The various topics we have covered this semester have successfully broadened my knowledge on childhood and education. From the topics such as the emergence of education, the growing importance of it in the lives of Canadians, the experiences of women in teaching, school reforms, residential schools, the influence of war time on education and the idea of youth, and lastly the creation of alternate schooling. These topics put my previous knowledge into perspective and thoroughly expanded on it. I have come to realize how heavily education has been influenced by the economic standing of families and how the heavily the societal ideals during the time period influence what goes on in the classroom. I also learnt how social realities can be seen in the history of education. For example the racism that resulted in separate schooling, the school reforms, and eugenics. A lot of this information I had brief knowledge on from my past courses in Canadian history, but learning more in depth about the feminization of teaching and residential schools. I finally began to understand why women dominated the field of education which really made me wonder about my own intentions of pursuing teaching. This made me think a lot about my past teachers, and if they were motherly or not. I will expand on this more in the section on my own education.
On the topic of childhood, I felt like I learnt less on this topic than I did on the topic of education. It was very interesting to learn about the emergence of the word youth, and how and why childhood during the time of industrialization was so different than it is now. I was very taken back by how the idea of childhood has changed over time. Of course this has to do with society changing and the family dynamic.
It was very interesting and sometimes confusing how this class and my Canadian women’s history class overlapped to the extent it did. Both classes talked about the feminization of teaching and eugenics, which complemented each other.