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Throughout its history, the ATA Magazine has been rooted in the relentless pursuit of raising teachers’ professional status. It has also served to educate members, help them improve their professional practice and build unity within the profession.
I’ve always been a big fan of the ATA Magazine. I discovered it as a child, when my dad brought home the most recent issue and left it on our living room coffee table. I remember admiring the covers. I’d thumb through the magazine, always learning more about teaching. I never imagined that I’d become a part of it.
There have only been eight permanent editors of the ATA Magazine in its 100 year history. The first editor, H.C. Newland, was a driving force for its establishment. He was relentless in his efforts to raise the status of the teaching profession, and a magazine dedicated to helping teachers improve their practice was vital. General secretary treasurer John Barnett took over the enterprise in 1925 and continued to serve as editor until his retirement in 1946.
In preparing the retrospective for this issue, I was truly dazzled by the incredible quality of the journal in its first quarter century. In particular, the research updates and very practical lesson plans would go a long way toward helping members prepare to teach in every part of Alberta.
Under Eric Ansley, the magazine developed a more standard routine through the year and the bully pulpit of the editorial page received less use. In 1953, assistant general secretary F. J. C. Seymour took over responsibility for the magazine and it continued its mandate to communicate Association news and to work toward heightened professional status.
In 1966, the ATA recruited Tom McConaghy to the Association staff to head up work on publications. The communications functions of the magazine were transferred to a new publication, the ATA News, and the magazine became the professional journal for Alberta’s teaching profession. This opened the full potential of the magazine, and Tom welcomed articles from Alberta’s teachers and other members of the profession. With Tom’s retirement from the magazine in 1984, my colleague Tim Johnston took on the magazine, bringing his substantial creative energy to the publication. Tim also brought his artistic talents as a photographer and many subsequent issues included his photography.
Tim’s departure left a big hole—he had served as editor for 25 years. So I [Gordon Thomas] decided I’d take it on. Why not? I was in the company of outstanding staff colleagues, and I felt that we could all work together to assemble issues on matters of particular concern to our members. My goal was to develop theme issues, identifying outstanding Alberta teachers and international experts to work on the themes. It was never that hard to find contributors.
With volume 99, Joni Turville picked up the mantle. The core place of the magazine hasn’t changed. It assists the ATA to meet its obligations under the Teaching Profession Act. It provides not only a commitment to research, but it also continues to focus on improving the status of the teaching profession in Alberta.
It’s an enormous honour to be part of the magazine’s illustrious history. Here’s to the next century!
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H.C. Newland
Founder and first editor of the ATA Magazine 1920–1925
He was relentless in his efforts to raise the status of the teaching profession, and a magazine dedicated to helping teachers improve their practice was vital.
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A century of continuous publication contributes to the success of Alberta teachers
Gordon Thomas, Former Executive Secretary, ATA
On April 5, 1920, Provincial Executive Council passed a motion to establish a magazine and named Alberta Teachers’ Alliance president Hubert C. Newland to serve as editor. The motion noted that the name of the ATA’s magazine would be decided later. Joining Newland were past president T. E. A. Stanley (news editor) and Medicine Hat teacher J. T. Cuyler (education editor). John Barnett was assigned the business and operations functions of the soon-to-be launched publication.
In June 1920, the ATA Magazine was born. Newland was very clear about the role the ATA wanted the magazine to play: “The ATA Magazine makes its bow to the public, to the school boards and to the teachers of Alberta. As the official organ of the ATA, this magazine will be controlled at all times and in all matters of policy by the Executive. The guiding principle of our policy will therefore be to further the aims and objects for which the ATA exists, and above all others, to persistently endeavor to raise the status of the teaching profession in the Province….” In fact, raising the status of the teaching profession has been the core being of this magazine right from its inception.
But for almost its first half century, the magazine was also the communications vehicle of the organization. It sought to educate members and also to build unity and solidarity. It sought to develop an audience wider than teachers and to convey its messages more broadly. And it was relentless in its push to obtain recognition for the ATA as the voice of Alberta’s teachers.
The men and women who founded the organization recognized that the pathway to greater recognition and higher status included higher professional standards, and the magazine became central in helping teachers (especially those in one-room schoolhouses) improve their professional practice. It also focused on the need to raise salaries, discussing a $1,200 minimum salary for teachers and encouraging all teachers to press boards on the issue.
“There is the objection of a certain type of myopic teacher who deprecates the unpopularity of the $1,200 minimum, and who is moved to compassion for poverty-stricken rural districts,” Newland noted in the magazine’s first issue. “But it must be obvious upon reasonable conclusion that a high minimum salary follows as a necessary corollary to the Minister’s policy of higher professional qualifications.”
The men and women who founded the organization recognized that the pathway to greater recognition and higher status included higher professional standards, and the magazine became central in helping teachers (especially those in one-room schoolhouses) improve their professional practice.
A climate of disrespect
1920
In 1920, the year the ATA Magazine was founded, Alberta teachers were overworked, underpaid, without protection from unfair treatment and abuse, and without official recognition of their profession.
Direct editorial approach
Throughout the magazine’s initial years, the editors called out injustice, took on government, ministers, MLAs and newspapers and became increasingly frustrated with school boards that deliberately stood in the way of improved professional status for teachers.
In June 1925, Newland and his editorial team were suddenly replaced, as John Barnett assumed responsibility for the magazine’s editorial and administrative operation. If anything, the editorial direction became even more direct than it had been in the past! The magazine reported developments and the views of the executive. It provided details about the annual meetings, resolutions to be discussed and the business of the Association. Every issue included local news, as members learned more about what was happening across the province.
With the establishment of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation in 1920, there was a regular and detailed update on happenings across the country, keeping Alberta teachers updated on the state of the teaching profession elsewhere in the country. One of the Alliance’s charter members, Miss R. J. Coutts, along with Miss Annie Campbell, contributed a regular column called “The World Outside,” chronicling developments in education around the world. The Education Research Department was a regular feature initiated by M.E. LaZerte, who later became ATA president and dean of the faculty of education at the University of Alberta. This feature included up-to-date research reports tailored for the use of members, e.g., mathematics instruction, problem solving, Latin study and even the use of radio in education. In the late 1920s, Our Teachers’ Helps Department was established. This truly remarkable section enabled teachers to review draft lesson plans for the next month’s instruction. The materials included classroom hints and would have been especially helpful to teachers in “ungraded schools.”
In the late 1930s and 1940s, there were regular columns for advice by subject. The Math Science Corner seemed to snag the most space, but industrial arts and home economics were important, too. H. E. Smith (also an ATA president and future education dean) took on the editorship of a regular column on “home and school,” providing suggestions to members on an effective relationship with parents. During the Second World War, a column entitled “For King and Country” documented the contributions of hundreds and hundreds of Alberta men and women who left their classrooms to enlist in military service. There were regular updates on curriculum and also reports on ATA committees. In 1940–41, the ATA’s Committee on Homework seemed to dominate the magazine with its reports.
Barnett was always prepared to use his editorial to call out the latest transgressor against ATA ideals, but he was particularly angered by a Calgary Herald editorial in early 1936. With the government of William Aberhart introducing an amendment to the Teaching Profession Act to make membership in the Association compulsory, Barnett countered the Herald’s malicious editorial point by point with a true–false test.
Status quo gives way to change
When Barnett retired in 1946, the new general secretary treasurer Eric Ansley took over the magazine, which soon developed a regular pattern. Early in the school year, the publication featured the fall teachers’ conventions, including detailed information about the keynote speakers. Then, as the year progressed, it presented electoral ballots, draft resolutions, the election notice, the ATA’s annual report and president’s message, financial statements and, after the annual general meeting, election results and a report on various resolutions. Provincial and local news continued to be included, as were articles covering every aspect of teaching.
Assistant general secretary F. J. C. Seymour assumed the role of editor in 1953, and the format did not really vary. A key post-war frustration was the teacher shortage. The ATA encouraged higher standards and higher salaries to resolve the shortage, but the government reduced standards, and school boards did not respond constructively to calls to increase low salaries.
“Our Teachers’ Helps” column from the April 1936 issue of the ATA Magazine gave teachers across Alberta lesson plan ideas for their Grade 4 students.
The magazine triumphantly reported on the opening of the original Barnett House (on 103 Street) in November 1951 and on the opening of a much larger Barnett House (at its current location) in June 1962.
The Blackstock Commission, an ill-fated government effort to consider provincial bargaining, received ample derision. Articles (or themes) included the future of teaching, mistakes in testing students, beginning teachers, the work of principals and the future of high school.
In February 1967 the ATA News was born and, as a tabloid newspaper, it would become the ATA’s official publication of record, and the magazine would become a proper professional journal. No longer would the magazine run membership lists, electoral ballots or convention programs. In time, the News would be published every second week and the magazine would be issued quarterly. It would be dedicated to the improvement of the profession.
1967
And so with volume 48, the magazine changed: new size, different paper, the introduction of colour and significant design changes. Since 1967, through four editors, the magazine has tackled issues of concern to the profession:
- curriculum change
- students with special needs
- inclusion
- the role of the principal
- school–community relations
- critical thinking
- creativity
- education finance
- technology in education (at least five times)
- teacher-made tests
- standardized testing
- accountability
- public assurance (at least six times)
- professional status
- teacher governance
We’ve celebrated 50 years of teacher education at the University of Alberta, the provincial teachers’ rally in 1997, and our own 50th, 75th and 100th birthdays. We’ve educated our members on their professional organization and offered advice to new governments. We’ve studied educational transformation, partnerships and global education. We’ve opened our archives.
In its formative years, the magazine helped to develop solidarity and a commitment to the ideals of the organization. From its inception, it has focused on improving our profession—informing, educating, researching—and raising our professional status as teachers. With a century of continuous publication, it has made an important contribution to our success as Alberta teachers.
The Magazine’s Future is Bright
2019
Joni Turville, Editor-in-Chief, ATA Magazine
Like most teachers, I began my career wanting to connect with students and help support them in their learning. When I entered the profession, I had no inkling that my experiences would bring me to the Alberta Teachers’ Association as an executive staff officer and that, as part of my duties, I would be placed in charge of a magazine! But here I am, tasked with overseeing the ATA Magazine’s content and direction for the foreseeable future.
My predecessor Gordon Thomas noted in his historical retrospective that raising the status of the teaching profession has been at the magazine’s core since its inception. To this day, that core purpose is central to the magazine’s mandate. As part of the redesign that we’ve executed over the past year, we’ve taken that founding premise and fleshed it out to create a broader mission and vision to guide us into the magazine’s second century.
As our editorial team learned last year at a conference of the Alberta Magazine Publishers’ Association, printed magazines are enjoying a resurgence in interest, particularly those magazines that have a focused target audience with whom they are able to forge a strong connection. We also learned that people consume media in much different ways than they have in the past.The ATA Magazine has done well to connect with teachers throughout its first century, and I believe we are poised to take that connection to another level. We are going to achieve that by continuing to be the authoritative voice of education in Alberta while sharing teachers’ stories and reflecting teachers’ voices from every corner of the province.
Now, to the next 100 years!
Mission statement
The ATA Magazine’s mission is to
- showcase the Association as the education authority in the province,
- highlight the broader issues in public education,
- support teachers in their practice and
- help connect teachers with their colleagues.
Vision
The ATA Magazine is
- authoritative,
- relevant,
- engaging,
- informative,
- professional,
- warm,
- thought-provoking and
- lively.
Trivia challenge
One of the following statements is untrue. Can you guess which it is?
1 The ATA Magazine is the oldest magazine in Alberta.
2 Alberta-raised hockey stars Mark Messier and Jarome Iginla were once featured together on the cover of the ATA Magazine.
3 Joni Turville is the first female editor/editor-in-chief of the ATA Magazine.
