The Depression and the dirty thirties gave way to more war years. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Liberal Mackenzie King was the prime minister of Canada.
Alberta's small-town and rural atmosphere was somewhat transformed by the influx into the province of Americans to build the Alaska Highway and of Commonwealth servicemen to train to fly (Chalmers 1967).
Wartime brought extreme social adjustments, including rationing for such commodities as food, gasoline and liquor. Because of Japan's entry into the war, Japanese Canadians from British Columbia were forced to resettle in southern Alberta.
Patriotism was pervasive, as it had been during World War I. In schools, teachers conducted patriotic activities, such as selling bonds and knitting sweaters for soldiers overseas. They also guided their pupils in planting victory gardens.
From 1943 to 1946, Alberta experienced a serious teacher shortage. To keep schools open, the government relaxed standards for teacher preparation by lowering entrance requirements and shortening the normal-school program. In 1943, candidates were admitted to normal schools, given three months of training and authorized to teach with a letter of authority. If they received good reports from the school inspector, they were granted what were known as War Emergency Teachers' Certificates (Chalmers 1967, 425).
Some one-room schoolhouses in the countryside were closed during World War II because rural school districts were unable to attract teachers (Chalmers 1992). Many young teachers enlisted or left the classroom to find good-paying wartime employment. In many cases, married women were coaxed into service in the classroom. Superintendents made strenuous efforts to identify women who possessed teaching qualifications or teaching experience in order to keep open as many classrooms as possible.
Because of the teacher shortage, correspondence-school education grew during the war years, a trend that continued into the postwar period (Chalmers 1968). The alternative was either to close schools or to appoint school supervisors to oversee students engaged in correspondence study. Such school supervisors did not require any teacher preparation. The availability of correspondence school helped reduce the pressure to lower teacher standards. In some cases, the use of correspondence school circumvented the need to close schools.
As Chalmers (1967, 116) notes, in efforts to meet educational needs, Alberta began experimenting in the 1940s with school dormitories, whose purpose was to increase the opportunities for rural students to attend high school. Typically, students boarded and received accommodation while attending high school away from their parents and their farms. The school dormitories met with some success. Some 20 such institutions were in use in 1941, the largest located in Red Deer. This experiment continued until about 1960, by which time improved bus services enabled rural students to attend high school while living at home (Chalmers 1967, 181).
World War II altered some of the social norms associated with public schooling and teachers. In the 1930s, few married women taught in schools, an arrangement justified on the grounds that a family should have no more than one breadwinner. In hindsight, this justification appears to be an intolerable attempt to keep women in their place. With the wartime shortage of teachers, the Edmonton Public School Board was forced to alter its employment practices. As a consequence, married women were allowed to teach in the city's public schools (Oseen 1984).
Alberta's government was sympathetic to teachers in the 1940s (Chalmers 1978), and teachers were able to make great headway in becoming recognized as professionals. In the early 1940s, teachers' right to practise collective bargaining was recognized and, as a consequence, salary schedules were widely adopted. These schedules were based on qualifications and experience rather than on the terms of individual contracts negotiated with trustees.
As a result of a memo of understanding with the Department of Education in 1942, the Alberta Teachers' Association accepted responsibility for organizing annual teachers' conventions throughout the province, a function that had hitherto been carried out by the department. Conventions had provided a way for school inspectors to meet teachers in each community. Now they provided a means to improve the knowledge and skills of teachers. In conjunction with the passage of the Teaching Profession Act in 1936, this transfer of responsibility to the Association was one more indication that the profession was coming of age.
Throughout the war years, opportunities for teacher preparation improved. In 1939, the School of Education at the University of Alberta became the College of Education. In 1942, the College of Education became the Faculty of Education. M E Lazerte, John Barnett and H C Newland were three prominent advocates for the establishment of the new faculty (Coutts 1982). The province's normal schools were finally closed, and the Department of Education transferred authority for teacher education to the University of Alberta.
In 1945, Alberta became the first province to transfer all teacher preparation to a university. Teaching was being recognized as a learned profession. The founding of the Faculty of Education embodied the idea that elementary and secondary teachers should be prepared in the same institution. In the new arrangement, the Calgary Normal School became an extension of the Faculty of Education. Alberta's step forward in teacher preparation set a precedent for advanced standards of teacher education across Canada.
Summary
In several ways, the years of World War II were a watershed for public education, coming between the harsh times of the Depression and the increasing prosperity that followed the war. Because of the war, the surplus of teachers that had prevailed in the previous decade yielded to a severe shortage and a demand for more and better-qualified teachers. Despite the tragedies and hardships inflicted by the war, great strides were made in advancing the professional status of teachers. Advances occurred with regard to collective bargaining. Alberta's normal schools closed and the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta became responsible for all teacher preparation in the province. As World War II ended, Alberta's approach to teacher preparation at university set a high standard of excellence.
« Previous | Next »
