Rural Education Inquiry Project

Running Head: A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 1

A Place to Leave From, a Place to Come Back to: A Brief Survey of The Effects and Relationship of Formal Public Education and the Rural Way of Life Aileen Davidson University of Lethbridge

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Abstract This project has changed and taken on several different purposes and forms since I first began, and I feel I have many more questions than answers. My primary inquiry question focuses on the extent to which the education system has led to the demise of rural communities. I believe the evidence is, overall, that it does contribute to the demise of rural areas. I wondered then, how much, why, and who specifically this demise impacts. I investigated several sources, both primary and secondary. While the literature on rural education is difficult to find, I found several prolific authors who wrote on the subject, but none specifically from Alberta, which is what I was initially interested in. Instead, I chose to draw from several primary sources-my father’s and uncle’s school report cards and grades up until grades ten and twelve, respectfully. I also used a memoir written by my grandmother, where she speaks about her children’s response to their schooling experiences.The purpose of this investigation is to compare Alberta rural schools and school systems with the literature regarding the rural school system in Nova Scotia, to see where they are similar and different, how rurality and unique geographical features of each place matter to the community, and perhaps to ponder how and why we can better our policies and pedagogical practices to contribute towards rural communities, rather than attempt to assimilate them. This has become, in the end, an extended personal reflection based on findings in research such as ​Learning to Leave ​by Michael Corbett. I will investigate briefly, the experiences of my grandmother, my mother, and myself, as well as the experiences of my father, his brothers, and my younger brother as it relates to my inquiry question and the themes I encountered in my research.

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 3 A Place to Leave From, a Place to Come Back to: A Brief Survey of The Effects and Relationship of Formal Public Education and the Rural Way of Life While this brief paper cannot possibly give life to the breadth and depth of the current situation of rural communities and their relationship with the public system, I have thoroughly enjoyed researching this topic. This is meant to be a personal reflection on themes found in my research, with the hopes that this area of research will continue to grow and that schools will change in such a way that they contribute to the flourishing of rural communities rather than their slow destruction. I grew up on a farm in a rural area of Southern Alberta called Rainier, a community that has been home to my family for nearly one hundred years. I believe my rural upbringing largely influenced my educational aspirations and my desire to live a certain type of lifestyle in regards to my relationship with place and my sense of belonging with others. I am the first of my immediate family to attend University. My Grandmother quit school in grade eight, in the early 1930’s, when her district could not afford to pay a salary for a teacher that year. She did not let this deter her, immediately getting a job and working for several years before marrying my grandfather and moving to the area where my father and his brothers, my mother and her siblings, and my brother and I would grow up. My father and both of his brothers dropped out of school in their high school years in order to work. They worked as farmhands and on the oil rigs, as mechanics and Irrigation workers. Eventually they were all able to “go farming” on their own land-two in the same community that they grew up in. My mother, on the other hand, was forced by her parents to quit school in the tenth grade, as soon as she was sixteen, so that she could help on the farm. She always highly valued the education that my brother and I received. My brother and I both attended the same school attended by my father and his siblings and my mother and her siblings. Despite this, I believe the way we were taught to think about who we

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 4 were, how to negotiate our roles in this world, and the role education played in our lives changed dramatically over time. The impact of schools in rural communities is enormous. The history books for Rainier and Scandia have nothing bad to say about the schools (although, I have heard stories of strappings and teachers with pool cues that would definitely not be legal today. These stories are worn as badges of honour, evidence of resilience and toughness). The local school was the heartbeat of the community. This is where information was consolidated and passed along, where students played and learned together, where dances and other social events were held, as well as other community events and fundraisers. The school, teachers, and students were all connected to the community and the role of the school was a largely sociographic one providing the opportunity to build a sense of belonging for the people of that particular area. In this case, there was the Bow Slope school, the Alcoma school, and the Jenny Lind School. These schools served Bow City, Rainier, and Scandia, respectively, three small areas close together, but with separate and distinct communities. By the mid-thirties a move was made to centralize. There were many independent school districts all facing similar administration problems, and the grimmest of these was probably financing. The local trustees and ratepayers were to a large extent opposed to this centralization at the time, but the difficulty of collecting taxes and the shaky financial situation made it difficult to expand into high school to serve area students. They tried holding high school in half of the one-room school house at the same time as the other classes, with only an imaginary line separating the two. Obviously this left much to be desired, and for a while highschool classes were held in a farm house that was not in use at the time. In 1930 a new high school building was completed and the senior students moved there. The teacher at the time was Miss Millen, who taught grades eight through eleven. For a year or two instruction included grade twelve as well, but most of the time grade twelve students

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 5 had to go elsewhere to complete high school. In 1939, when centralization was taking place, dormitory facilities were provided for high schoolers attending in both Bassano and Brooks. Later on, busses were established. This essentially remains the same until present day, with students from Bow City, Scandia, and Rainier all attending the Alcoma school in Rainier from kindergarten to grade nine and then bussing to Brooks or Vauxhall for high school. The school in Rainier retained its function as a key component of community life, illustrious Christmas concerts and all, until I was finished there. In my brother’s time, the school changed and disconnected completely, and these effects were very much felt in the rhythm of the community. Was this shift in community living (or lack thereof) the fault of the school or other forces? Was it due to individuals or the system as a whole? Long before the disconnect of the school students were leaving (and I would argue, being encouraged to leave) the community. Who stayed? Who left? Why? Why, when the rest of my family stayed did I feel I had no option but to go? I found many possible answers and patterns or themes throughout the research, which, although largely intended to analyze small rural areas of Nova Scotia, I felt had many similarities. As is seen in Michael Corbett’s work, ​Learning to Leave: The Irony of Schooling in a Coastal Community​, in the earlier era there were the stayers, and the leavers. Later on, with the introduction of better roads, better vehicles, and better technology we encounter a third group called the nomads. The first group I would like to focus on are the stayers. This would include most of my family that I have previously mentioned - my father, my uncle, and my mother. They grew up in this place, and they are not about to leave it. In my mother’s case, she was forced to drop out, despite personal aspirations to complete high school. This is obviously problematic for a number of reasons, and I do not believe I have the space to address it in this paper. In the case of my father and uncle, however, both of them left by choice. It was not because they were dumb or did poorly. Based on their school records, both had very good grades until the end of

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 6 grade nine. My father was not a conscientious student by any means, as was proven in high school where his grades dropped from As to Ds. It appears that he became completely disinterested in school or anything it had to offer, often playing hookie to go out on the land and go trapping or to ride his horse. My uncle was a very conscientious student. He made it to grade twelve with As and Bs, however, the draw of a decent-paying job reeled him in and he quit grade twelve to work. A year later, with the encouragement of his mother, he went back to grade twelve, only to quit again by the second semester, largely due to the discouraging attitude of his teachers. In both cases they had decent paying jobs, worked hard, enjoyed it, and eventually went into farming, one on the same land they grew up on. I do not believe that these boys failed school due to restrictions placed on them due to their rurality, or that they were limited by their rural lifestyle. Rather, I believe the school system failed them. The school failed to offer them something meaningful to their lives and the scope of their practice and aspirations on the farm. As the work became more abstract they failed to see the need for it in the face of a hurting economy and the ability to not only make much needed money, but to enjoy the farm and the lifestyle it offered to them. Corbett speaks about this in his book, using economic practicality as his main argument for why students drop out of school - they need to make money, and school does not seem to be helping them to do that. I feel this was true for my dad and my uncle. There has been a shift, however, and more and more I feel that Howley’s research points in a different direction for students before my generation, such as my mother: “A few researchers have suggested that rural students' aspirations may be accounted for by their connection to local communities, their families, and rural lifeways. Hektner's (1995) surveys of 516 rural youth in one school in rural Illinois suggested that they are powerfully attached to their rural lives, such that some choose to forfeit education and enhanced economic options in favor of remaining in their often economically challenged

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 7 rural communities. Comparing these findings with analyses of surveys of 206 urban and 196 suburban students, Hektner moreover indicated that rural youth are more likely than non-rural youth to report that they feel conflicting aspirations for educational attainment and place. Burnell (2003) similarly found that rural youth who elect to stay in rural areas recast their aspirations as "real-world" pursuits. According to one literature review on rural youth aspirations, rural youth consistently report that they value their communities highly and are deeply distressed by the likelihood that they may have to move to more urban places to pursue the economic options for which their educations appear to be preparing them (Ley, Nelson, & Beltyukova, 1996)” (Howley, 2006). Other than an attachment to place, what remains in communities today for rural youth? In the past there was a deep sense of belonging, of neighbourliness, of mutual aid, and of connection to the land. In a way, I feel that many of these still exist and are all connected to the idea of place. “Place, for rural people, involves the meanings and relationships associated with land, nature, and local history and knowledge” (Howley, 2006). The community is “a space where ‘people like us’ belong and where we are ‘known,’ seen, comfortable, loved and cared for” (Corbett, 2007). At the same time, in school and in the media, rural youth find themselves “surrounded with discursive constructions that informed them in ‘common sense’ terms that their communities were dying and that the way of life of their families was on the wane” (Corbett, 2007). It all comes down to power. “For example, there is no doubt that ‘rustics and bumpkins’ do not pull the levers of cultural, political, and economic power either in the US or elsewhere on this planet. It is this fact more than any other, that accounts for the invisibility of rural issues, whether among academics or other power-wielding groups. In recent decades, moreover, rural America and its concerns have been driven to the extreme margins of cultural, economic, and political life. Whereas the majority of Americans early in the 20th century still actually lived in

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 8 rural places, today more than half live in urbanized areas with populations of more than one million” (Howey, 2004).With population and power distributed to the cities, rural areas are left to their own devices to scrounge and to find their own meanings or else be swallowed up by education and media and individualism. The question then, is if those who stay are merely victims of themselves, or of the economy. They stay because they do not have the capital or the brains to continue their education and move forward. While many view the rural life as deficient, and while some people may stay because they have no other options, they still have the choice of mindset: victim, or resistance. In my experience, most choose resistance. For those who can see nothing in the rural community, no reason for them to remain, education is their ticket for mobility both socially, economically, and physically. They go on to post-secondary in towns and cities. For some, this is a choice. They want out of the small town atmosphere. Whether that has been instilled in them by the implicit lack of value that is placed on farming and rurality or simply by feeling disconnected, or if it is merely a natural longing for something more, it’s hard to say. For others, there is a tension in this decision. They have been taught by school, and in many cases their families, to place value on education and individual achievement. The best and brightest are told that there is nothing for them in the community, and so the community loses them to a university or a city where they go to make something of themselves, despite perhaps, more familial teachings or a natural inclination toward the importance of belonging and of the relationship to the land and people in the community. Many rural teachers who are not from rural backgrounds do not understand this and contribute to the tension that teenagers have to face as they are making decisions. “Educators should realize that schooling may be a means of education, but that schooling is not the same thing as education. Too often, in fact, schooling enacts miseducation. Underlying the critique of many rural education scholars is the sense that much of rural schooling is miseducative because it

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 9 overlooks or disparages the rural lifeworld - the source of rural meanings” (Howley, 2004). If students can develop a sense of rural meanings in their formal education, I feel this will go a long way towards relieving some of that tension and allowing students to understand both what the rural holds for them if they decide to stay, what the urban holds if they decide to leave, and the potential always for returning home after post-secondary. It is important for them to negotiate who they are and what they want in a meaningful and authentic way-not just what the media or the government is explicitly or implicitly feeding them in the curriculum. “Students ‘construct’ meaning, and schooling should help them construct better and better meanings - and nurture the disposition to make meaning as a lifelong engagement. For rural people, the meanings to be made in and of rural places are most critical for their future. Rural schooling that overlooks rural places as an accessible source of meaning, on these terms, must surely be viewed as stunningly inappropriate.” (Howley, 2004) While the rural community may seem dismal (almost all the students from my class have left, and most of those in the school before my age group are gone), I believe the hope lies in the “nomad” category (the ones who leave and return), and people like my brother, who would have gladly dropped out of high school and become a stayer. He was pushed by my mother to finish high school and to get his mechanic ticket, and is now working full time and beginning to buy cows for his farm. Several of his classmates have stayed on their farms. I myself would seriously consider going back to teach there or to help on the farm. I believe that this is hopeful for the community despite the many pressures and downfalls it will surely face. In answer my inquiry question, I believe that the system of public education has largely contributed to the downfall of many urban communities by devaluing rural lifestyles and encouraging the best and brightest to leave. I also believe education may be the solution. With proper policy and pedagogy students can learn the importance of being proud of where they are

A PLACE TO LEAVE FROM, A PLACE TO COME BACK TO 10 from whether they desire higher levels of formal education or lower. For those who do desire higher, the system should be slightly more focused on practical entrepreneurial skills and problem solving that will help them to receive degrees and to contribute those skills in local places, to bring people in and create a thriving connected community rather than a disjointed community that suffers the loss of the out-migration of their students.

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References

Buri, G. (2016). ​Between Education and Catastrophe: The Battle Over Public Schooling in Post War Manitoba.​ Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. CJE16-2-02Lyons.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE16-2/CJE16-2-02Lyons.pdf Corbett, M. (2007). ​Learning to Leave: The Irony of Schooling in a Coastal Community​. Halifax, Canada: Fernwood Publishing. Corbett, M. (2014). Toward a Geography of Rural Education in Canada. ​Canadian Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne de L’éducation​, ​37(​ 3), 1–22. Elffers, L. (2013). Staying on track: behavioral engagement of at-risk and non-at-risk students in post-secondary vocational education. ​European Journal of Psychology of Education,​ ​28​(2), 545–562. Howley, C. (2004). A Critical Introduction to Useful Works about Rural Life and Education. Journal of Education Finance,​ 2 ​ 9​(3), 257–272. Howley, C. W. (2006). Remote Possibilities: Rural Children’s Educational Aspirations. ​Peabody Journal of Education,​ ​81​(2), 62–80. Rosenfeld, S. (1983). Something Old, Something New: The Wedding of Rural Education and Rural Development. ​The Phi Delta Kappan,​ ​65(​ 4), 270–273. WALLENBORN, M. (2010). Vocational Education and Training and Human Capital Development: current practice and future options. ​European Journal of Education​, ​45(​ 2), 181–198.