CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION TRENDS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA:
THREE DECADES THROUGH THE EYES OF TEACHERS
by
Diane Haynes
B.Ed., University ofVictoria, 1991

PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF EDUCATION

©Diane Haynes, 2002
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
December, 2002

All rights reserved. This work may not be
reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy
or other means, without the permission of the author.

UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN
BRITISH COLUMBIA
LIBRARY
Prince George, BC

ii
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my friends, family, and advisors who were all pivotal in
helping me reach the end of this journey. In particular, I would like to thank my peer
advisor, Cathy MacMillan-Sihoe for her valuable insight and perception (as always).
My thanks goes out to my parents-in-law, Joan and Rob Haynes, for their
encouragement, praise, and support throughout the past three years (and for all the five
dollar bills!).
I am very grateful for the contributions of the two participants in this study. I was
surprised and delighted by the time, energy and interest they showed throughout the
project. Their valuable insights provided material for the study, as well as learning for
the researcher.
Lastly, I would like to recognize and thank my husband, Stephen Haynes, from
the bottom of my heart. Throughout all ofthe tears, anxiety and joy he was there to offer
his love and support.

Dedication
This project is dedicated with love to the memory of my father, Cecil Busch.
See Dad- I am using the brains God gave me!

iii
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the instructional and curricular practices and
trends in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, as seen through the eyes oftwo teachers who have
been teaching in a central British Columbia district for more than 25 years. Two teachers
were interviewed and gave their views on what guided their practice over the decades
examined. There are some limitations to the study, and recommendations for further
research are made.

lV

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements and Dedication

11

Abstract

lll

Table of Contents

lV

Chapter One

General Problem Statement
Preliminary Literature Review
Significance ofProposed Study

1
3
7

Chapter Two

Design and Methodology
Sampling Strategies
Data Collection Strategies
Inductive Data Analysis
Limitations ofthe Design

9
9
12
13
15

Chapter Three

Results
The 1970s
The 1980s
The 1990s

17
24
29
38

Chapter Four

Teaching Implications
Future Research
Conclusion

46
50
51

References

53

Appendix A

Letter of Consent

55

Appendix B

Interview Questions

56

Appendix C

Sample of Data Analysis

57

Chapter One - Introduction
General Problem Statement

In 1987, I returned to University as a mature student with the intention to complete
my Bachelor in Education and acquire a teaching post in an elementary school. During my
time at the university, I was struck by the plethora of teaching practices propounded by
various individuals in the academic setting as well as out in the schools. While the
Primary Program (Ministry ofEducation, n.d.) was the document touted in many of my
courses (my concentration was in primary education), this was not necessarily the
document of choice amongst those preparing novice teachers for the field. "There is no
one right way to do it" and "every child learns in a different way and at a different pace"
were the catchwords of my teacher education.
My first job in 1991 cemented for me the fact that there is indeed a variety of
methods employed by teachers in schools. As well, the content that was taught seemed to
vary to a certain degree. I observed everything from traditional transmission teaching
using a manual and addressing the students from the front of the room, to cooperative
learning employing teaching strategies and children's literature. My own elementary

education in the 1960s was not like this! Yes, my grade 7 teacher taught us Canadian folk
songs, but he was young, and "from the city."
These observations caused me to wonder how the practice of teaching got to its
present state of apparent "anything goes." I was not sure what influenced teachers and
what they considered when deciding which instructional method to employ, and what
content was important for children to learn. What had occurred from the time of my own
education to the late 1980s and early 1990s to cause this shift in educational practice?

2

What had teachers learned about how and what children learn that had caused such a
dramatic change from the one way to the many ways? I wondered if teachers were doing
their own thing, or whether in fact there were guidelines, however loose, that they
followed. I also wondered if what I had been taught in university was necessarily
reflective of the best practices for how children learn, or whether I was simply being
shown the bandwagon of the time. I was curious about whether the experienced teachers I
observed continued to draw on just their training, subsequent workshops or courses, their
experience, or curriculum mandated by the Ministry of Education. This led me to
eventually consider my present project.
How closely does individual teaching practice compare with provincial educational
policy, particularly when the practicing individuals are geographically removed from the
centre ofthe policy-making? Indeed, are individual practitioners aware of the policy ofthe
day? Does this impact on what they teach and how they teach it? Are there similarities
between the curricular and instructional practices of individual practitioners? In this
project, I conducted interviews with two teachers in central British Columbia who have
taught in the same district for more than 25 years, and are presently teaching in that same
district. My goal is to examine curricular and instructional practices and trends in the
1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as seen through the eyes of these two teachers, and to compare
that with provincial policy of the time.

3

Preliminary Literature Review
The literature review for this project took the form of a time line retrospective that
examined the curricular and instructional policies and practices in education in British
Columbia during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Educational reports, commissions and
policy of the provincial government were examined with regard to the decades being
discussed.
Barman and Sutherland (1995) examined eight out of 50 official inquiries into
education in the province of British Columbia. The authors analysed major government
policy shifts and shifting public expectations of the public education system from the
Chant Report of 1960 through to the Sullivan Royal Commission Report of 1987.
The Chant Commission Report, generally seen as a response to Russian Sputnik,
was released in 1960. According to Barman and Sutherland (1995), "The Soviet Union's
world-circling Sputnik supposedly demonstrated the failure of American science, and
especially the teaching of science in American schools. Since Canadian curricular rhetoric
was so similar to its neighbor to the south, its science arfother teaching shared in this
condemnation" (p. 418). The race to conquer space was on, and the Russians were
displaying their superiority. This was considered a mandate to evoke change. In the
Commission's report, school subjects were ranked according to perceived importance and
the intellectual development ofthe students was the priority of public education.

In 1967/68, the British Columbia Teacher's Federation (BCTF) published a report
which acknowledged that increased teacher education inspired individual teachers to make
changes to the curriculum and their instruction as they saw fit. The report contended that

4

teachers were better educated and trained than in the past, and thus more equipped to select
a curriculum which would best meet their students' needs (Barman & Sutherland, 1995).
This report "listed the factors that it found inhibiting and this list included external
examinations, prescribed textbooks, supervisory personnel, some administrative forms and
procedures, and teachers' hesitation to depart from subject content with which they felt
secure" (p. 420). According to Kilian (1985), "By the late 1960's, teachers were
increasingly impatient with Sacred attitudes towards education, and increasingly confident
of their own power to influence policy. In 1967, the BCTF set up its own commission on
education .... That commission produced a new blueprint for education in B.C., stressing
two major premises: education should be humanized and personalized, and the
development of the intellect should parallel development of emotional maturity and social
responsibility" (p. 36).
The 1970s in British Columbia were a time of political change as the New
Democratic Party (hereafter, NDP) took control after two decades of Social Credit
government. While the NDP only retained control for three years, they did make some
changes. A former teacher, Eileen Dailly, was given the post of Minister of Education.
During the three years, there were two commissions: one on elementary and secondary
education; another on post-secondary education and, as well, a committee was struck to
review teacher education (Barman & Sutherland, 1995).
Canada in general was beginning to open up in terms of educational debate over
practice and policy. In his address to the 501h conference of the Canadian Education
Association, Nason (1973) told his listeners that "political thinkers, good and bad, have
realized the importance of education as a foundation of citizenship" (p. 11 ). Nason also

5

expounded on the idea of the development of the individual in education: "I think people
in Canada agree that the real dynamic in Canadian education is not to be found in
administrative structuring, or in theoretic research but in the school's practical and
personal interest in the individual boy or girl. It comes through clearly to me that
Canadian people accept firmly the principle that the interests and abilities of the learner are
not to be subordinated to the interests of anyone else" (pp. 13- 14).
In terms of curriculum, a 1976 assessment of Language Arts found that "teachers
expressed dissatisfaction with the usefulness of the present provincial curriculum guides,
but also indicated their possible importance as a tool for aiding instruction" (Department of
Education, 1976, p. 22). The following year, 1977, a report was published which assessed
British Columbia's Social Studies curriculum. The first recommendation was for
curriculum revision and suggested a goal in the area "of improving intents (goals and
means), practices and outcomes" (Aoki, Langford, Williams & Wilson, 1977, p. 39).
The curriculum revisions continued, and the 1981 report from the Minister of
Education stated that
There is no question that over the past five years the public school system has
experienced a major curriculum overhaul. There are a number of reasons for this.
One is that in certain subject areas curriculum guides and textbooks were left
unattended for many years and were badly outdated. Perhaps the most significant
reason, however, is that in the late sixties and early seventies educators and boards
of school trustees demanded greater local autonomy in all areas of the curriculum.
In response, the Ministry issued curriculum guides that were very general in scope.
In the mid-seventies, due to public concern over educational standards as well as

6

teacher demands for improved provincial curriculum guides, the Ministry began
developing more specific guidelines. (Smith, 1981, p. 15)
In the early 1980s, the Social Credit government announced a new program to curtail

government spending. The program, known as Restraint, "provoke[ d] opposition and
great hostility among organized labour groups, including provincial employee unions and
the British Columbia Teachers' Federation" (B.C.'s History of Education Homeroom
Timeline, 1980s, p. 1). This led to "unprecedented hostility between the provincial
government and public school workers. Teachers and school support staff [took] part in a
3 day strike to protest reductions in education funding" (B.C.'s History of Education
Homeroom Time line, 1980s, p. 1). According to Kilian (1985), this "agenda for change"
came out of the government's "longstanding attitudes which consider human resources
expendable and human service professionals as adversaries" making "education ... a
perfect target" (p. 40). This acrimonious era in education in British Columbia saw "all
levels of government . .. concerned by what they saw as the escalating cost of education"
(Barman & Sutherland, 1995, p. 420). In the public as well as the educational arena,
arguments abounded about "what knowledge was of most worth, and how the young
should acquire it" (Barman & Sutherland, p. 421 ). This led to an increase in research and
ideas and "vigorously competing theories and practices pervaded literature, and each found
its proponents and practitioners amongst teachers .... Teachers increasingly demanded
greater control over school and classroom practice" (Barman & Sutherland, p. 421 ).
In 1987, the government appointed Barry Sullivan to conduct a formal review of
education in the province. The Sullivan report was published in 1988 and the provincial
government "accept[ed] nearly all of its 83 recommendations, including a blueprint for an

7

innovative curriculum program known as Year 2000" (B.C.'s Homeroom Timeline, 2002).
Although the government was resoundingly behind the recommendations of the report, the
Year 2000 ideas did not fully take effect owing to public opinion and rising government
costs and economic recession across North America in the early 1990s (Barman &
Sutherland, 1995). With rising public pressure, the government made some changes in
1994 that centralized budgeting and made salary bargaining for teachers a province-wide
process (Barman & Sutherland, 1995). This call for "accountability, higher standards,
curricular relevance and 'back to the basics"' (p. 423) led to the release in the mid 1990s of
the Integrated Resource Packages, the new guiding documents for curriculum.

Significance of Proposed Study
There have been many reports, commissions and policy changes during the
1970s, 1980s and 1990s. What impact has this had on individual teaching practices? Have
teachers been following the recommendations of these reports and instituting curricular
changes requested by the provincial government?
This study explores the considerable storehouse ofknowledge to be found in the
memories of experienced teachers, particularly when they have practiced in the same
district for an extended period of time. There are trends identified in the nature of the
teachers' curricular and instructional practice over time. The Ministry of Education is the
directive force for education in this province. As such, they direct the boards of education
for each district, with regard to the curriculum content and the accepted instructional
practices utilized in educational institutions. My question, therefore, is: are the curriculum
and instructional practices of individual teachers largely based on their experience and

8

training, on the mandates of the provincial ministry, or a combination of these and other
forces?

9

Chapter Two -Design and Methodology
My project is in the form of qualitative research, specifically conducted as an
ethnographic study. While there is an historical connotation to my project in that I am
examining curricular and instructional trends of the past three decades, the form ofthe
research is ethnographic in that it is an "analytical description" ofthe "shared feelings,
beliefs, (and) practices" of the subjects (McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 427).
Spradley (1979) suggests that "it is best to think of ethnographic interviews as a series of
friendly conversations into which the researcher slowly introduces new elements to assist
informants to respond as informants" (p. 58).
My research was conducted through interviews with teachers in a particular school
district within the public school system, in a rural community in the central interior region
of British Columbia. In my research, I endeavoured to establish my researcher role as an
"interested learner." During the interviews, I tried to be mindful of any tendencies for me
to lead or make assumptions about the information provided. At all times, I attempted to
probe only when necessary, in order to clarify information provided. As a researcher, I
agree that "ethnographic research is based on a naturalistic-phenomenological philosophy
of human behavior. An ethnographer attempts to understand people' s constructions- their
thoughts and meanings, feelings, beliefs, and actions as they occur in their natural context"
(McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 429).

Sampling Strategies
In my project, I utilized the strategy of

10

snowball sampling . . . in which each successive participant or group is named by a
preceding group or individual. Participant referrals are the basis for choosing a
sample. The researcher develops a profile of the attributes or particular trait sought
and asks each participant to suggest others who fit the profile or have the attribute.
(McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 398)
I also utilized the technique of "judgmental sampling" where "ethnographers rely on their
judgment to select the most appropriate members of the subculture or unit, based on the
research question." (Fetterman, 1989, p. 43). One basic requirement was that participants
had taught a minimum of 25 years in the school district so that they would have been
practicing during the decades discussed. A further requirement was that the participants
had maintained an elementary school focus for their teaching, so that I could be better
informed with regard to my own practice. Two participants were used for my study.
It should be noted that ultimately, the participants were key informants in the sense

that they had "a greater experience in the setting" and were "especially insightful about
what (went) on" (Bogden & Biklen, 1992, p. 67). Spradley (1979) suggests that "through
the use of special questions, ordinary people become excellent informants. Everyone, in
the course of their daily activities, has acquired knowledge that appears specialized to
others" (p. 25). Key informants "are usually chosen because they have access to
observations unavailable to the ethnographer" (McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 448),
and this was certainly the case as I myself had not taught during two of the decades
discussed. I learned over the course of my research that "informants are a source of
information; literally, they become teachers for the ethnographer" (Spradley, 1979, p. 25).

11

In discussing the nature of my project with a colleague, a prospective participant
was suggested. Upon consulting the seniority list for the district (a list which indicates
start date of teachers and length of service with the district), I discovered that this potential
participant met the qualifications outlined. I telephoned this person and asked if they
would like to participate. Whether this person agreed or refused, my intent was to then ask
for referrals from this person after explaining the requirements for participants. All
potential participants were initially contacted by phone, and both the study, and their part
in the interviewing process were explained. Prior to, or at the time of the first interview,
participants were asked to review and sign a letter of consent (see Appendix A).
Confidentiality of the participants' comments were respected in the following way: the
transcripts ofthe interviews were only accessed by the researcher and the names of people
. and places were protected using aliases. Participants were ensured that everything possible
was done to protect their anonymity, however, they were advised that this may not always
be possible given the nature of the sampling strategy utilized.
Interviews were to be conducted after working hours or on weekends, based upon
the availability of the participant and myself. The following choices of locations for the
interviews were suggested: school board office, my home or school office, interviewer's
home or school, library, or a room or office available in a local college building. The
choice of location was made by the participant, in order to respect their comfort level and
with regard to convenience oftravel.
At the end of the work with the first participant, I asked for suggestions for further
participants for my study. After outlining the requirements, a person was suggested, who
was then contacted by phone. This second prospective participant did not meet the

12

requirements for the study. I re-contacted my initial participant, who gave me two further
names. The initial person contacted was on leave from the district, but the next participant
agreed to participate.

Data Collection Strategies

Data was collected through taped interviews, and participants were informed that
this could require approximately two hours for each of two interviews. The first interview
took just over three hours, with a short 10-minute break. The participant was asked several
times if she wished to continue, and because she expressed interest to continue, the
interview was completed in one session. The second interview took just under two hours.
Interviews were conducted using the "Interview Guide" format, where "topics are
outlined in advance. [The] researcher decides the sequence and wording during the
interview. Interview probes can increase comprehensiveness" (McMillan & Schumacher,
1997, p. 447). When a participant alluded to information specific to curriculum and
instruction, but then appeared to be ready to move on, a carefully worded probe elicited
more information in the area being studied. Fetterman (1989) refers to this specific type of
interviewing as a situation in which "the ethnographer uses retrospective interviews to
reconstruct the past, asking informants to recall personal historical information" (p. 50).
Before beginning the interviews, I went over the general approach for the
interview: first, general background information about the participant, particularly the
participant's training and first teaching assignment; second, questions about curriculum
and instruction in the 1970s, awareness of government policies at that time; next, the same
for the 1980s; and finally, the same direction of questions for the 1990s. Participants were

13

asked to try to confine their responses to the decade being discussed, but were encouraged
to add anything they felt might be relevant to the interview at any time. (See Appendix B
for an outline of specific interview questions .)
Questions were checked for validity by two education colleagues (K. Link, and C.
Froese, personal communication, Jan., 2002). Both checkers were given an explanation of
the intent of the study and the proposed problem statement. They were then provided with
the list of questions and asked to examine the questions for content and context.
Following the interviews, I transcribed the tapes of the interviews. After
transcription and review by the subject, the tapes of the interviews were destroyed. A hard
copy of the transcriptions was made and stored on computer disk. The disks and the hard
copy are stored in a locked location in my home.
I examined the transcripts to determine how the participants' experiences were
similar and/or different. The information gleaned was "stated as a description narrative."
(McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 596). All names and locations have been changed to
protect the confidentiality and anonymity of the participants. Transcripts will be destroyed
five years after acceptance of the project. The results will be available at the University of
Northern British Columbia's library.

Inductive Data Analysis
In terms of data analysis, I first provided a copy of the transcription to the

participants who were given the opportunity to suggest corrections. I then highlighted
sections that referred to curriculum, instruction, changes in curriculum or instruction, locus
of control, provincial policy, etc. The first step compared the experiences of individual

14

participants (patterns, similarities, differences, occurrences of note), and the second step
cross-compared these experiences to the provincial policies of the time. I examined the
transcripts in the light of any government-mandated directions for curriculum and
instructional practices relevant to each decade studied. These sections were also
highlighted. Review of each highlighted section helped discern the most representative
and descriptive selection for inclusion in the results section. (See Appendix C for an
example of the data analysis procedure.) Participants were asked to read their
contributions in the final project, and had the leeway to either delete or change any
information they provided.
Because "objectivity in qualitative research refers to the dependability and
confirmability of the researcher's interactive style, data recording, data analysis, and
interpretation of participant meanings" (McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 408), I
remained aware at all times of my own bias in any and all aspects ofthis study. Having
conducted a literature review, I brought to the interviews an awareness of the government
policies of those times. I spent time examining the transcripts carefully for any cases
where my use of probes led the subject to discuss an issue that was of my suggestion.
As I was acquainted professionally with both participants, my interpretations of
their responses could be coloured by the fact that I already knew their personalities, and the
interpretations might not be based solely on their actual responses. In order to reduce the
possibilities of my own bias, I utilized a peer debriefer, who discussed and posed questions
which helped me "understand (my) own posture and values and (my) role in the inquiry"
(McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p. 409). This use of a colleague proved to be very

15

valuable and this individual did point out areas of concern that I had not thought about
previously.
For the purposes of anonymity, the first participant will be referred to throughout
this paper as Cathy, and the second participant will be known as Doris.

Limitations of the Design

Due to the small sampling of this population, any results or interpretations
apply only to the practice of these individuals during the times examined. It is probable
that participants left out information that they may have deemed unflattering or
inappropriate, as they are still practicing in the district to which they refer, or because they
had been colleagues of the researcher. Further, the information is not appropriate for
generalization to other teachers or other school districts as this is only the experience of
certain individuals in a particular district during the decades examined. A retrospective
interview "does not elicit the most accurate data. People forget or filter past events"
(Fettering, 1989, p. 50).
While my own bias may be that particular historical governmental commissions
and reports would have had a greater impact on the instructional practices of teachers, it is
also possible that their own particular training led them to a certain type of curricular
choice and instructional preference. Individual school district policy may have had an
impact on the training of one or both of the participants. This m(;ly influence the choice of
information presented, and may connote a large limitation. As well as utilizing a peer
debriefer, I needed to be vigilant in ensuring that I employed "continuous self-questioning

------------------------------------------------ -

16

and reevaluation of all phases of the research process" (McMillan & Schumacher, 1997, p.
408).

17

Chapter Three - Results

The information obtained from the two participants was rich with professional
memories and information. The first interview resulted in over 45 pages of transcript, and
the second constituted over 35 pages. For both interviews, the participants were
comfortable and cooperative, and willing to share their professional history, thoughts, and
remembrances. The interviews covered both teachers' training, first teaching appointment,
and the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in terms of curriculum and instruction.
Both participants had worked in the district for over 25 years and had seen, and
taught through, a variety of changes in policy and educational practice. Cathy began her
teaching career in 1966 in the same district in which she is now employed, as did Doris,
who began teaching in 1969. Some background information was obtained with regard to
training: nature of training, place oftraining, and credentials obtained.
Cathy was hired to her first teaching position with less than two years of training
from the University of Victoria. She was 20 years old at the time and had been working
toward her Elementary Basic (E.B.) certification. At that time the E.B. "was good for so
many years and then you did have to upgrade eventually to a three-year which was a
permanent certificate, an E.A." Cathy completed her training less two courses which she
later picked up at summer school because "the district at that time in _ _ was crying for
teachers and so they were giving letters of permission and I was offered three schools
without actually being certified." During the years 1964-1966, according to Cathy, the
teachers-in-training from the University of Victoria, while taking methods courses as well
as academic courses such as English, Math, and English history, were sent out to schools

----------------------------18

once a week as soon as they started their first year. The Math course was difficult for
Cathy and many other students as "it was the switchover from the 'old math' to the new
math .... Most of us who were in the courses had the old math in high school. ... All of a
sudden the new math was a new way of teaching with the sets and the groups and far more
hands-on theory rather than rote ... . It was a switch in mindset for teaching . ... The
methodology was a bit different and the theory ... the vocabulary and the language was
different than we had been taught in school ourselves." She remembers methods courses
in Art and Physical Education and others, but her recollection is that the academic courses
were the "heavy-duties."
Doris's training was at Simon Fraser University. She attended the professional
development program after three years of university and then received a four-year teaching
certificate. Doris believed in Simon Fraser's teacher preparation because "it was a new
and innovative program" and "anybody who went through teacher training at Simon Fraser
was hired right away, because it was such a good program." She emphasized the fact that
there was support provided, plenty of time for practicing teaching when you felt ready to
do so, and prospective teachers learned how to make up unit plans and write out lesson
plans from which to teach.
In their article on teacher education, Sheehan and Wilson (1994) report that in
British Columbia, after 1956, "responsibility for the training of elementary school teachers
was assumed by the universities" (p. 4). This was a change from the "one-year course
following high school graduation in what was called a normal school." (p. 4). The authors
note that by 1962, the "requirement for a permanent certificate for elementary school
teaching" was "3 years' study toward the BEd degree" (p. 4). By 1970, "most elementary

19

teachers were ... receiving at least 2 years of university education and the goal of a BA or
BEd for all teachers was within sight." (p. 4). This description fits with the training
obtained by both Cathy and Doris. In Cathy's case "the supply of and demand for teachers
had a continuing effect on certification requirements .. .. as the effect of the 'baby boom'
ran its course through the schools" (p. 4); hence, she was hired on a letter of permission.
Cathy began teaching in 1966 in a rural school in a Grade 2/3 class. She was 20
years old. According to her memories, she used a "standardized reader" that came with a
"great manual because it told you what to do . . . it had all the elements that you would need
-it had the phonetic elements, background knowledge element, and a comprehension
element." Use of this text complemented what she had been taught at university. She
recalled that the reading program she was using was the one that was provincially
prescribed - "all the districts had the same reading textbooks ... so that no matter what
district you went to, the reading program was the same." Cathy remembers that "as a
beginning teacher, the reading program was a wonderful thing to teach out of. It gave you
a map." When asked what the key components of the curriculum were at that time, Cathy
replied: "There was a math textbook. There were workbooks that went with both the
reading program and the math program . ... Reading skills with a scope and sequence. The
scope and sequence was laid down by the reader and readin' and writin'! . . . The math was
a lot more basic, a lot more adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, story problems. Not
so much ... higher thinking skills."
It was apparent that Cathy felt that what she taught was controlled by the
department of education for British Columbia. As she put it: "You didn't have the leeway
to go off and teach pieces ofliterature. That wasn't sort of even the mindset. You had a

20

reader, you had a math textbook, you had a spelling textbook- at least the teacher had a
spelling textbook. You used the lists that were given for the spelling program." She
recalled that there was a curriculum guide for physical education, but that she didn't refer
to it, rather, she used the textbook that she was given at university. In fact she doesn't
"remember curriculum guides being high on the list of 'this is what you should teach'you taught from the manual .... You were given a textbook and you were given a manual,
and everything you needed was in there."
In 1966, Cathy's district was beginning to develop a resource centre. The
elementary supervisor drove a bus from school to school to bring around boxes of
materials for teaching science. As Cathy recalled: "These unit boxes were developed by
the district using the curriculum that was provincial- that's how it worked- so that these
units were made available to us in a package deal. Everything from worksheets, hands on
materials, everything was in these boxes." During her summers at university, Cathy
discovered that her district was "one of the first" to be developing such a resource centre.
She felt that "there was a lot of initiative in this district to make materials available to
teachers .... Our resource centre was wonderful." While science and social studies were
something she taught, Cathy suggests that they "were really secondary to teaching the kids
how to read and write. They didn't have as broad a focus as they do now."
Instructional practices at this time were based on a lecture-style form of teaching
where "the teacher presented the information. The information was in the textbook, and
the teacher presented it." Language instruction, particularly reading, was based on small
ability groupings. "Math was whole class. Socials and science were whole class." In

r---------------------------- 21

general terms, Cathy remembered workbooks and worksheets- "a lot of worksheets, a lot
more filling in the blanks, especially as you moved into the 1970s."
The findings of the Chant Commission were released in 1960, six years before
Cathy began teaching, and coincide with the information relayed by Cathy about
curriculum at that time. With regard to textbooks, the Report states: "it was apparent that
the text-books that were in use determined to a considerable extend [sic] the contents ofthe
courses that were taught. In general, the instruction seemed to follow closely the text-book
material" (Chant, 1960, Section XXIV). This textbook-based approach was commonly
accepted and considered the norm. Although the report states that "for the experienced
teacher in particular, the text-book will largely set the pattern for the course," it is apparent
that for Cathy, as a new teacher, this was also the case.
The Chant Commission recommended that the subjects be ranked in the following
order: Central Subjects (Reading, Language, English, Arithmetic); Inner Subjects (Science,
Social Studies, Languages); Outer Subjects (Fine Arts, PE, Agriculture and Home Ec.,
Health and Personal Development), with the Central Subjects being "those that can and
must be taught, if necessary to the exclusion of others" (Section XX). This is in keeping
with the way that Cathy was trained, and with the way she delivered the curriculum in her
first classroom.
In terms of an overall or general perspective, the expectations that Cathy had for
her own teaching were in line with the recommendations of the Chant Report. In reading
through the report, I was struck by the difference in philosophy between the Department of
Education and the Chant Commission with regard to the purpose of schools. Egan (n.d.)
suggests that there are three strongly held precepts by the stakeholders who influence

22

education. The first is the socialization of children which suggests that "central to any
educational scheme is initiation of the young into the knowledge, skills, values, and
commitments common to the adult members of the society." (p. 3). Secondly, is "Plato
and the truth about reality" (p. 6) wherein the "intellectual cultivation of the young ....
should not be primarily concerned with equipping students to develop the knowledge and
skills best suited to ensuring their success as citizens, sharing the norms and values oftheir
peer." However, it should be "a process of learning those forms of knowledge that would
give students a privileged, rational view of reality" through a "disciplined study of
increasingly abstract forms of knowledge" (p. 6). The third precept involves "Rousseau
and nature's guidance", the central theme of which "was that ifyou want students to
understand what you teach, then you must make your methods of teaching conform with
the nature of students' learning" (p. 9). In Section II (Aims ofthe B.C. Education System),
the Department of Education states: "A good school programme develops children in two
ways- as individual persons, and as citizens." This reflects a combination of the thinking
of the socialization and the Rousseau camp. The Commission obviously did not agree with
this attitude and had the following recommendation in the section "Defining the Major
Aim of Education": "The commission recommends that the primary or general aim of the
educational system ofBritish Columbia should be that of promoting the intellectual
development of the pupils, and that this should be the major emphasis throughout the
whole school progamme" (Chant, 1960, Section II). This is a testimonial to the Platonic
idea that the academic curriculum is most important. This recommendation certainly was
carried through in Cathy's teaching in 1966.

23

Doris began her teaching career in the fall of 1969. She was 21 years old and
"arrived up here on the bus, not knowing anybody." She was given a split class of 35
Grade 3 and Grade 4 students at a school in town. She was provided with a reading
program that came "with a guidebook that laid everything out as to what to do -what the
board-work was, what worksheets ... everything was there." In terms of the key
components of the curriculum, Doris felt that "the teachers' guides were very valuable
because everything was in there to teach" and that "the guidebook went with what was in
the Ministry's guidelines." In math, it was basically the same thing with "a guidebook,
workbooks, plus other activities." She felt that what she was given to teach with concurred
very well with her education at university. She had prepared units for her practica for
science and social studies based on the curriculum guides provided by the ministry of
education. Doris recollects that the teachers' job at that time was to teach "reading,
writing, and arithmetic." She acknowledges that her class was large and very busy but
recalls that "they were different children in those days. The parents took more
responsibility about parenting and they really appreciated education - the fact that their
children were getting an education. It was quite different then compared to what it is now.
Some parents these days figure teachers should do everything. We weren't expected to do
everything then, we were just expected to teach ... to teach, mark, assess."
In terms of instructional methods, Doris recalls that "in language arts it was direct
teaching" and that she would "set up sheets for different stories in the book" and "most of
the students would progress at their own rate." She used what she called "the contract
system" where each child progressed at his or her own individual rate through the stories
and through the readers. They would complete the activities from the "sheets of paper." In

24

Math, she would "stand at the front and teach them" and then "move [her] chair around
and help each student out." In science and social studies, she would "teach the unit' and
then "let them go ahead and do activities in groups." While she said that allowing students
to do an assignment in a group of three was not necessarily what other people would be
doing in 1969, she said that she had learned some teaching methods from her father, who
was a teacher. As with Cathy's teaching, Doris' curriculum revolved around what was
commonly referred to as "the 3 Rs."
It is possible that the 1967/68 BCTF report did have some impact on Doris'

training; however, it is apparent that neither teacher was willing to "change the curriculum
to meet the needs of children" (Barman, et al. p. 420).

The 1970s

After a two-year leave, Cathy returned to teaching in 1969 in mainly intermediate
classrooms. She had taken a leave from teaching in 1973 when her son was born, and
returned in 1977 as a learning assistance teacher, working with students from Grades 1
through 7. Cathy recalls few changes to the curriculum in the early 1970s. She was "just
following what was laid down in the textbooks for those grades." She says that the
"reading program was changing- 1970/71, and we were moving into Copp Clarke (or
whatever it was). A different reading series had been prescribed to upgrade, so that they
weren't old." Cathy maintained that the reading program had not changed much in theory:
it was still utilizing a sight word program, the vocabulary was "graduated from easy to
hard", and the "methodology ... was still the same." What she did notice as a significant
difference was that the "pictures were newer" in the texts, and that they had "modernized

25

the settings and that sort of thing." Specifically, more "unisex stories .... Little girls doing
things that were more adventurous and things less old-fashioned in their ideas about what
little girls did and what little boys did .... The little girls didn't wear ankle socks and
dresses in the pictures- you might see them in a pair of coveralls or jeans." This is vividly
recalled by Cathy because, as she points out, up to that point "we weren't allowed to wear
pants to teach in."
Cathy's recollection is that the real change in the language arts curriculum occurred
later in the 1970s with the move "into the Language Patterns program" which was
"considered a phonetic based reading program." This was a shift "from the sight words"
program that had previously been employed. She does recall that there were still
"manuals" and "they still had workbooks."
In terms of education changes, Cathy had a specific focus in that she was a learning
assistance teacher. Up until the mid to late 1970s there were no learning assistance
teachers, just a "reading specialist" who "covered the whole district, and it was a
forerunner to the learning assistant." When she first began her new job, she didn't "recall
hearing the words learning disability as much ... this child just didn't understand this bit
so you took them out of the classroom and you tried to make them understand it by giving
them different ways to look at it." She also recalls "a provincial shift in thought patterns"
where "they started to decide that isolating students with severe problems wasn't educably
sound. It wasn't the way to go. And so they were starting to put those kids back into the
classrooms in some ways."
A concern to Cathy during the 1970s was her professional upgrading. She was
supposed to have her four-year degree completed by the late 1970s, but because she "was

26

doing the Mom thing" she was unable to complete her courses in that time frame. As a
result, by the time she was able to go back, the bar had been raised, and she was now
required to complete a fifth year in order to obtain a degree.
For Doris, the 1970s were a time of teaching in primary grades, starting with Grade
3, then Grade 2, and finally Grade 1 where she stayed for most of her career. She
remembers that for the bulk of the 1970s, language arts teaching was "basically a sight
word program, then we switched into Language Patterns which was a phonics program.
The program was enjoyable for Doris because she "found there were some kids who did
better learning how to do phonics. I had never learned how to do phonics either, so I
learned how to teach phonics." Doris had learned to read with a sight word program and
learning and using the new phonics program was enjoyable for her. When asked where
this shift in programming came from, Doris replied that "the government said - the
Minister of Education said- we're putting out these new readers." She was "sure it was
the ministry of education because it was prescribed." In this case, the curriculum that
Doris taught did not complement her training, rather "it was completely different." She
recalls that they "had a primary supervisor at that time and she helped us with it. She came
around and we had mini workshops ... introducing the book and how to teach phonics. It
was amazing how many people didn't know how to teach phonics!"
With regard to the math curriculum, Doris remembers very little changing through
most of the 1970s. She was still teaching "basic facts, money concepts, time, and a little
measurement." In science and social studies "it pretty well all stayed the same. You did
your units." Physical education was the "usual activities: games, etc." which came from
"ministry guidelines." Instructional practices stayed essentially the same in Doris's mind:

27

students sat in rows; she would give the lesson and then walk around and "they'd ask
questions if they were stuck."
Doris recalls that at this time there was a surge in her school's population, "so the
open area classroom went up into the lodge" beside the school, and "they opened up the
gym there and made it into four open-area classrooms." According to Doris, this was a
"new style of teaching that had come out ... in the late seventies" where "everybody
teaches in the same area, but you were divided off, but you could hear everybody
teaching." In looking back, she states that "the teachers that were in it didn't like it."
In the very late 1970s, as she remembers, Doris was part of a group of teachers in
the district who were trained on a new math program called Math Their Way . This new
program "was a different concept altogether, where the children had different ways of
learning math .... It was much more interactive. You didn't exactly teach a lesson- you
got the kids down on the floor with their job boxes, which were boxes full of materials .. .
to make different kinds of patterns and number quantities. I still use them! ... It was a new
innovative program. It started in the States and it came to Canada, and I think everybody
just loved it because it was one of those programs where the primary children got down on
the floor with all these hands on materials. It was concrete .. . . The philosophy was that it
was a better way for children to learn how to do math. They figured that if you directly
taught them they didn't see it; they had to work with hands-on to get the concept."
Changing her instructional methods for math was exciting for Doris. She stated that she
"loved it" because "it made sense to [her]."
In the area of provincial policy and/or politics, Doris was not aware of any
initiatives because she "wasn't interested in that kind of stuff." She was "a new teacher

28

and new to the game," so was more focussed on her own classroom. One thing she did
remember from her experiences in the 1970s was the influx of English as a Second
Language (ESL) students into her school. Many of the students "couldn't speak a word of
English .. . . It was difficult in the school because there weren't any ESL teachers."
Although Doris found it difficult to cope with helping these students learn, she does recall
that "the parents really appreciated education because they thought that it was important to
have education to get on in the world," and that the students were "some of the best" that
she had in that they were "working hard, and being well-behaved."
Although Cathy was teaching in intermediate grades, and Doris was in primary,
there are still some areas where their recollections coincide. They both remember the
introduction of Language Patterns, the phonetic-based reading program, and the fact that it
was a significant shift away from the previous sight-based programs. In the arena of social
change, both were aware of what affected them personally: for Cathy it was the change in
the support for students with needs, and for Doris it was the influx of ESL students who
also required additional support. As both were still fairly new teachers and changing jobs
with some frequency, they were possibly not yet aware of politics and its potential impact
on education.
With regard to provincial policy in the 1970s, changes were largely in the area of
political shifts. In 1971, "the Department of Education is reorganized .... The position of
Superintendent ofEducation [was] eliminated, and the superintendent's statutory duties
[were] transferred to the Deputy Minister of Education" (B.C.'s History of Education
Homeroom Timeline, 1970s, p. 1). In 1976, the Department ofEducation was changed to
the Ministry of Education, and in 1977, the 1061h Annual Report of the Public Schools

29

decided that a core curriculum was to be established which had three categories- "that
which must be taught, that which should be taught, and that which may be taught" (B.C.'s
History of Education Homeroom Time line, 1970s, p. 2). Perhaps the most important
political change occurred in 1972 when the longstanding Social Credit government lost to
the NDP. Kilian (1995) stated that "everyone agreed that the teachers were a major factor
in the defeat of the Bennett government in 1972 .... The teachers [had] formed a Political
Action Committee (TP AC) which raised and spent thousands of dollars to defeat the
Socreds" (p. 39). According to Kilian, "in less than a decade, B.C. teachers had gone from
a nonpolitical interest group to a political force" (p. 39). However, for Cathy and Doris,
changing curriculums and changing jobs were the focus of their attention and
concentration, not the changing educational front in the form of teachers becoming a
political force.

The 1980s
From 1977 to 1984, Cathy was a learning assistant teacher. She returned to the
classroom in 1984, and taught Grade 2 and then grade 3, mostly in job-sharing situations.
Her primary focus was language arts, with some math and some social studies also being
part of her responsibility. She was aware that some teachers in the district had begun
utilizing a program called language experience, which she describes as "teaching from
where a child is .... Instead of reading a book and responding to the book, they wrote the
story and practiced reading it. ... The words they use in their writing come from their own
experience .... and they read that back and so they learn to read those words from their
own language." Although not all teachers were practicing this new methodology, Cathy

30

saw it as "a big shift and it wasn't adopted provincially or district-wide. It was a method
that some people were using." Cathy sees this as just one example in an era where things
were "starting to filter in. So, in other words, instead of the teachers feeling that they were
totally tied to a reader and a textbook, people were starting to branch out." She also
alludes to the late 1980s when "these people from the coast" started these so-called ideas
that Cathy and other teachers were "already doing," but it was more of a "packaged"
program.
Cathy did not "see as many changeovers and turnovers in the math" program
during the 1980s. She remembers that "the district had an initiative where they put
together a binder of materials for science" for each teacher in each school, "and in that it
had the units that were available, and what should be covered." She saw it as a "minicurriculum guide that was exclusively for this district." She acknowledged that it
complemented ministry mandates but had more detail including learning outcomes and the
resources the school district had available.
Cathy stated that at this time a new Social Studies program was coming out that
was "based on the curriculum- community change." She believes that the social studies
curriculum from the late 1970s to the present has not particularly changed in terms of
content. She recalled that the new program, with its new textbooks, was novel in that it
included "a lot of integration into the language arts program." This spurred a memory on
Cathy's part: "Whereas before, I guess, if you really want to think about it, there was your
social studies, . .. reading, . . . math, and everything was separate. And ... as we move into
the late seventies, early eighties, we were starting to integrate our subjects more. So that
what I taught in social studies flowed over into my language arts. So ... that's sort of

------------------------------------------------------ --·

31

when themes began . . . . more cross connection in your classroom from one subject to
another."
Cathy recollected a variety of reading programs coming out during the 1980s:
Language Patterns was one and at least two editions of Ginn reading programs. While the

intent from the publisher was still, perhaps, to do the reading text from cover to cover,
Cathy recalls that in her instruction, she wasn't doing that, and in fact, this is the time
when teachers began to have "a choice." Phonetic approaches and sight word programs
and combinations of both were all "completely authorized." At this time, Cathy
considered herself"experienced as a teacher. So, what [she had] done may not have been
what another Grade 3 teacher did."
When asked who controlled what she was teaching in the 1980s, Cathy replied, "I'd
say district." With the advent of "more choices" and the "lists" provided by the ministry,
she did not see it so much as having "to stick to that prescribed textbook." For her, it was
"more of a district issue- what is the district going to provide?" The district resource
centre, at that time, had "humungous amounts of stuff for language arts material, for
instance, that you could use in your classroom" and Cathy thinks this helped teachers tend
to "delve into more areas."
When asked what the language arts curriculum actually was at this time and if there
were curriculum guides, Cathy responded as a seasoned educator: "We were stuck with
the same curriculum for years and years and years, and I think people stopped looking at
them quite honestly. You'd seen them and the materials were right there and you just used
the materials you had and then, I already had in my head my curriculum guide, and I think

32

that happens as you teach. You already have a scope and sequence chart up there
somewhere of what skills need to be taught first before you get to the others."
Cathy believed that this shift was largely a matter of having more choices. Included in that
is what she refers to as "the development of children's literature" that "was beginning to
take root a little bit" at that time.
Math was "taught pretty much the same way" as previously, but science was now
taught using the "discovery method" where the students would set up experiments and they
had to extrapolate information from what they saw. So, we've gone from feeding them
information to letting them figure it out." Again, Cathy reiterated that this was just one
more area where teachers now had choices in how they taught. Cathy noticed that P .E.
moved "more towards teaching team sports" and "from a game-oriented P.E. to a skilloriented P .E." She saw this move as more of a precursor for the skills students needed for
intermediate P.E., which had a greater emphasis on basketball and other team sports.
Along with this shift, was the idea of giving students "the tools and .. . the skills, and they
had to create cooperative games." Cathy remembers that the cooperative learning stream
"was running through in all subjects" and that there were many "workshops" provided in
the late 1980s on this teaching style. She recalls that this was part of the "initiatives
coming through the department of education." Upon further probing, Cathy related that
what she saw happening in interior districts was that teachers in the lower mainland
districts would get together and try something new and then come up to the "hinterland,
and then the people there buy into that and then it spreads." When asked if these were
ministry initiatives to which she referred, she replied, "I think it comes out of, for instance
the_ school district, but becomes a ministry initiative after it's become a district

33

initiative, which is kind of interesting." She saw this as a big change from when she had
started teaching, and even through the 1970s when the "chain of command" was from the
ministry to the district to the principal.
"Learning strategies" was another "buzzword" from the late 1980s, according to
Cathy. Instructional practices were greatly affected by this "shift to using literature and
learning strategies rather than fill in the blanks or workbooks, or answering comprehension
questions." Teachers were learning how to employ strategies to show students how to
present their knowledge and demonstrate their understanding. Cathy also recollects that
this is when the words whole language appeared. Her understanding of whole language is:
"You didn't teach grammar, you didn't teach phonics, you didn't teach reading, you didn't
teach them all separately. It was all supposed to happen at once. And so if a child was
doing a piece of writing, and you saw that they needed to learn how to do quotation marks,
well, you taught them. And if everybody in the class wasn't ready to do quotation marks,
then you didn't teach them. It was more on a small-group basis but only on need, not by
command. . . . So, what the problem was with whole language, was that some teachers
decided that they didn't have to teach any of that stuff and so there wasn't a lot of formal
instruction on how to write and spell and all that sort of thing . . . . Whole language became
a dirty word . .. because some teachers felt that it wasn't an eclectic enough approach."
When asked who was controlling what was taught at this point, Cathy's reply was a curt
"Nobody. When the primary program came out, all those prescribed textbooks and things
that we had had were no longer prescribed."
In summary, Cathy perceived the 1980s as "a real era of change." She calls the
1980s "the pot, where a lot of things were stirred up." In terms of politics and political

34

policies, she said that she didn't remember much except that "somewhere early on ... the
B. C. Teacher Federation wanted to get rid of the political party that was in power, and I
think it was the Social Credit then .... It was called the 'apple campaign', and it was the
only time I can remember that the teachers actually, sort of got behind something that
political." She acknowledges that her memories are fuzzy and that what she specifically
remembers is that the teacher' s federation wanted to get "the NDP elected, because they
thought that they would support the teachers."
For Doris, the early 1980s were a period of many changes in her teaching career.
She began with Grade 1, then switched the following year to a different school in Grade 2,
and after a ten-month leave, returned to Grade 2. After a further short leave, she began
teaching Grade 1 at yet another school, and remained there, teaching Grade 1 or Grade 112
over the course of the 1980s and 1990s.
With regard to the key components ofthe curriculum in the 1980s, Doris recalls
that "there was a big workshop on Project Read in the district". She describes this
program as "a totally phonetic approach where hands-on, kinesthetic, auditory activities
were used. Children had different ways oflearning how to read and this was totally for
them ... . The children can really learn through it because they can see things, they can hear
things, they can "arm spell", they see things in their heads. They just love the program and
so do I and I'm really thrilled about still teaching it!" In terms of how well this new
program meshed with ministry guidelines, Doris recalled that it did so "very well .. .. It
was all set out, in a logical sequence, to establish a new language arts curriculum." When
asked if it was the curriculum that was driving the program, Doris replied that it was in fact
the program driving the curriculum and that she believes "the curriculum changed because

35

of Project Read." When asked to elaborate, she stated that "quite a few of the people who
write the curriculum at the ministry of education are teachers so they saw this program
coming out so they changed the curriculum slightly to adjust to the new program coming
out."
In math, Doris was still using the Math Their Way program, and following a
revised math curriculum that now allowed for "teaching in a different style." Science and
social studies were basically the same- the study of particular content units using
guidebooks and curriculum guides. Doris recalls that teachers "developed [their] own
theme" and the resource centre provided all of the materials needed for the activities in the
unit. When asked who controlled what was taught at that point, Doris replied that it was
"the Ministry of Education guidelines, the school district, and supervisors for primary,
intermediate, and high school grades." She sees this as a distinct difference from the
beginning of her teaching career when things were much more "rigid" and the control
came "from the ministry of education- definitely!"
In general, Doris' instructional methods in the 1980s were very much "active
learning- participation." She would "demonstrate, and include the students in a variety of
hands-on skills, let them go ahead and do their activity, and then ... walk around and
watch them and assess them as they were doing it." She used this approach for all
subjects.
When asked about the provincial policy and politics at that time, Doris remembered
a dramatic change. She believed it was "about the middle part of the eighties" and that "it
drastically changed from Social Credit to NDP. So we went from people who had no
interest in unions at that time to unions -unions of the people- government was for the

36

people, not for the business people." According to Doris, what she "remember(s) is that
people voted for NDP like you wouldn't believe, because it was a whole new concept. . . .
People were more interested in unions and helping out each other ... and the same outlook
was more prevalent in the schools at that time." This had an imp.act on teaching, she says,
in that "you totally changed your style of teaching for the good of the students. They
needed to be brought up as good citizens . ... It was a whole different style of thinking in
government and policy. It was just very refreshing." In looking back, Doris believes that
there was a change in the way that children and learning were viewed: "Now, you had
flexibility. You could say, .. . you have these choices: this one or that one or these, and
why would you take that choice? Whereas before, it was just one choice. . .. When that
whole different style of teaching came in, we gave them choices . .. but they had to tell you
which choice they wanted to do and why. Which made it really good for them- taught
them decision making. And so in that way you saw their thinking - thinking skills came in
at that time. Critical, analytical, literal- .. .. which really helped develop the kids'
learning and thinking styles. They became reflective too, as did the teacher! "
In terms of other "political" policies of the 1980s, Doris does remember that jobsharing became very popular for female teachers in her district. She felt that the school
district supported this because "they knew that women who were parents wanted to teach
part time ... and still have time as a Mom." Doris also reported a shift in the power that
principals had in the school: "In the sixties and seventies ... this is what the administrator
said, and this is what you did. It was all laid out in black and white." She relates that "as
the years went by, the principals became more sort of 'overall' looking, and so they liked

37

to have staff input, and so that's where staff input came from. Whereas in the sixties and
seventies there was none ofthat!"
There are several similarities in Cathy's and Doris's remembrances with regard to
the 1980s. Both saw it as an era of change in terms of the locus of power: while Cathy
saw it as teachers driving the curriculum, Doris saw it as the programs driving new
curriculum: either way, it was coming from "the field." As well, while Doris saw the
1980s as a period where more control was coming from the district and supervisors, Cathy
saw it as a time of total choice for teachers in terms of what and how they taught. While
Cathy emphasized that this was an era of many more choices for teachers, Doris perceived
it as a time of teachers beginning to provide more choices for students. Both teachers
related a shift in both curriculum and instructional methods, but for Cathy, that shift was
much more emphasized in the plethora of new programs and strategies coming "down the
pipe"; it was a time of people constantly trying new things. Both teachers mentioned the
district resource centre as a pivot point from which the new ideas were supported.
Although both teachers recognized that there were dramatic political scenarios in the
1980s, their memories do not exactly coincide. While Cathy recalls that the teachers
wanted to get rid of the government in order to get in a government that would support the
teachers, Doris remembers it as a whole new era in political thinking on the part of the
people in trade unions. For Cathy, the political climate was as Kilian (1995) states: "In the
mid-1980s, ... the politics of education, at least in British Columbia, was just a matter of
voting the cautious rascals out and the confident saviours in" (p. 60). Indeed, the 1980s
were a time of political unrest in British Columbia due to the Social Credit's "Restraint"
program which provoked opposition and great hostility among organized labour groups,

38

including ... the British Columbia Teachers' Federation" (B.C.'s History of Education
Homeroom Time line, 1980s p. 1). In 1983, "teachers and school support staff (took) part
in a three-day strike to protest reductions in education funding" (B.C.'s History of
Education Homeroom Time line, 1980s p. 1). At this time
both public and professionals were increasingly divided as to what knowledge was
of most worth, and how the young should acquire it. All levels of government
became concerned by what they saw as the escalating cost of education.
Vigorously competing theories and practices pervaded literature, and each found its
proponents and practitioners amongst teachers .... Teachers increasingly demanded
greater control over school and classroom practice. (Barman et al., p. 421)
The political and public unrest with regard to education resulted in the government
appointing Barry Sullivan to conduct an inquiry in 1987 that was known as "The Sullivan
Royal Commission." The government accepted "nearly all of its 83 recommendations,
including a blueprint for an innovative curriculum program known as Year 2000" (B.C.'s
History ofEducation Homeroom Timeline, 1980s p. 1).

The 1990s

For Cathy, coming into the 1990s was a time of"eclectic teaching methods" and
being trained along with the rest of the northern region on the new Primary Program, and
implementing it in classrooms. For Cathy, this was simply being "given permission to do
what we had been dabbling in for a long time, but now we were doing it with the doors
open. And we were sort of given permission to use everything." The Primary Program,
according to Cathy, "came from the teachers to the government and back out. ... There

39

were people from all over the province who had teachers put the primary program together.
It came from teachers." Cathy refers to it with some trepidation however, calling the

experience the "primary program scare." She feels that "a lot of people reacted with a real
flip of the pendulum rather than take it in and use it and go with it." The reason for this,
she claims, is "because it was laid on you- you had big hype sessions. These teams were
sent .... out ... and we were all told to go to __ (large urban centre) to this big
auditorium .... The way it was presented, I think, made people feel that they had to do this.
This was the 'new way' and ... it was presented like this big extravaganza." She does
acknowledge that people later became "more relaxed about it" and didn't think it was "the
Bible anymore", but "when it first came out, that's the impression that I got." What Cathy
found most distressing at this time was that "new teachers coming in the system had no
guidelines, ... and a new teacher wouldn't have that concept that these are the beginning
skills that the kids pick up first, so that's where you should start. There wasn't that sort of
skeleton/framework put on specifically in the language arts." She did not in any way
believe that there were not components of merit in the program: "My term was don't
throw out the baby with the bathwater. We know that these things are working, so take
what's new that's coming in, and add to that. Try the new things ifthey're new to you,
add them and stir the pot and use everything you have. Don't throw out all of your
phonics; don't throw out all of your whatever. Use that along with the others. And I saw a
lot of experienced teachers doing that, and becoming more eclectic in their approach."
Cathy also perceives that the primary program helped teachers begin to see that "you don't
learn anything in isolation" and so you no longer needed to be "streaming your subjects
with no correlation." Another positive offshoot, according to Cathy, was in the way that

40

research became part of the way we look at how children learn. "Studies say, researchers
say, that this is the way children learn how to spell and so, therefore, until they get to this
stage in their progression of spelling skills, then it's not feasible to do a formal spelling
program."
In the science curriculum, Cathy remembers very little changing, except that some
of the units changed between grade levels and there were "far more experiments, far more
research." She does remember the math curriculum changing quite significantly after the
early 1990s. Up to that point, she "tended to teach from a binder" that had been made up
by groups of teachers in the district because they "really didn't have any up-to-date math
materials in the schools .... The textbooks weren't covering what we needed to do." The
teachers "went to the curriculum guide" and "then put a scope and sequence together of
our own and built a weekly unit." When the new math program came in, it was concerned
more with "hands on and using concrete materials," relating "math to the real world",
"adding more and more concrete to the abstract rather than ... teach a process," and
"visualize and verbalize- talk about math."
In the late 1990s, Cathy sees the IRPs as the driving force ofthe curriculum. "I
think we're being controlled by IRPs in most subjects a lot more. Remember when I told
you that I didn't even look at a curriculum guide? Well, nobody told me to. It wasn't the
focus. Things were coming through the district and the materials were being provided for
me in the district and that's what I used- my textbooks and my manuals, and they've
taken those away. So you have to use an IRP to teach because you don't have a manual
that tells you that this is what you're teaching. So I guess it's shifted in some ways to
more provincially again. Not that they're providing the materials that I use, but they're

41

providing me with a guide to teach." Cathy took a leave for a year in the late 1990s to
complete her degree at university and discovered while she was there that the professors
were "using what was coming from the ministry to teach the students who are going out
into the field. So I guess it's really coming from the ministry, but someone had to show
them the research that fed it, so the research, I would guess, is coming out of the
university." She believes that this new "accountability" is partly "money-driven" because
of the "overspending for many years." She also perceives that parents became more
involved, "governments are saying parents need to have a say," and so teachers "have to
keep a tighter rein on what we do in the classroom because you have to prove that you're
doing the right thing." In Cathy's mind, the IRP is the document that she would pull out if
a parent questioned her about what she is teaching. All in all, says Cathy, "as teachers, we
are more curriculum-guide or IRP-guide focussed than we were ten years ago." Part of
this, she maintains, is a result of the backlash from the primary program document which
"is a very loose document when it [comes] to actual content."
When asked about provincial policy of the 1990s, Cathy's reply once again reflects
the new direction she sees in terms of accountability: "The nineties ... well, the IRPs are, I
think, a very political move .... in the sense that they gave parents what they were asking
for." When asked what was controlling or influencing teaching in the 1990s, Cathy readily
chose the word influenced. She saw teaching as "becoming more global." Her view is that
teachers began to "connect more", and that it was the end of the time ofthe "closed door
teaching policy."
Doris continued to teach language arts using Project Read as one of the bases for
her instruction, and Math Their Way being the running focus of her math program. She

42

recalls that there were many "other innovative math programs" offered over the 1990s, but
to her mind, they "weren't nearly as good as Math Their Way." She recalls the Primary
Prograrn!Y ear 2000 and whole language coming out around the same time. She was not
impressed with the whole language ideas that she saw. According to Doris, "I wasn't
impressed because teachers who came out with that kind of training .... knew how to teach
whole language, but ... they didn't know what to do when it came to teaching phonics or
sight words. . . . . I did the three separate programs because I found that not all children
learned the same way . . .. A lot of teachers who were experienced ... didn't really like it,
because it wasn't a very good program, to put it bluntly." Doris also remembers that most
of the publishers were offering whole language texts and that that was what the district
purchased. She did acknowledge that she "took a course actually in whole language, and
.. . did do it one year when a new reading program came in." She remarked that after
trying the new approach, she did incorporate elements into her "own program."
Doris felt that the Primary Program itself was "actually received quite well." She
describes the basic tenets of the program in the following way: "Students were considered
to be more creative and flexible in their thinking, more imaginative, more hands on. The
whole concept was .. . that you didn't teach one strand of something .... If you're teaching
a water unit, .... you could enlarge upon the theme of the whole broad nature of water. ...
And the same thing in math- you did not do just strictly addition- you could do
patterning with addition, you could do number concepts .... That was the philosophy."
She thought that teachers were receptive to the program "because it just gave you more
flexibility. You know, you just didn't have to stick to a straight idea, you could enlarge
upon that idea. We had things like brainstorming and webbing, which the kids really

43

enjoyed. So there was all this creative thinking and imagination going on and you could
get the kids really thinking ... and then get ideas from each other and brainstorm on each
other's ideas, so it was really fantastic." She reports that instructional methods "changed
drastically" after the primary program was brought in. She thinks that ultimately, the
program went "by the wayside because the ministry didn't have enough money to fund it."
Initially, there were workshops provided and resources as well, but when the government
changes "another Premier comes in and says 'Oh, we can't spend that much money on
education now."' This lack of funds progressed in the 1990s with the IRPs finally coming
in "with no resources provided." Doris was incredulous that teachers were expected to
implement the IRPs without the necessary resources. She did not have a positive view of
the IRPs: "I don't find them very useful at all. In fact, I find them very vague .... There's
not much of use in there, I mean it doesn't specifically say, like the old guidelines- you do
this and this - you use this resource and this one. It has all kinds of resources that you
can't buy because you don't have enough money. That's ridiculous! ... I know what
they're all about, but I don't use them." When I asked Doris who controls what she
teaches right now, she laughingly replied, "I do! I control how and what I teach!"
In terms of politics of the day, Doris recalls that there was provincial job action in
the "winter of '93, and that [it] was over working conditions." By working conditions, she
meant class sizes, and at that time, it was considered that "the smaller the class, the better
the learning." When probed as to where that came from, Doris saw it as coming from the
teacher's union. She tells it this way: "Teachers established those changes. The
government was NDP at that time and they looked upon us as a union, so they said 'Okay,
we agree with what you're doing- you're the professionals."'

44

While Cathy and Doris had some conflicting ideas about the Primary Program from
the beginning of the 1990s, and the IRP documents near the end, they both saw them as the
driving forces of curriculum and instructional change during this decade. Both mentioned
funding as a contentious issue, but Cathy seemed to feel that it was more of a necessary
end than did Doris. By this point, they were both experienced teachers who had seen a lot
of change in their professional careers, and a lot of fads and programs come and go. It is
interesting that both felt that a teacher should adopt those components of the new ideas that
they felt were beneficial to children's learning.
With regard to the Sullivan Commission, Gammage (1991) says that "the
Provincial government accepted and adopted the majority of the recommendations with
commendable speed." (p. 1). Certainly, the report was largely adopted within a couple of
years in the Primary Program/Year 2000. Gammage also states that the document
describes the basic principles of the ... system as follows:
(1) Learning requires the active participation of the learner.
(2) People learn in a variety of ways and different rates.
(3) Learning is both an individual and a social process. (pp. 8 - 9)
There is no doubt that these tenets were adopted by Cathy and Doris. True, they had come
to most of these realizations along the way, but for both, it seemed as if the Primary
Program document underscored a lot ofwhat they believed about the teaching of primary
children.
Barman and Sutherland (1995) agree with the themes that Cathy and Doris
established in terms of the curricular happenings of the 1990s. They state that

45

rising government costs and economic recession characterized the early 1990s
across North America.... In British Columbia aspects of the Sullivan Report
implemented through the Year 2000 initiatives came under hard scrutiny .. .. The
NDP provincial government was forced to redraw its educational priorities .. . . If
fast approaching, Year 2000 was also receding from view. (pp. 421- 422)
A far cry from the Chant Commission recommendations for "intellectual development",
the Year 2000 mission statement asserts that "the purpose of the British Columbia school
system is to enable learners to develop their individual potential and to acquire the
knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy society and a prosperous
and sustainable economy" (Year 2000: A Framework for Learning, n.p.). Both Cathy and
Doris recognized that the time for the Year 2000 priorities was over, and the movement
towards the IRPs was a fait accompli. Doris believed that the next change in government
would bring about another change in educational focus, while Cathy perceived a trend back
to the provincial government being the locus of control for educational direction.
Both participants were able to remember a great deal about their teaching practices
and the instructional methods used by themselves and others during the decades discussed.
The participants both remarked that they had not previously noticed the patterns in
education that they now noticed, having looked back on the last three decades in such full
detail.

46

Chapter Four - Discussion

Teaching Implications

The candour and wealth of information conveyed by both participants was
very valuable to this project. Truly, teachers who have taught for over three decades have
a valuable breadth of professional insight and retrospection. A path was described that
wound through the decades showing many changes along the way. First teaching
assignments relied heavily on the manuals provided, which were basically the only
instructional tools available. The provincial education mandate was for teachers to follow
these programs closely. During the 1970s the teachers continued with prescribed
programs, albeit some content and pictures may have changed. This was a period when the
school district began to acquire a prominent position in terms of what it could provide for
teachers through its resource centre. The 1980s saw a plethora of new and innovative ideas
being brought into classrooms, and it developed into an era of experimentation and
flexibility. While Doris saw the control as still fundamentally in the hands of the
provincial government, with some control now exercised by the local school board; Cathy
saw more of a movement from the district office to the choices made by individual
teachers. The 1990s saw a culmination of teacher expertise reflected in the Primary
Program and Year 2000 documents, but then a quick shift to the IRPs- the new blueprinta framework of reference, a new curriculum but without the resources. Underlying the
comments from both teachers was how they learned to use experience as their ultimate

47

curriculum guide. This occurred somewhat during the 1980s, but with more conviction in
the 1990s,
My research question asked how closely teachers who worked in a district that was
geographically distant from the centre of educational change followed the policy coming
from the government. I found that the participants' teaching practices did tend to reflect
the policies that came from the province. Both participants spoke of many curricular and
instructional workshops that were provided by the district in which they worked. When
there was a large-scale change, like the Primary Program, they took part in regional
presentations that were given all over the province.
For the most part, both teachers seemed relatively aware of the policies of the
times, reflected in the mandates of the provincial governments. While the 1970s was a
period where the authority rested firmly with the provincial department of education, the
1980s was a time of upheaval with restraint and a public unhappy with the education
system. This was reflected in the many new programs as educators and government alike
grappled with the "best way" to educate future citizens. The 1990s brought some new
educational policies, but most of the practices had already become part ofboth teachers'
repertoires. The policies of the times were reflected in what the two teachers taught and
how they taught it. This is illustrated in their awareness of phonetic prescribed texts,
whole language, and new math programs to coincide with new math curriculums.
There were a number of similarities in the recollections of the two participants in
terms of curricular practices and curricular and instructional changes. The major
difference was in how they perceived the change in the locus of power: for Cathy it was a
movement of ministry to district to individual teachers and then back to the provincial

48

ministry; for Doris it was ministry, then ministry shared with district, and then her own
experience as a teacher.
The data suggests that while these two participants have largely different views and
understandings of government policies, and/or large variations in individual practice in the
same district at the same time, their evolution of experience tended to guide their practice,
as much as policy and/or politics.
It is important to consider that the recollections of the two teachers interviewed

presented only their views, in their experience, in their district, over the time examined. It
should not, in any way, be construed as applicable to any other experience of other
teachers in the same or in other districts.
One of the most interesting parts of the interview process, for me, was at the end of
the interviews when I spontaneously asked the teachers what they determined to be the
direction of education. They both had very firm views on where we had come from, and
where we were going in education. They also had definite ideas of what was "wrong" with
how we were educating children, and what the problems with the system might be. For
Cathy, it was the fact that "we keep raising the bar of what we think an average child
should achieve in a year . ... We're having them do research on the net at eight years old!
All they had to focus on before was a reader and a workbook." Cathy also sees the
introduction of more curricular strands as creating problems for the children: "Not only do
they have reading and writing and math, but they have French and Art and Grammar and
P.E. and Personal Planning, and I don't think they have as much time to be successful at
anything. They don't get to practice anything; we just keep adding more and more, and I
think that affects their learning . ... They don't have time to learn how to play and do that

49

problem solving on their own anymore." She thinks that for some children, the ones who
have "the computers and the travel" and therefore the "background knowledge" and the
"language and the vocabulary", that "they're ready to take off' but that there are other
children who are "without the advantages and don't have the skills to work through what
we're presenting to those other kids" and because of this, "the gap is widening." She
believes that this creates "a problem for self-esteem with some of these children." She
acknowledges that "the kids have changed .. . behaviourally, but is that the chicken or the
egg?" Cathy's feeling is for the children and what we are expecting of them in school and
in the other parts of their intellectual lives: "They aren't having time to be children. We're
expecting them to be sophisticated, and they're pulling all this stuff off of Discovery
Channel and they only half understand it. So, academically, I think that maybe their brains
are too full. [laughter]. Please sir, can I go home, my brain is full!"
According to Doris, "Things are going now towards more traditional teaching,
where some schools are going back to the basics, getting rid of all the frills .... (such as)
career preparation, computer technology, personal planning." She thinks of the "basics" as
"reading, writing and arithmetic" and perceives that the time to work on those things needs
to be addressed for children to do well in school. She sees the focus back on the basics as
being driven by "the parents in the province, because they see all these superfluous things
going on, and they think well, my child needs this and this and this to get through school
and get their education farther on, and they think all the other stuff is not necessary."
Although Doris acknowledged that she had said that in the past it was the teachers who
influenced the direction of education, she now thinks that it is "probably more the parents
that are changing things now- the parents have the influence." To Doris, it is all part of a

50

"big cycle." In teaching, "we've gone through all the different evolutions and now we're
going back to the beginning again!"

Future Research

I think it would be ofbenefit to examine what experienced teachers perceive as the
past trends in education, and how they impact on where we are, and where we are headed.
Their experience with curriculum and instructional trends over three decades might help us
learn more about possible present and future trends. It would also be interesting to
examine the reminiscences of teachers from other interior districts with regard to the 70s,
80s, and 90s. The curricular and instructional trends identified would offer some
comparison points between the two teachers in this district and those of others with similar
backgrounds and geographical location, in order to ascertain if the trends are similar. If
indeed it is a "pendulum" as Cathy describes, then this might be reflected in a further
study.
The discussions with regard to the locus ofpower in terms ofwho dictates
curricular and instructional practices indicate a possibility for further study. While the two
teachers' opinions differed as to the focus of this control, it was apparent that both
considered that there were changes along the way. Is it possible that there is yet another
movement on the horizon that points to parents directing what is taught in schools? Is
there a chance that the control could become a partnership between all of the stakeholders
in education? Is this already the case, or has it been in the past?
Finally, ofwhat worth are the understandings of teachers who have taught for
several decades? Is there a plausible use of this wealth of knowledge to help guide the

51

teachers of the future? There would seem to be a treasure trove of enlightenment to be
gleaned from the experiences of these elite educators. The willingness and motivation to
share are certainly there, and finding a good use for this knowledge would be an important
area for further study.

Conclusion

For these two teachers, their instructional methods and choice of content were
based on sound educational thinking combined with both a knowledge of how children
learn and a well-honed educational instinct for what works best when and with what child.
Their training began many decades before their current practice, but their education as
educators continued and continues throughout their careers, reflected with more confidence
as the years progress. To their minds, there is a best practice; it is their best practice, given
the knowledge and perspective which they have acquired through years of experience,
training, and reflection. New ideas, new governments, new curricula, new district
initiatives and new classroom settings did not necessarily greatly change the way they
taught, but each influence added to a mix that was already being refined and improved
along the way.
In my experience, I find that this is also true of my journey as an educator; I am
constantly searching to learn more about how children learn and more about what and how
I teach in order to be most effective. While I was initially trained in the "Primary
Program" era, I have subsequently learned a great deal from courses, workshops, district
initiatives, new curriculum, new classroom settings, and the reactions and reflections of the
students I teach. Some of what I have learned, I have incorporated into my teaching

52

repertoire; some I have chosen to leave behind. It is certainly true that I have also learned
in many ways from other teachers; their experiences and reflections offered freely in many
staffrooms. This sharing, like the sharing of Doris and Cathy, offers a depth of
understanding of the big picture in the history of education that cannot be gleaned from
numbers collected along the way.

53

References
Aoki, T. T. , Langford, C., Williams, D. M., & Wilson, D. C. (1977). British Columbia

social studies assessment (summary report). Victoria, BC : Ministry of Education.
Barman, J., & Sutherland, N. (1995). Royal commission retrospective. InS. Barman,
N. Sutherland, & D. Wilson (Eds.), Children, teachers & schools in the

history of British Columbia (pp. 411 - 426). Alberta: Detselig Enterprises Ltd.
Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (1992). Qualitative research for education: an introduction

to theory and methods. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Bowman, J., & Ellis, P. (1994). Review ofteacher education in British Columbia.

Journal of Education for Teaching, 20, 9- 21. Retrieved Feb. 6, 2002, from
EBSCOhost database.
British Columbia Department of Education (1976). Language BC: An assessment in the

English language arts (summary report). Victoria, BC: Queen' s Printer.
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Year 2000: A framework for learning.
Victoria, BC: Queen's Printer.
British Columbia's History of Education Homeroom Timeline. Retrieved on Jan. 14, 2002
at http://www .mala.bc.calhomeroom/Content/Timeline
Chant, S.N.F. (1960). Chant commission report: report of the royal commission
on education. Retrieved Jan. 20, 2002, from
http: //www.mala.bc.ca/www/history/Sixties/toc.htm.
Egan, K. (n.d.). Competing voices for the curriculum. Retrieved on Feb. 23, 2002 at
http://www.educ.sfu.ca/people/facultylkegan/Competingvoices.html
Fetterman, D. M. (1989). Ethnography: step by step. In Applied Social Research

54

Methods Series. Volume 17 (pp. 41 -72). Newbury Park, California: Sage
Publications.
Gammage, P. (1991). Changing ideologies and provision in western Canadian primary
education. Comparative Education, 27, 311-324. Retrieved Jan. 19,2002, from
EBSCO host data base at
http://virtue.unbc.ca:2209/fulltext.asp?resultSetld=R00000001&hitNum=1boolean
Johnson, F. H. (1964). A history ofpublic education in British Columbia.
Vancouver: UBC Publications Centre.
Kilian, C. (1995). 2020 visions: The future of Canadian education. Vancouver: Arsenal
Pulp Press.
McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (1997). Research in education: a conceptual
introduction. Don Mills, ON: Addison-Wesley.
Nason, H. M. (1973). Canadian education: Towards definition and design. Pamphlet
published from 50th Conference of The Canadian Education Association held at
Vancouver, BC (1973).
Sheehan, N. M., & Wilson, J.D. (1994). From normal school to the university to the
college of teachers: Teacher education in British Columbia in the 20th century.
Journal of Education for Teaching, 20, 23-40. Retrieved Jan. 19,2002, from
EBSCOhost database.
Smith, B. R. D. (1981). Education: A report from the minister. Victoria, BC: Queen's
Printer.
Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.

55

Appendix A
February 6, 2002
Dear _ _ _ __
As discussed with you on the phone, I am undertaking a project to complete my Master's degree with the
University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC).
The purpose of my research is to examine curricular/instructional practices in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in
our district as seen through the eyes of several teachers, and compare that with district and provincial policy
of the time. I believe there is a rich store of information held in the memories of teachers who have practiced
in the same district over time. This information may help us identify trends in curriculum and instruction,
and may give us some idea as to how closely individual practice compares with provincial policy when the
practitioners are geographically removed from the provincial capital.
I will be interviewing elementary school teachers who have taught a minimum of 25 years in the district, and
are presently teaching. I will be taping interviews that will ask participants for their perspective on what they
were teaching and how they were teaching it during the decades mentioned. Taped interviews will probably
occur over 2- 2 hour sessions (a total of 4 hours) . Participants may be asked for suggestions for names of
further participants. Interviews will be transcribed, word for word, and then the tapes will be destroyed. Only
the researcher will have access to the transcript. The_transcripts of the tapes will be destroyed 5 years after
acceptance of the fmal project. Participants will then be given a copy of the transcript in order to
add/change/delete any incomplete/incorrect information. All person and place names will be changed to
ensure anonymity and confidentiality. As well, the participants will have access to a copy of the project
before officially submitted, in order to read their contributions and delete/change any information they had
provided. Participants have the right to withdraw from the project at any time.
Should you have any questions about this research, please feel free to contact the interviewer, Diane Haynes
(250-992-0966), or Paul Madak (250-960-6520) or Colin Chasteauneuf (250-960-540 1) at UNBC. Should
you wish to lodge a complaint about the project, please contact the Office of Research, UNBC (250-9605820).
Your contribution will be greatly appreciated. Please advise the researcher if you require a copy of the
signed consent form.
I agree to take part in this study.
Signature of Research Participant

Date

Witness

Printed Name

Printed Name

I believe that the person signing this form understands what is involved in the study and voluntarily agrees to
participate.
Signature of Investigator

Date

56

Appendix B
Interview Questions

Type of Interview: Interview guide: "Topics are outlined in advance. Researcher decides
the sequence and wording during the interview. Interview probes can increase
comprehensiveness." Interview is "conversational and situational." (p. 447 McMillan &
Schumacher).
Introduction: Welcome and thank participant. Explain that the approach for the interview
will take the following format:
-first, general background information
age now, age when began teaching, type of training (where, when, etc.)
first teaching assignment (grade placement, etc.)
-then, questions about the 1970s
-then, the 1980s, and finally the 1990s
-please try to confine your responses to the decade being discussed in terms of
curriculum and/or policy changes.
1.

What kind of training did you receive to prepare you for teaching. Where and
when? Tell me about your training.

2.

What was the date of your first teaching appointment? What was the grade to
which you were appointed? What preparations did you make? What materials
were available to you?

3.

What were the key components of the curriculum at that time? What did you
teach? Who controlled what you taught? Did these things jive with your training?

4.

What types of instructional methods did you utilize? (Why?) How were they
different for different subject areas? How did that compare with your training?

5.

What kind of district initiatives do you remember from that time?

6.

What had gone on or was going on in provincial policy and/or politics that you
were aware of at that time (re-iterate that responses should be confined to that
particular decade).

7.

Repeat Q. 3-6 for 80s and 90s.

8.

Do you have anything else to add?

57

Appendix C
Researcher's words are in italics; participant's words are in regular type.
Sections that were highlighted are underlined; sections used as quotes are in bold print.
Well, we don't have a textbook, and it's come all this way. If you look at it- it's matched
the curriculum guide up to this point, and if you look at the IRP now, those elements of
community change and stuff are still in there.

Did the curriculum guide change then?
Not much.

I mean from the late 60's one to the 70's and the new textbook?
The curriculum guide that we were using in the 70's, and the new IRP's- there wasn't
much change to the socials program.

Just a new textbook?
Ya, you went from more of this - there was a big set of pictures that we had with the first
textbook. They came in big cardboard flats and community change, and there was ....

Same idea?
Same idea, and on the back of the posters there were questions and information. Then, the
new textbook came out, and it had a MANUAL with it to follow, that had 10,000 ideas that
you could never cover.

What do you mean by ideas? I feel like we may not be covering instruction ....

How to teach it, and a lot of inteeration into the laneua~e arts pro~ram. Whereas
before, I euess, if you really want to think about it, there was your social studies,
there was your readine. there was your math, and evervthin~ was separate. And I
guess that now that I start to babble about it, as we moved into the late 70's, early SO's,
we were startin~ to inte~rate our subjects more. So that what I tau~ht in Social
Studies flowed over into my laneua~e arts. So that ya - well, yes, when you think about
it, that's sort of when themes bee an!
But you were still presenting information and they were responding basically?
Urn hmm, but a lot more activity based. For instance in doing the socials program, one
thing that sticks in my mind is you studied the difference between rural and cities, so we
wrote poems in language arts that had to do with rural and city and so you started to see
more cross connection in vour classroom from one subject to another.

58

You were incorporating .....
Ya, and I could never teach a story that I didn't like. So, ifthere was a story in the reader
that I just couldn't get my teeth into, then I'd skip it and go on to the next one.
Right, but when you first started teaching ...
No.

Meanwhile, you're going back to U Vic. still and catching up on people from all over the
province, correct?
Ya, on and off over the years I did 2 years of university at summer school- 2 and a bit.
Okay. so at this point. who controlled what you taught?
I'd say district.

I think I asked- the 70's was sort of the same as when you started- it was the ministrydid you call it the department of education?
Yes.
So, 80 's - you 're telling me it was more district.
From what - we used to get lists, okay, like this is prescribed by the ministry, and this is
authorized by the ministry , and so I saw it as starting to have more choices. There were
more on the authorized list that you could use- you didn't have to stick to that prescribed
textbook. And so I , and so then I see it as more of a district issue- what is the district
twine to provide?
Okay.
So, if you look at our resource centre, we had humuneous amounts of stuff for laneuaee
arts material, for instance. That you could use in your classroom. You tended to
delve into more areas.
This is sounding quite different from the "here 's the curriculum which totally parallels the
book and the teaching guide and that 's what you teach. This isn 't like .. .. What was the
curriculum at this time? Were there curriculum guides?
We were stuck with the same curriculum for years and years and years, and I think
people stopped lookine at them quite honestly, rieht. You'd seen them and the
materials were rieht there and you just used the materials you had, and then,

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I think I saw it move more towards tea hin~ team sports. We went from a ~arne
oriented P.E. to a skill oriented P.E., where the kids wanted to know how to play
basketball, you know.
Can you go back to the game oriented p.e. -give me some examples?
Fox and Squirrels, Frozen Tag, that kind of a thing. It was more of a game based program,
and then it went more to a skill, team kind of thing. Basketball, Volleyball, track and field,
were things we played. So you got almost more into an intermediate kind of concept. And
then it went into creative games.
This is in the 80's?
Ya. The reason this sticks is because in one of my summer school sessions I had to take a
P .E. course, and the focus from the instructor was that we taught skills to primaries
through games, and we taught the children how to make their own cooperative games.
So . . . you worked into intermediate. So the idea of the P.E. program was that you gave
them the tools, and you gave them the skills, and they had to create cooperative ~ames.
Cooperative games ... ?
Ya- oh ya- and that gets into good old cooperative learning, which I tried to ignore a lot
of. Actually, when I think back, that stream was runnin~ throu~h in all subjects. We
went to workshops on cooperative learning.
In this district?
Yes.
So, we're still in the late 80's?
Yes. I think the 80's, as I taught, was a real era of
there, when you think about it. (apologetic)

han~e. because there's so much in

Well, don 't rush, we have lots of time.
I did miss the middle of the 70's, so there was a block there when I was out ofthe loop. I
see the 80's, when you think about it- we're going to another pendulum swing in the
classroom: cooperative learning. And when I think about it, workshops were cooperative
learning workshops.
And that was for specific .. ..... .
And the books came out, you know, all about cooperative learning and how groups work:
there had to be a reporter; there had to be a scribe, you know.