The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Match these excerpts with the year they were originally published: 1920, 1949, 1963 and 1978. 

We dug into the archives to find tidbits from previous ATA Magazines that are worth another look, either because of their relevance today, or as a reminder of how far we’ve come. You be the judge.

1. Right to strike

Alberta teachers, long since disillusioned about the efficacy of the cap-in-hand approach of establishing their economic position in society, have adopted the techniques of free collective bargaining as a proper way to achieve their economic goals. In so doing, they have not flinched from using the painful and distasteful ultimate sanction which gives real meaning to bargaining. They have refused on occasion to give their service under conditions which they found unacceptable to them. In short, they have gone on strike after every other method of effecting settlement has failed.

Your guess: _____

2. Who will decide morals
and principles?

Are we prepared to teach that only one set of values is appropriate for everything in any situation? If so, which code of morality is it to be? Who will decide whether the schools should teach only moral absolutes and which principles
will be taught—parents, teachers, schools, school boards or departments of education?

Your guess: _____

3. What do we do with controversy?

Controversy is an integral part of democratic experience and hence so-called controversial issues belong in the school. Any other conclusion would imply that education is somewhat insulated from life.  

Your guess: _____

4. Teacher: presiding genius

The school therefore occupies a strategic position in our national development. In rural districts it forms a social centre. Not only is it the place where the children of the neighborhood are taught “the three Rs” but it is the headquarters of the social life of the entire community. ... Occupying as the school does, such a prominent place in the life of the district, its presiding genius, the teacher, should be no mere nonentity.

Your guess: _____

1. December 1963, “Why Teachers Should Have the Right to Strike” by J. D. McFetridge. (Originally published in the “Journal for Dissent,” the Edmonton Journal.) 

2. May 1978, “Moral Education: In Search of the Holy Grail” by Judy Samoil.

3. January 1949, “Living Issues Belong in the Classroom” by Eduard C. Lindeman. (Reprinted from Educational Leadership.)

4. Sept–Oct 1920, “The Rural Problem” by S. J. Dymond.