Learning, Curriculum and Life Politics: the selected works of Ivor F. Goodson
Long Waves of Educational Reform
The effects of these new rules were magnified by a series of trends which caused substantial drainage of existing teachers from Eastside and their replacement by a large new cohort of younger teachers. Many of these teachers went to new schools: in 1960 the Federal Technical and Vocational Training Assistance Act had inaugurated a boom in secondary school building and resulted in the construction of 335 new high schools in the province as well as funding 83 expansions. To meet the requirements of the Act, all of these schools and additions had to feature vocational education (Stamp 1982, pp. 203-204). The job market for vocational teachers expanded widely and prospects for advancement opened throughout the provincial system. Lots of young new teachers flooded into the system.
Other veteran teachers from Eastside moved to administrative positions. In the 1960s, the city’s Board of Education went through a tremendous evolution; in this period of growth, it needed many more people at supervisory positions. At the same time, the idea that people who stayed too long in one place became biased, and thus poor candidates for higher administrative positions came into general acceptance. For prospective supervisors, it became a good career move to go through different schools (Interview, Jan. 1995).
Finally, some Eastside teachers left the employ of the Board to work in two new city institutions. The city’s new teacher training institution, needed people to instruct the next generation of technical, commercial and academic teachers, while the nearby Vocational Centre offered post-secondary education in many of the subjects taught at Eastside.
Alongside a new younger school staff cohort, one additional trend reaching a peak at this time appears under a variety of names, including the youth revolt. By the last years of the 1960s, “there were a lot of hippie types at Eastside. I mean, if you didn’t have hair to your shoulders, then you know, you weren’t part of the crowd so to speak. It attracted that type” (Interview, Feb. 1994). Long hair and beards for men and ‘frizzy hair’ and miniskirts for girls were becoming the rule. The new youth culture celebrated feeling over thought and sought ways to enhance the emotional experience – including drugs. The use of marijuana and LSD became common within school walls: “the first floor was the entrance and the staircase. You could smell the marijuana sifting up... Nobody seemed to care about it; the teachers didn’t do anything to stop it”(Interview, Feb. 1994).
Students also turned to alcohol. The lowering of the legal drinking age to 18 (during the summer of 1971) made this more prevalent – lunchtime and afternoon drinking sessions became institutionalized in the student culture.
More than just dress and recreational habits changed. This was a time of change in substance as well as style, of serious challenge, as well as superficial change. Student challenges to more fundamental school rules in this period reflected the larger assault being mounted by Western youth culture against the hegemony of those over 30. In secondary schools, this vocal movement reached its provincial peak in late 1968 and early 1969, with a large-scale protest over the date chosen for the end of the school year and a three-week student sit-in at a Toronto high school (Stamp 1982, pp. 225-228).
