History: B.C. teachers’ strikes are so last century

Sigh. Some things never change.

A news story about teachers in Vancouver uniting against school authorities under the subheadings “Salary question an issue” and “Overcrowding of rooms” made the front page of the Vancouver Daily Province.

The date? Oct. 3, 1910.

Long before the B.C. teachers’ union staged its three-day strike this week, “women teachers” were publicly musing about forming a union to give them a voice in talks with the school board.

The “more energetic young women” of the Women’s Educational Club were considering “an organization through which to act with a united front.”

“Don’t think for a moment that our organization is merely a selfish one, designed only to press home the salary question on the school board,” said a young unnamed teacher interviewed by the paper while the students were out for recess. “We think we have the public with us on that question.”

She said the teachers also wanted to fight for input on other issues in schools.

“Time and again, we have suggestions to make individually but because there is no mouthpiece of the teachers, these proposals never reach the ears of the school authorities.”

A hot topic, then as now, was class size, but 100 years ago there were 60 to 65 students per room in schools in the growing outlying suburbs — Kitsilano, Fairview and Grandview.

“Dozens of rooms are overcrowded to the point where it is not good for the health of the children and where it is next to impossible to get any results from teaching,” she said.

“The teachers try to do their best, but there isn’t a chance of successful work in a class of that size.”

She said there were “only” 25 to 40 students in rooms in schools in the West End and in the central part of the city, which proved “very clearly that in these sections, the population is decreasing rather than increasing.”

The teacher pointed to a need for a class size limit of 40, which she called “reasonable” and pointed out it had been implemented in some Ontario cities.

And she said the teachers suggested easing overcrowding by having the school board set up classrooms in “knockabout cottages” and rented halls — portables! — while they waited for more suburban schools to be built.

The teachers were unlikely to allow male teachers, outnumbered by women 10 to 1, to join the new group because “their salaries were of a different basis” and they were mostly employed as principals.

slazaruk@theprovince.com

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