School Consolidation in Maritime Canada: The Educational Legacy of Edgar L. Morphet and His Disciples, Country School Journal, Vol. 5 (2017), pp. 31-47 (original) (raw)

Recent History of Schooling Reform in Manitoba

1986

The social climate in Manitoba has led, in the past 25 years, to an expectation of school reform that has been translated into varieties of political action. However, most of the reforms, instituted by government policymakers, have fallen short of public expectations. This paper explores lessons to be taken from these experiences in school reform and proposes new ways of achieving excellence in compulsory schooling in Manitoba. In the past, Manitoba has attempted to realize excellence in five main ways: curriculum fixing, authority sharing, school setting humanizing, school setting engineering, and effective teaching. The first four ways have failed, for various reasons, to effect significant change in the schools. The fifth way-effective teaching-has been (to some degree), and can continue to be, the main road toward educational reform. Teachers must, however, be more adequately prepared and nurtured in their role of school reformer. Teacher education must encourage a "critical manner" in teachers that focuses on curriculum, pedagogy, and conditions for planning and implementation. Teachers must think more clearly about what, how, and why they teach. Supervisory practices must also be conducive to the development of this critical manner in teachers. Twenty-two references are appended. (IW)

Turning the Inside Out: Presuppositions of Alberta Educational Leaders Promoting Progressive Reform, c. 1920 – 1950

Historical Studies in Education / Revue d'histoire de l'éducation, 2016

ABSTRACTAlberta’s educational leaders appeared to be taking united collective action in promoting progressive programs and pedagogy, c. 1920 to 1950. However, there were deep differences in their presuppositions about human nature and the relationship among human beings that shaped their ways of thinking about what students needed to know and how students learned. Utilizing a methodology advocated by R. G. Collingwood, this study reveals these differing presuppositions and argues that three predominant and conflicting ways of thinking among Alberta’s educationists—that is, conservative, liberal, and collectivist—had an invisible but significant impact on their educational reform efforts.RÉSUMÉEntre 1920 et 1950, des spécialistes en éducation albertains ont semblé prendre une action collective en faveur de programmes et d’une pédagogie progressistes. Cependant, de profondes différences dans leurs présuppositions sur la nature humaine et sur les relations entre les individus ont façon...

Manitoba Schooling in the Canandian Context and the Building of a Polity: 1919- 1971

Canadian and International Education, 1999, 28 (2), 99-128., 1999

This paper addresses the movement from Anglo-conformity as the principle articulating the notion of citizenship education to multiculturalism. It is a historical analysis that focuses on Manitoba education in relation to English speaking Canada. It calls attention to and attempts to explain the gap between educational aims and policies and actual classroom life. Given the intersubjective and relational character of identity formation, citizenship education often contributed to the development offorms of proto-multiculturalism that later gained political space. Furthermore, minorities often became Canadians in their own terms. The boundaries between private and public tended to become diffused in the school experience.

A Protracted Struggle: Rural Resistance and Normalization in Canadian Educational History

Historical Studies in Education / Revue d'histoire de l'éducation, 2001

Their homes were worlds unto themselves. The fishermen were not nationalists of any sort, defined themselvesas neither Newfoundlanders nor colonials, but residents of chthonic origin, sprung from the earth of .whatever little island or cove they had grown up in. (johnson 1998: 454) "Good for you," said Grandpa as I stood with my mortar board and gown, clutching my various awards and diplomas ... "Good for you," "ille bhigruaidh. This means that you will never have to work again." What he meant was that I would not spend my life pulling the end of a bucksaw or pushing the boat off the Calum Ruadh's Point in freezing water up to my waist. (MacLeod, 1999: 107).

Connections, Contrarieties, and Convolutions: Curriculum and Pedagogic Reform in Alberta and Ontario, 1930-1955

Canadian Journal of Education, 2006

To apply newer philosophical approaches in education, Alberta and Ontario experimented with dramatic curriculum and pedagogic reform during the progressive era, c. 1930 to 1955. However, by the mid-1950s both provinces returned to more traditional disciplinary approaches. This comparative historical study reveals three conditions that affected reform efforts in the provinces: the need for appropriate teacher education and the development of appropriate supporting materials; the need for an understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the reform approach; and the impact of the general social, political, and intellectual environment.