Macdonald College Faculty of Education

McGill University Class of 1969

40th Reunion October 17, 2009

Main Building

2

Years of Teaching Remembered

by Beverly Ann Spanier

As I look back on the years since 1969, there are so many vivid memories of my teaching career. I decided to put together this little booklet in honour of the 40th reunion of our Education class. We graduated together at a time when teachers were in demand. I had finished a McGill BA in 1967 in Honours Political Science and Economics and a University of Connecticut Master’s in Political Science before entering a 1G program at Macdonald. This program would grant me the right to teach English and History at the secondary level. I entered the profession in 1969, beginning a career that would last 28 years as a teacher at the high school level and another nine years as a language consultant in industry. During the high school years, I taught Economics, World History, Canadian History, Current Events, Political Science, North American Literature, English first and second language, Marketing and Retailing, Law, Moral and Religious Education and the list goes on. It really is a miracle that educators could teach so many subjects, often during the same school year. For me what was most surprising about teaching was not the actual classroom teaching or the extracurricular work (yearbook advising, field trip planning, school council member, etc.), but the amount of hours I put in on labour relations. For almost my entire teaching career I was a representative for the Montreal Teachers Association. I learned about collective bargaining, picketing, lockouts, strikes, scabs and injunctions at the same time as I was learning all of the new material I had to teach. Helping teachers gain rights was as important to me as helping my students pass and become model citizens of our world. It was rewarding to watch students actually join society as members of the workforce – some as teachers – and as parents. I recently gave out a prize in my name to a student who graduated as a teacher and whose mother I had taught.

The responsibility of teaching is so much more than just standing in a classroom and telling students the meaning of, for example, a poem. We are

3

teaching young people how to think, how to interact with others, how to communicate and above all, hopefully, how to accept individual differences.

I am proud to have been a member of the Education Class of 1969. My classmates took many paths other than teaching, becoming administrators, researchers, government officials and union negotiators. A few went into other fields, such as medicine. Their accomplishments are many and included in this booklet are recollections by some other Class of ’69 members. Teacher Training at McGill

The McGill Normal School was established for teachers in 1857. It was moved in 1907 to Sainte Anne de Bellevue, where it became part of Macdonald College and was renamed the School for Teachers. In the 1950s the School for Teachers and the Department of Education (created within McGill’s Faculty of Arts and Science) and the McGill School of Physical Education united to become the Institute of Education. In 1965 the Institute became the Faculty of Education and moved in 1970 to the University’s downtown campus. In 1969, we were able to take a one-year program to become qualified to teach. Many graduates from 1969 have the 1G Diploma. The diploma no longer exists at McGill and students are now required to complete a Bachelor’s degree in Education in order to teach. Some students go to institutions outside of Quebec to pursue qualifications if they already have a degree and wish to teach. Student teaching is a major part of any diploma and the Class of ’69, including the 1G group, had a minimum of three sessions of practice teaching with evaluations. The Union Movement

Two events have stayed in my mind all these years. One was the general strike of 1972 and another was a wildcat strike in 1976. Both events changed the union movement forever for teachers. On April 11, 1972, more than 210,000 public sector workers went on strike against the Quebec government and teachers were part of this group. The fight was for a raise in salary, job security, greater decision-making powers at work, equal pay for equal work, and a minimum wage of $100 per week. Three major union groups were involved, including hospital workers.

4

When we began our careers in 1969 teaching salaries were low. Women were in the majority and were paid less than men in the work force. The union tried to obtain better teaching conditions, better salaries and generally more resources for students and teachers. The battle in 1972 was complex because of the different demands made by the various groups involved.

The general strike was legislated to a halt with Bill 19 on April 21. Union

leaders were initially jailed but were released after widespread protests, although union action was prohibited for a period of two years. What was unique and important was the magnitude of the fight and the learning curve for all involved. Years later, the Class of 1969 would retire with vastly improved salaries and having enjoyed better working conditions as the result of a number of labour actions.

March 26, 1976, remains with me as the worst day of my teaching

experience. The Montreal Teachers Association, with Don Peacock as President and Susyn Borer as our strike chief, decided on a wildcat strike (without the required eight days’ notice) and we demonstrated in front of the Protestant School Board Building on Fielding Street. Initially we blocked the entrance to the Board, but we moved after officials called in the riot squad. This squad frightened me. Having spent my childhood in Connecticut, I had seen demonstrations go very wrong. I went across the street and took any young people I saw with me. The riot squad marched forward into the ranks of striking teachers, some of whom were injured. The sound of ambulance sirens is still with me. It is impossible to forget that day, but I know that each of us there became stronger in our conviction that teachers needed to stay together and work hard for our profession no matter what.

Early Lessons I was in my early twenties when I started teaching and my assignment was

primarily with seniors. On my first day, I arrived at school and two students, soon to be in my class, were blocking the entrance with a group of friends. I told them to disperse, thinking I had authority over them. They told me to enter by a side door. Fortunately, a teacher who had seniority and knew the students was able to move them on. I soon learned that seniors in a school are not the easiest students to discipline. I taught senior English to the same two students and it took several weeks before a mutual respect developed. And with seniors, school and learning take a back seat to driving lessons, senior proms, sports and a myriad of other activities.

5

Some Thoughts from Classmates

Angela (Mooalim) Nathaniel Angela taught mainly at the elementary level, having a BA from Clark University with a major in Psychology, a 1G certificate from McGill in Kindergarten and Elementary and an MEd in Special Education, also from McGill.

Understanding Molecules

My first year of teaching was at an elementary school in Laval called Martinville. I had an energetic class of Grade 4 students and was in the process of teaching them a science unit on molecules.

I began by explaining that all matter was composed of molecules whether solid, liquid or gas and those molecules were invisible to the naked eye. I also told them that molecules were in a constant state of motion, even those in a solid object. I then pointed to a period at the end of a sentence on the chalkboard and said it was composed of moving molecules but we could not see this happening.

The class was silent and then suddenly Vera, a spunky 9-year-old with red hair and green eyes, jumped out of her seat, ran to the blackboard and clamped her hands over the period I had just pointed to and said loudly:

“Well Miss Mooalim, those molecules are not moving now,and besides I don’t believe in anything I can’t see so why should I believe in molecules?”

The class nodded in agreement and I learned how hard it is to teach science. This was my first time teaching about molecules. My lesson plan for the subject quickly changed. I used a closed shoe box with cut-up onions. The smell of the onions was released when the box cover was removed. I taught that the reason for the smell was the release of molecules from the onions into the air. I learned that teaching of any subject had to be concrete to be understood.

June Macpherson I knew June through our work with the Montreal Teachers Association (MTA). June taught Economics, History and Business Education. Over her career from 1969 to 1996 June taught both secondary students and adults.

6

She was a Vice-President at the MTA and a Director at the Provincial Association of Protestant Teachers. A Frightening Experience

Like many little girls I wanted to be a teacher. (Little did I know!) But the opportunity was delayed until long after my university degree when my three sons were in school. At last, I thought, I will go to Macdonald College to obtain my teaching diploma. At Macdonald I met many fellow students, some of whom became lifelong friends, and I enjoyed many of the classes.

When the first student teaching experience was scheduled, I felt great

confidence in setting out on this voyage of discovery of my teaching abilities. Having majored in History at university I was given classes in Canadian History. This is great, I thought. What could be easier?

When I was informed that the professor from Macdonald would be coming the next day to evaluate me, I had no fears. I prepared a super lesson. The topic was the British and French and the coming Battle of the Plains of Abraham. We had had some previous lessons leading up to this topic and I had a very responsive class. I had laid out everything in a logical order, with what I considered great questions plus map work, so I had no fears.

I met with my professor before the class and gave him a copy of the

lesson plan, took him into the classroom and seated him at the back, and then greeted the class and took the attendance. I took a deep breath, looked around at the students waiting expectantly for me to begin, then looked down at my notes and could not read a thing. Literally everything on the page swam before my eyes. I took another look – same thing! If I had known Chinese I would have thought it was Chinese.

It then occurred to me that perhaps I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. What was I doing in the classroom anyway? Talk about a soul-searching moment. I pulled myself together and said to myself ‘If you can’t teach this lesson after all your studies and work at Macdonald you don’t deserve to be a teacher, so just wing it!’ And I did.

When I met the professor afterwards for my evaluation, the first thing he said was, “Your lesson plan was excellent, but you didn’t follow it exactly.” “No,” I replied, “I couldn’t even read it!” And I explained my moment of stage fright. My lesson was not great, but I guess it was adequate because I received my diploma. And nothing like that ever happened to me again.

7

The skills I was taught at Macdonald stood me in good stead but nothing had really prepared me for that first teaching experience. Susyn Borer Susyn is an educator I knew best as the Executive Assistant at the MTA where she was involved in educational issues and was a strike chief. Susyn worked as a kindergarten teacher before being at the MTA from 1973 to 1980. She then became an administrator for the public and private sectors. Susyn kept a scrapbook with photos, articles and other newspaper clippings about teaching, material about MTA, as well as letters she wrote to the Montreal Gazette and the Montreal Star. Susyn knew the educational system as well as any of the Class of 1969 grads and she fought hard for issues that were important to teachers, parents and students. Here are a couple of excerpts from her letters published in the Montreal papers. On class size: “We have asked for elementary maximum class sizes of 29 and 31 to avoid super-large classes of 38 (presently the maximum), but still allow for a variation in class sizes in the same school. Furthermore, our elementary maximum class does not apply to instructional groups formed for the purpose of implementing systems of team teaching, large-group instruction or student activities.” On teacher-pupil ratios: “Under the old contract in the PSBGM we ‘mixed’ the ratios, which resulted in an average high school ratio of 1:18.2 and an average elementary ratio of 1:23.6. Under the new offer, the ratios are improved, so that the high schools can operate on a 1:17 ratio and the elementary schools on a 1:22.9 ratio (and it improves even more over the next two years). These improved ratios give us enough extra teachers to continue to offer the kind of programs the pupils need and parents demand, while alleviating the workload of the teacher.”

Susyn Borer’s Reflections

My journey as an educator has been a rather unorthodox one and because of this, I consider myself to have been one of the luckiest people around. I have seen life and learning from many different perspectives. I have been a kindergarten teacher, a full-time professional for the union (and strike chief!), treasurer of the parent-sponsored programs at my kids’ school, chairperson of

8

the Parent Committee, founding principal of Royal Vale Alternative School in the public system and finally, Head of School at Miss Edgar’s and Miss Cramp’s, a private school for girls from kindergarten to grade 11. Now I do consulting in leadership development for in-school administrators in both the public and private sectors, along with serving on the boards of non-profit organizations whose missions are compatible with my values and my passions.

What I learnt over the years has changed who I am and how I behave. From a follower/ supporter of the status quo, I became someone who taught kids in general and girls in particular to challenge authority with respect in order to effect change and make a difference. I began my career in an inner-city school kindergarten where contemptible conditions for both students and teachers forced me to seek out less conventional solutions to the problems at hand. Reading Neil Postman’s book Teaching as a Subversive Activity in 1969 opened up a new world for me, acting as a catalyst for change based on continuous learning, questioning and growing.

My experiences reinforced for me the notion that a committed group of people can turn things around and make a difference. It just takes time, energy, commitment and most of all, passion. But you can make it happen and serve as an example for others to take a risk.

Yes, I lived through the tumultuous years of wildcat job actions, strikes, demonstrations, trips to Quebec City (some with my kids in tow), the riot squad, public board meetings that rivalled Saturday Night Live, school closures, school openings, declassification and salary cutbacks. Even student strikes! I served on the Discipline Committee of the MTA, exposed the Board’s budgetary shenanigans and their special education sleight-of-hand mumbo-jumbo. I fought for women’s rights inside and outside of the classroom, helped negotiate the first local agreement, forged links with citizens’ groups and social activists (lovingly referred to as “pinko animators” by my first principal), and helped reduce the speed limit in school zones, increase the number of crossing guards and improve the nutritional quality of school cafeteria food. But what do I remember and cherish the most? Hands down, it is the people I met on the journey and the relationships developed over time – with students, parents, teachers, administrators and even with a sterling board

9

member or two. These relationships became long-lasting friendships that have endured over the years, including meeting and marrying my husband, an MTA Executive member at the time. I was lucky enough to work side by side with Don Peacock, Ann MacLeish, Marilyn Tobman and Cliff Buckland, to mention a few. I learnt so much from each of them and a host of others, wherever I went and whatever role or function I had. To me that is the gift a profession like teaching can give you.

Lloyd Brereton Lloyd Brereton took on the chairmanship of the 40th reunion along with a committee including Margaret Winiarski and myself. Lloyd had a unique career in which he worked as a teacher, union leader, school administrator and school board negotiator. Lloyd has an insight into all facets of the educational process. Forty Years and Counting Forty years. So many things have happened in our lives since we graduated from Macdonald. If your life has been anything like mine, many of those things were unanticipated when we graduated. I most certainly did not foresee my involvement in so many union activities. From my second year of teaching through to 1992, I was almost always the school delegate, or a member of the local union executive, the PAPT Board of Directors or the Executive. I rewrote the local union constitution and negotiated the local agreement, neither of which I had seen or heard of when leaving Mac. During the 1991-92 school year, I was the PAPT Secretary-Treasurer and a Head Teacher in the South Shore Board. Consequently I attended at lot of union meetings and principals’ meetings that year. It was soon evident that neither intelligence nor stupidity was exclusive to either side when it comes to unions and management. I graduated with a secondary generalist diploma, yet I spent virtually my entire teaching career as an elementary teacher. My first school, H. S. Billings, had more than 140 teachers on staff. In 1993, I was Head Teacher when William White School was closed because it was projected to have less than 100 pupils for the following school year. For the last few months of teaching I returned to a school where I had previously taught. I knew for certain that time had truly passed when, on the second day, one of my pupils happily reported that I had taught his mother at the same school some 20 years before.

10

In February 1994, I moved into the Board office as a human resources coordinator; but my status remained that of a teacher on leave. In fact, I still had that status when I started representing the Protestant boards in provincial negotiations. I think it was in July of 1996 that I was finally named a vice-principal, but I never did actually serve as one. A friend who served on a school committee once told me that the principal had announced that I had been named vice-principal of the school, but not to worry since I would never actually be there. From 1994 until my retirement in June 2004, I was this ghost who appeared on the staff lists in several different schools or Board office positions. Now I am this retired person who just won’t go away, since I am still the negotiator for QESBA (Quebec English School Board Association). When I was union president, some teachers complained that I was too friendly with the board; now I have had Ministry people tell me I am too friendly with the union. These comments make me think I got the balance right.

Bill 111 One unique experience in this life on both sides of the table was serving as the English School Board representative on the committee charged with approving the payments to settle the grievances over Bill 111. The government finally decided to settle after the Supreme Court told it to go away when it tried to argue the case for a second time. It had taken the case all the way to this court once already and lost but was trying again. I got to approve payments to my boss and myself since both of us had participated in what had been declared to be an illegal strike in 1982-83. At that time I was a member of the union executive.

The government lost the court cases because it failed to present all the documents to the legislature in English as well as French when it decreed the collective agreement and ordered an end to the strike. In the decree were punitive actions taking two days’ pay for each day of the strike. The great irony was that the CEQ had taken the case before the courts and argued it on the basis of the government’s failure to respect English rights. It is nice to know that English can be useful.

Snowstorms When people talk of climate change, I only have to think back to those first years of teaching. School closures due to snowstorms were common. The best one in my memory occurred when I was at William Latter in Chambly from 1970-73. In one of those years, the winter carnival was fast

11

approaching and there was little or no snow on the ground. The gym teacher said not to worry because he was going to pray for snow. We got snow all right – the school was closed for five days! Such storms seemed commonplace in those years.

I remember walking from the Education Building at McGill to the Queen E one Thursday evening for a teachers’ convention only to find that I was one of the very few people present and that the events had been cancelled because of a storm. That was in 1976 or ’77 when I was on a leave of absence. I was quite amused by all the concerns voiced when we had so much snow a couple of years ago. I kept thinking that those people should have experienced what I had. I guess that’s another sign of getting older. Sounds like something my mother and father used to say to me.

School Reforms It’s also interesting to hear all the fuss about “reform” and the lack of textbooks. Reform, or whatever other name you want to use, seemed to be a constant theme during my teaching years. Every time we turned around someone had another “brilliant” idea to change education.

In the summer of 1973, I attended workshops in New York to learn something about open areas since I was heading to the brand new Harold Napper School for the 1973-74 school year. It was the first school in the South Shore Board with open areas. The only thing I recall from those workshops was the story about how this “marvelous” new concept had come about. Some school board in the States was running out of money to complete a new school so it simply left out the interior walls. Presto, you had open areas. It had nothing whatsoever to do with pedagogy. We grew to love the pedagogical consultants who were always trying to introduce the latest “new” program or teaching method. One of the teachers with whom I worked at William Latter had a favorite putdown whenever another consultant came from the board on a sales campaign. He’d say, “They tried that 20 years ago in Hungary. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.” As for a lack of textbooks, the first year I worked at Billings we had a course not only without textbooks, but also seemingly without content. All the English secondary students in Chateauguay attended the school. The Catholic students still had their religion classes so they invented a course, Personal and Social Development, to fill the time slot for the Protestant students. Luckily, I did not have to teach it because no one could give a clear

12

portrait of what the content was supposed to be, let alone supply textbooks. Have things really changed? A great deal has taken place since we graduated. Yet, despite the changing roles, I still have the goal that I had at graduation, namely to help students learn and love doing it. We must have shared that goal, otherwise I don’t know why we kept returning to our schools year after year. Maura McKeon I knew Maura McKeon in 1968 and we shared three student teaching experiences: Verdun Protestant High School, Howard S. Billings in Châteauguay and Beaconsfield High. Maura taught 35 years for the CECM in the fields of high school History and English. Painful Legislation There was a drop in enrolment in the English schools starting in 1976 due to Bill 101. Many teachers no longer had positions in their school and were put on “availability.” Availability meant that you were forced to take any job in your field within 50 kilometers of where you lived. I was on availability eight times. This meant that I was never able to feel a part of any school community. The longest time after 1976 that I was in a school was three years.

Every year, beginning in 1976, teachers worried as of April 1 about being put again on the dreaded availability list. I was union representative (“key teacher”) from 1981 to 1986 and I still have a black t-shirt from the early ’80s when the collective agreement was legislated against teachers. These memories are not pleasant and still scar my psyche to this very day. Barb Goode I first met Barb Goode while we were in residence at McGill as undergraduates. I was in school again with Barb in the 1G program. She has had a long and distinguished career both in our schools and at the Ministry.

Reflections on My Career as an Educator

Forty years as an educator and some things never change – even now, as I am a semi-retired freelance consultant! I am writing this article at night, in a hurry, after receiving another call from Bev Spanier who is concerned about meeting her publication deadline. I spent the previous hour on the phone with a colleague working on the content of an English sector strategic plan for

13

Vocational and Technical Training that has a September deadline. This sort of eleventh-hour responding has marked all the phases of my career and seems to come with the territory in the Education sector. As a teacher, I juggled preparing lesson plans, advising various extra-curricular clubs, union leadership and marking what seemed like never-ending stacks of English essays. As a McGill Admissions Officer, in our peak period I processed boxes and boxes of applications under severe time pressure. (No such thing as computerized systems at that time!) Not only did I have to tackle all those files, but occasionally had to appease a waiting room full to overflowing with an angry family delegation defending a rejected applicant from India or joist with a faculty dean over the admissibility of a particular applicant. I am delighted to cite an example of one student I had met in person whom I fought for despite his dismal application credentials. He ended up winning the Governor General’s medal and became a stellar teacher.

The satisfaction of the advising and liaison aspects of that job led me to the McGill Master’s in Educational Counselling program and a return to high schools and a part-time private practice. Eleventh-hour responding as a counsellor entails grappling with serious social and emotional issues, often scheduled very inconveniently at someone else’s crisis point.

But in a school setting the darker moments are more than counter-balanced by hilarious and energizing experiences as well. I returned to the guidance office after lunch one day to find a huge crowd gathered in the hallway in a carnival atmosphere. Like stalactites, strands of soggy spaghetti and tomato sauce were oozing through the acoustic ceiling tiles. Of course, a major traffic jam was building as everyone took the opportunity to ignore the bell resuming classes. Janitors and mops, a habitual “druggy” sent down from a Physics class, a passing delivery guy, and a newly-arrived, dazed family awaiting registration all added to the surreal scene. The origin of the amazing incident was hushed up, but guidance personnel have an inside gossip track and we learned that the cafeteria above us was run by a tyrannical, alcoholic cook. Under the influence that day, he had insisted that the staff pour leftovers down the wrong drain – and in the process poured his own career down the drain as well.

Career counselling has been a passion of mine throughout my years in education. If students aren’t helped to see who they are and where they can

14

find a niche in the world, what relevance can they find in the various subjects and skills and values we expect them to absorb over their school years? My board, the Lakeshore, was the first in Quebec to create a consulting position in career orientation back in the ’80s and I loved that pioneering period of my own career. It developed in me the crusading and creative skills I really needed when I moved to the English Services department of the Ministry in the ’90s.

The first week I was there, CBC-TV’s Newswatch was investigating the tiny percentage of anglos in the civil service. During an interview I was asked if I had aspired to be a government fonctionnaire. “Never occurred to me,” I replied. Like most of my grassroots colleagues I hadn’t even known about the MEQ’s English services department until I “stormed the Bastille” with other counsellor representatives to complain about the lack of good career orientation in the curriculum. I ended up being hired to implement the new Career Choice Education program in English boards. It’s a real detriment to the system that such a communications gap exists between various segments of our educational system which feeds misperceptions.

One of the most stimulating aspects of career progression is the change of perspective one undergoes at each new phase. “They” and “us” changed for me as I worked at the provincial level and viewed the challenges of Quebec’s educational system from inside the Ministry. What I originally intended to be a two-year stay turned into 17 hectic, but highly-rewarding years that stretched me in so many ways and called upon all the skills I had acquired as a teacher and counsellor.

I sure wish I had taken more than high school French, though. In the first months on the job, I procrastinated about making phone calls to francophone colleagues. In the end, my fears were unfounded, as the vast majority of them were congenial and collaborative, if a little ignorant of the realities of being the minority sector in the province. Again, so many good tales of the “little department that could,” as a dozen of us in the English sector juggled the dossiers handled by the other 400 or so professionals and worked to adapt ministerial policies and programs to English-sector realities. We commiserated that we needed strong egos to deal with being so frequently invisible or overlooked.

During my time in the Ministry, the MEQ became the MELS which never rolled off our tongues as easily, did it? Over the course of my stay, the boards’ names changed too, as we moved from confessional to linguistic

15

school boards. I developed a huge respect for educators in Quebec’s rural boards – Eastern Shores, Central Quebec and Western Quebec particularly –who not only hold schools together, but communities, on what at times amounts to an educational shoestring of available human resources.

At various points in my career I admit to having speculated on what I could have achieved in the private sector – especially in terms of financial and social prestige, considering how much energy and time I put into my work. But as I look back, I feel proud and enormously fortunate to have been able to take such a stimulating life path, with opportunities for leadership and initiative yet with a strong emphasis on the importance of human relationships and personal growth. And all this began with that first heady Cycle One team-teaching assignment in the late ’60s with a salary of $6,700 per annum!

In my most recent career phase I continue to be involved with Adult Education and Vocational Training – which has proven to be the most interesting educational sector of all. The perspective in this phase focuses on the workplace and the economy and helping individuals find their place and their passion. We are now in an era in which countries are acknowledging the importance of fostering “lifelong or life-wide learning,” not only as a means of maintaining global competitiveness, but also as an essential life skill for the social well-being of citizens. I might have made more money in other sectors, but I sure wouldn’t have been as prepared to be a senior citizen in the 21st century!

Teaching in the years after 1969 was turbulent, but the community we worked with was special. As Susyn Borer says, we all made lifelong friends in these years. The students we taught entered every imaginable field, including medicine, law, nursing, psychology, plumbing, security, banking, apartment maintenance, cooking, etc. We see these students everywhere and they are for the most part contributing citizens wherever they live. Barb Goode is certainly right in her belief in the importance of vocational training and lifelong learning. Macdonald College of McGill University gave us our start and I believe that McGill can be proud of the Education Class of 1969.We worked hard and with all our courage and strength.

16

Photo Gallery

Main Building (2nd View)

Water Tower Laird Hall Residence

17

Macdonald Campus

18

1G Group Note from Diana: In Row One, the student’s name is Bernhard Lawetz, but I can’t make the change. Can’t find an “S. Marks” in James so he’ll have to remain first-nameless. (BTW, I haven’t checked any other names.)