calgary in 1932, although its approach to social and economic reform actually took root in neighboring Saskatchewan.

In 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured Edmonton as part of a cross-Canada royal tour. Crowds of people lined Kingsway Avenue—formerly known as Portage Avenue—to gaze at the imperial visitors.

Throughout the 1930s, teaching jobs were difficult to find. In this decade, the province’s normal schools produced a surplus of teachers (Patterson 1982a). In some cases, especially in parts of southern Alberta, school districts closed as farmers abandoned their homesteads in the wake of the drought.

Aspiring teachers had to search diligently to obtain employment. To make life even more difficult, working conditions were demanding, and teachers often had difficulty collecting their pay. Given the widespread economic hardships and poverty of the era, rural school trustees regularly had trouble raising the local taxes required to pay teachers. During much of the 1930s and until 1943, a teacher’s annual salary was set at a minimum of $840 (Chalmers 1968, 28). As the Depression went on, the salary offered by school trustees frequently fell below the minimum.

Across Canada, but particularly on the prairies, the 1930s were unkind to education. From 1931 to 1934, Alberta’s net expenditures for education dropped nearly a million dollars, a development that had devastating consequences for schools: “School properties were allowed to fall into disrepair, very limited purchases of new equipment were made, new teaching devices were neglected, and the salaries of teachers, particularly in rural sections, were slashed” (Lawr and Gidney 1973, 207). (For additional firsthand accounts of Alberta teachers and the Depression, see McLachlan and Kroetsch [1999].)

Before taking charge of their schoolhouses, many teachers had been accustomed to the relative comforts of city life. Rural teachers—mostly young women—were responsible for grades 1–8, sometimes grades 1–11, all in one room.

Physical conditions were harsh in the prairie schoolhouses in the 1930s. By modern standards, facilities were primitive. Drinking water often had to be carried to the school from a neighboring farm. A potbellied stove provided heat in the winter. There was no indoor plumbing, and conveniences were located outside the schoolhouse. Barns sheltered the horses that served as transportation for most pupils, and books and other teaching resources were often inadequate or nonexistent. Further, teachers were often asked to perform janitorial work, such as tending the fire and cleaning the schoolhouse.

In those years, teachers often boarded with farmers, who received a tax credit for providing this service. Alternatively, the teacher might be housed in a teacherage, some of which resembled drafty granaries, or in the schoolhouse itself. The latter situation was the source of considerable disruption when the schoolhouse also served as a church, community hall and Saturday night dance hall.

Despite such challenges, heroism and persistence were the fabric of everyday life for rural teachers, who made unique contributions to the quality of rural education. This period of hardship has been celebrated by many authors. For example, Charyk (1968, 1983) presents rich accounts of the experiences of Alberta teachers during this period. Tkach (1978) offers additional insights into the experiences of rural teachers during the dirty thirties. By way of contrast, Stamp (1978) describes the suffocating constraints on professional autonomy that teachers endured in an urban setting, notably the Calgary Board of Education. Jobs were scarce, and teachers were susceptible to harsh judgments for violating spoken or unspoken expectations.

The 1930s was also a time when different teaching methods were being examined. Such educational leaders as Supervisor of Schools H C Newland recognized a need for improved pedagogy, and by the middle of the decade, notions of progressive education and child-centred schooling were being introduced in Alberta, at least in normal school (Chalmers 1978). Newland played an important role in Alberta’s experiment with progressive education (Patterson 1982b).

The progressive movement in education was associated with the philosophy of John Dewey, who taught at the University of Chicago. His version of American pragmatism combined elements of democracy and the scientific method. Teaching methods that stressed memorization and drill were downgraded in favor of an approach that emphasized learning by doing and taking into account the interests of the child.

The innovations of progressive education found their way into normal school, and the enterprise method was implemented in some classrooms. The new methods, however, were never fully accepted in Alberta because they were demanding on teachers and required resources that were often not available. For classroom teachers who did not understand the philosophy behind the new methods, the movement brought only superficial changes. By 1950, the last embers of the progressive innovations introduced to Alberta during the 1930s were dying out (Kach 1992, 172).

In a retrospective piece, former premier Ernest Manning (1968) reflected on some of the milestone events in the history of education in Alberta that occurred in the 1930s. One of these events was the election in 1935 of the Social Credit government led by William Aberhart. Dubbed Bible Bill for his role as a lay preacher in Calgary's Prophetic Bible Institute, Aberhart was well known for his regular radio broadcasts. Aberhart was a longtime principal at Crescent Heights High School in Calgary before he was fired in the spring of 1934, along with other Calgary Public teachers. He decided to go into politics.

In addition to serving as premier, Aberhart also acted as minister of education. Years later, Dr Fred McNally, deputy minister of education at the change of government, recalled the details surrounding Aberhart's decision to assume responsibility for the education portfolio (Coutts and Walker 1964). Aberhart accepted his election as a mandate to reduce the number of rural school districts, which then numbered more than 3,000. The one-room schoolhouse was clearly not adequate to satisfy the educational needs of rural students.

An amendment to the School Act in 1936 made possible the creation of rural school divisions. Many school trustees opposed the formation of the larger school divisions (Chalmers 1967). A brochure from that era, School Divisions in Alberta (Alberta. Department of Education 1945), complete with photographs, testifies to the minister of education's efforts to explain the rationale for the initiative to the public at large. By 1943, most rural school districts belonged to one of the 50 larger school divisions. As a consequence, students’ opportunities for education in rural areas improved, as did opportunities for rural students to attend high school.

Aberhart was re-elected in 1939 but died in office in 1943. Manning succeeded him as premier and served until 1968.

In 1936, Alberta teachers and the Department of Education cooperated with the newly created Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in producing school broadcasts, five days a week (Patterson 1970, 364). At the time, this level of educational radio programming was unmatched by any other province.

But more than anything else, what characterized this period of public schooling in Alberta were the major advances in the status of the teaching profession. Up to this decade, teachers were seldom well paid and did not enjoy much professional status. In 1935, the UFA passed the Teaching Profession Act, which changed the name of the Alberta Teachers’ Alliance to the Alberta Teachers’ Association. However, membership in the renamed organization was still voluntary.

Along with Aberhart, several other teachers were elected to the legislature in 1935, and some of them became members of the cabinet. By 1936, the Social Credit government introduced a number of improvements for teachers, including an amendment to the Teaching Profession Act, which made membership in the Alberta Teachers’ Association automatic. Henceforth, all teachers in Alberta’s public and separate schools, without exception, had to belong to the Association. This key provision enabled the Association to speak on behalf of all teachers and to enforce its code of ethics. In practical terms, this legislation helped define the collective role of Alberta teachers in public education. All told, the Teaching Profession Act and its amendment enabled Barnett to focus on promoting teacher welfare rather than on driving through the countryside signing up members.

In 1937, legislative amendments not only put the board of reference on a firmer footing as a forum of appeal in cases of teacher dismissal but also clarified the acceptable protocols for teacher contracts (Chalmers 1968, 145–46). These advances provided the legal underpinning to Alberta teachers’ security of tenure.

In 1939, Alberta, the only part of the British Empire not to have a pension fund for teachers, established one by passing the Teachers’ Retirement Fund Act (Chalmers 1968, 149).

The late 1930s also saw some significant developments related to teacher preparation. Corbett Hall on the University of Alberta campus served as a model school. Even its architecture was reputed to be among the most distinguished in North America. Despite some resistance from the Faculty of Arts and Science and some hesitation on the part of the Department of Education, the College of Education was eventually established in 1939, replacing the School of Education (Chalmers 1978). Dr M E LaZerte became the first director. The existence of the college meant that prospective secondary school teachers were now able to register directly in an education program at the beginning of their university studies. The lofty goal of establishing a faculty of education was another step closer.

Initially, the college was established to educate high school teachers, while preparation for elementary school teachers continued in the normal schools. The establishment of the college proved an important milestone in the evolution of teacher preparation, laying the groundwork for further developments in the 1940s and setting the stage for the adoption, in the 1970s, of the requirement that those entering the teaching profession must have a degree.

Summary

The 1930s are memorable for public education and teachers in Alberta in a number of ways. The population of the province was still predominantly rural, and many teachers taught in one-room schoolhouses. The heroism of teachers in the face of a depressed economy and a prolonged drought was outstanding. In the course of the decade, Albertans elected a Social Credit government and supported its efforts to improve education. The legislation favoring the formation of rural school divisions proved significant in creating educational opportunities for Alberta’s rural students. That same government also supported teachers’ desire for improved working conditions by establishing a pension plan for teachers. Above all, legislation from this era gave new impetus to the teachers’ professional association by making membership in it mandatory and by enforcing a professional code of ethics. Some time was necessary for the improvements to take root.