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Private to Public: Alternative Schools in Ontario 1965–1975

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Alternative Schooling and Student Engagement

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Abstract

This chapter traces the history of alternative schools in Ontario from 1965 to 1975 with its roots in the Progressive and Romantic educational movements as well as the political and cultural ferment of the 1960s. Documenting the emergence of small-scale private experimental schools in the 1960s, the author shows that teachers and parents wanted a more flexible and creative education for their children than was offered in the public school system. The author then explores how by 1970 the Toronto Board of Education became a leader in offering alternative schools within the public system. He demonstrates that this development was driven by demand from parents, teachers, and students, politically progressive trustees elected to the school board, and the earlier example of independent alternative schools.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Helena Wehrstein and Wally Seccombe for providing me with access to the valuable Everdale archive containing enrollment and staff lists, school brochures, school newsletters, films, personal documents, and unpublished papers such as “How Everdale and Superschool began.”

I would also like to thank Meredith MacFarquhar, long-time partner of the late Bob Davis, for generous access to documents and journals from her personal library, for her gracious hospitality in convening a memorable evening with former Everdale students, and for her encouragement.

I would also like to thank the following individuals who gave generously of their time and knowledge in personal interviews: Bob Davis, Alan Rimmer, George Martell, Satu Repo, Gail Ashby, Jim Deacove, Vera Williams, Brian Iler, Sarah Spinks, Diana Meredith, Patricia Berton, Rico Gerussi, Ruth Shamai, Heather Chetwynd, Naomi McCormack, Judith McCormack, Dale Shuttleworth, Murray Shukyn, Paul Shapiro, and Fiona Nelson. For bibliographic research assistance, thank you to Kathryn Pybus.

Finally, thank you to the editors of this collection, Esther Fine, Nina Bascia, and Malcolm Levin, for their professional expertise and years of commitment to this important subject.

Notes

  1. 1.

    This is my term for the long-lived educational movement that began with the publication of J.J. Rousseau’s Emile in 1762, surfacing periodically throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and re-surfacing in the 1960s with the publication of A.S. Neill’s Summerhill (1960), and the development of the Free School Movement.

  2. 2.

    Allen Graubard estimates that over 250 free schools were established in the United States between 1967 and 1970. Allen Graubard, Free the Children (New York: Random House, 1972), 41 (Graubard 1972).

  3. 3.

    A.S. Neill, Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing (New York: Hart, 1960) (Neill 1960).

  4. 4.

    For an authoritative account of the Canadian social gospel movement see Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914–28 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973) (Allen 1973).

  5. 5.

    The basic tenet of St. George’s School was “Progressive not permissive.” Sharon Kirsh, Roger Simon, and Malcolm Levin, eds., Directory of Canadian Alternative and Innovative Education (Toronto: Communitas Exchange, 1973) ( Kirsh et al. 1973).

  6. 6.

    Neil Sutherland, “The Triumph of ‘Formalism’: Elementary Schooling in Vancouver from the 1920s to the 1960s,” in Vancouver Past: Essays in Social History, BC Studies, ed. R. McDonald and Jean Barman, Number 69–70 (Spring/Summer 1986), 182–183 (Sutherland 1986).

  7. 7.

    Ian Hamilton, The Children’s Crusade (Toronto: Peter Martin, 1970), Chap. 9 (Hamilton 1970).

  8. 8.

    For more on British Columbia alternative schools, see Harley Rothstein, “Alternative Schools in British Columbia: 1960–1975” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia, 1999). The dates of the B.C. schools were: The New School (1962–1977), Barker Free School (1965–1969), Knowplace (1967–1969), and Saturna Island Free School (1968–1971). Bob Davis, co-founder of Everdale, visited the Barker Free School on C.Y.C. business in the mid- to late 1960s (Rothstein 1999).

  9. 9.

    Robert Stamp, The Saturday School: How It Began (Calgary: Saturday School Society, 1973), and Robert Stamp, in discussion with the author, April 9, 1997. Robert Stamp also wrote an early definitive work on public alternative schools: Robert Stamp, About Schools: What every Canadian parent should know (Don Mills Ontario: new press, 1975). Saturday School became part of the Calgary public school system in 1975 (Stamp 1973, 1975).

  10. 10.

    Freedom versus structure was a common source of friction in alternative schools and was a major issue, as I show later in this chapter, at Everdale Place School.

  11. 11.

    Sharon Kirsh, Roger Simon, and Malcolm Levin, eds., Directory of Canadian Alternative and Innovative Education (Toronto: Communitas Exchange, 1973) ( Kirsh et al. 1973).

  12. 12.

    Although most educational reform in the early 1960s occurred in private alternative schools, some incremental change was found in the public school system. See Kurt Clausen’s article on an open area school in Willowdale, “Educational Reform in Ontario: The Importance of Pleasant Valley School, 1962–1975,” Historical Studies in Education 26 no. 1 (Spring, 2014): 67 (Clausen 2014).

  13. 13.

    Jocelyn Dingman, “Would You Send Your Child to a New School?,” Chatelaine, (August, 1968): 68 (Dingman 1968).

  14. 14.

    “New Schools in Canada,” This Magazine is about Schools 2, no. 3 (Summer 1968).

  15. 15.

    Bob Davis, in discussion with the author, October 18, 1996.

  16. 16.

    Alan Rimmer, in discussion with the author, March 29, 2014.

  17. 17.

    Alan Rimmer, in discussion with the author, March 29, 2014.

  18. 18.

    The farm was referred to locally as “the Everdell place,” after the early pioneer owners, which the school founders thought was a catchy name. But early on, someone misspelled it—and “Everdale Place” stuck. Brian Iler, in discussion with the author, April 1, 2014.

  19. 19.

    Other notable staff members were Sara Bezaire, Vera Williams, John Callender, Sandy Callender, Jeffrey Fritzlan, Jane Fritzlan, Phil Hazelton, Lee Hazelton, John Fassell, and Bill Goldfinch.

  20. 20.

    School Prospectus, “The Everdale Place: A School Community,” This Magazine is about Schools 1, no. 2 (August 1966).

  21. 21.

    “How Everdale and Superschool Began,” (unpublished paper, Everdale Place Archive, 1968).

  22. 22.

    David Copp, “The Everdale Place: A School Community,” Pro Tem student weekly newspaper, York University, undated.

  23. 23.

    Jocelyn Dingman, “Would You Send Your Child to a New School?” Chatelaine, (August 1968): 66 (Dingman 1968).

  24. 24.

    Patricia Berton, Rico Gerussi, Naomi McCormack, Diana Meredith, Ruth Shamai, and Heather Chetwynd (former Everdale students) in discussion with the author, March 28, 2014. Judith McCormack, telephone interview by author, May 14, 2014.

  25. 25.

    Bob Davis, personal interview by author, October 18, 1996.

  26. 26.

    Patricia Berton, Rico Gerussi, Naomi McCormack, Diana Meredith, Ruth Shamai, and Heather Chetwynd (former Everdale students) in discussion with the author, March 28, 2014. Judith McCormack, telephone interview by author May 14, 2014.

  27. 27.

    Bob Davis, in discussion with the author, October 18, 1996.

  28. 28.

    Bob Davis, “Where’s the School? Everdale at the Milwaukee War Trial,” in What Our High Schools Could Be … A Teacher’s Reflections From the 60s to the 90s 1990, ed. Bob Davis (James Lorimer& Company, July, 1990) (Davis 1990).

  29. 29.

    Jocelyn Dingman, “Would You Send Your Child to a New School?,” Chatelaine, (August 1968): 66; Del Bell, “Scratch a quiet farm, find a rebel school” The London Free Press, (March 11, 1967); “Those no-rule schools are staggering to success,” The Toronto Daily Star, (April 7, 1969): 7; Timothy Plumptre, “In the company of Young Canadians,” The Globe and Mail, (January 12, 1967): 7. For more on the CYC, see Ian Hamilton, The Children’s Crusade: The Story of the Company of Young Canadians (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 1970) (Dingman 1968; Bel 1967, 1969; Plumptre 1967; Hamilton 1970).

  30. 30.

    “What Can You Do to Change Schools?” Everdale School Brochure, This Magazine is about Schools 3, no. 2 (Spring 1969).

  31. 31.

    Everdale Organic Farm and Environmental Learning Centre in Hillsburgh was founded by Gavin Dandy, Karen Campbell, Wally Seccombe, and Lynn Bishop in 1997 and is governed by an incorporated not-for-profit society. Between 1973 and 1997, several ventures were attempted on the property, but none came to fruition. http://everdale.org/history/.

  32. 32.

    Stuart Henderson documents a degeneration of the Yorkville hippie community by 1968 into drug addiction, disease, sexual predation, violence, and criminal activity, in Making the Scene: Yorkville and Hip Toronto in the 1960s, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.

  33. 33.

    Patricia Berton, Rico Gerussi, Naomi McCormack, Diana Meredith, Ruth Shamai, and Heather Chetwynd (former Everdale students) in discussion with the author, March 28, 2014. Judith McCormack, telephone interview by author May 14, 2014. Beth Savin, “School Prospectus, 1966/67”, School Archive. Patricia Berton, “A Choice in Schools—Free or Traditional?” Miss Chatelaine, (August 14, 1969) (Berton 1969).

  34. 34.

    Vera Williams, telephone interview by author, August 13, 2014.

  35. 35.

    Brian Iler, in discussion with the author, April 1, 2014.

  36. 36.

    Constance Mungall, “Superschool: Disgruntled Teens in Search of Something Better,” Toronto Daily Star (August 17 1968): 10.

  37. 37.

    ”What Can You Do to Change Schools?” Everdale School Brochure, This Magazine is about Schools 3, no. 2 (Spring 1969).

  38. 38.

    By the following year, enrolment had increased to thirty-three. “Those no-rule schools are staggering to success,” Toronto Daily Star (April 7, 1969): 7.

  39. 39.

    Gail Ashby, in discussion with author, March 29, 2014. John McGravey also taught at the school reported in “28 students off to Superschool,” The Globe and Mail, (September 3, 1968): 5.

  40. 40.

    Terry Edwards, “I came to Superschool because I was fed up,” Toronto Daily Star, (April 7, 1969): 7 (Edwards 1969).

  41. 41.

    Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Teacher (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963) (Ashton-Warner 1963).

  42. 42.

    George Martell, telephone interview by author, April 14, 1997.

  43. 43.

    George Martell, telephone interview by author, April 14, 1997.

  44. 44.

    Satu Repo, in discussion with author, March 25, 2014.

  45. 45.

    Satu Repo, ed., This Book is About Schools (New York: Random House, 1970) (Repo 1970).

  46. 46.

    William Johnson, “Festival of Alternatives in Education: 1,000 youths ‘bury’ the contemporary school system,” The Globe and Mail (May 9 1970): 5 (Johnson 1970).

  47. 47.

    Deborah Gorham, “The Ottawa New School and Educational Dissent in Ontario in the Hall-Dennis Era,” Historical Studies in Education 21, no. 2 (Fall, 2009). Another school with more structure was formed by some of the remaining parents (Gorham 2009).

  48. 48.

    James Anderson and Ted Ridley, Cool School: An Alternative Secondary School Experience (Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education, 1977). Original funding for Cool School came from a local hospital and an Opportunities for Youth grant in 1971. For Fairchild School, see Kirsh, Simon, and Levin, Directory of Canadian Alternative and Innovative Education, op. cit. (Anderson and Ridley 1977).

  49. 49.

    Malcolm Levin and Olga Dimitri refer to the “spirit of the sixties” as a motivating force in the establishment of alternative schools in Levin and Dimitri, “SEED Alumni Survey,” 1980 (Levin and Dimitri 1980).

  50. 50.

    Robert Stamp, The Schools of Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 217–218 (Stamp 1982).

  51. 51.

    Some educators opposed the government’s reform initiatives believing that the Hall–Dennis Report went too far. There were also critiques on the left. For example, This Magazine argued that the report’s Progressivism ignored the social class and racial discrimination of the schools reflected in the Trefann Mother’s brief. The magazine was also critical of the Davis plan to centralize the school system. George Martell, e-mail message to author, March 16, 2016.

  52. 52.

    Robert Stamp, The Schools of Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982): 219 (Stamp 1982).

  53. 53.

    Jane Gaskell and Ben Levin, Making A Difference in Urban Schools: Ideas, Politics, and Pedagogy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012): 74 (Gaskell and Levin 2012).

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 74–75. Other reform trustees were Doc Yip, Sheila Meagher, Penny Moss, and Pat Case. Reform trustees in the North York school district included Mel Shipman and Mae Waese.

  55. 55.

    Fiona Nelson made an eloquent case for alternative and community schools in her article, “Community Schools in Toronto: A Sign of Hope,” Canadian Forum (October/November 1972): 52–57 (Nelson 1972).

  56. 56.

    Dale Shuttleworth, Schooling for Life: Community Education and Social Enterprise (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010): 152 (Shuttleworth 2010).

  57. 57.

    Murray Shukyn, personal interview by author, March 26, 2014.

  58. 58.

    Dale Shuttleworth, Schooling for Life: Community Education and Social Enterprise (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010): 152 (Shuttleworth 2010).

  59. 59.

    See note 58 above.

  60. 60.

    Among the volunteer catalysts during the first year were university professors, other professionals, and social activists such as June Callwood.

  61. 61.

    Paul Shapiro (former student) personal interview by author, May 14, 2014.

  62. 62.

    Murray Shukyn, “Shared Experience, Exploration, and Discovery,” NASSP Bulletin 55, 355 (May 1971): 151 (Shukyn 1971).

  63. 63.

    Douglas Yip, SEED: A Preliminary Report (Toronto: Board of Education, Research Department, 1971), 8 (Yip 1971).

  64. 64.

    Loren Ruth Lerner, Canadian Film and Video: A Bibliography and Guide to the Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). And Paul Shapiro (former student) personal interview by author, May 14, 2014 (Lerner 1997).

  65. 65.

    Paul Shapiro (former student) personal interview by author, May 14, 2014. The route for the proposed Spadina Expressway went directly past the school.

  66. 66.

    Malcolm Levin, “What’s Alternative About Toronto’s Alternative Schools?” (September, 1984) (Levin 1984).

  67. 67.

    Dale Shuttleworth, personal interview by author, March 31, 2014 (Shuttleworth 2014).

  68. 68.

    Dale Shuttleworth, Schooling for Life: Community Education and Social Enterprise (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010): 157 (Shuttleworth 2010).

  69. 69.

    AISP and SEE were founded in 1971, and ASE in 1974. For more on these Metro Toronto schools, see Elizabeth Durno and Lesley Mang, Public Alternative Schools in Metro Toronto (Toronto: Learnxs Press, undated) (Durno and Mang 1978).

  70. 70.

    Dale Shuttleworth, Schooling for Life: Community Education and Social Enterprise (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010): 168 (Shuttleworth 2010).

  71. 71.

    According to Fiona Nelson, the major motivating force behind SEED as an ongoing program was the students themselves. Fiona Nelson, personal interview by author, April 1, 2014.

  72. 72.

    Mr. Shuttleworth has written widely about alternative schools and his experience as a school administrator in Toronto (see bibliography) and has contributed a chapter to this collection.

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  1. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Harley Rothstein

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  1. Harley Rothstein
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  1. Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Nina Bascia

  2. York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Esther Sokolov Fine

  3. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Malcolm Levin

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Rothstein, H. (2017). Private to Public: Alternative Schools in Ontario 1965–1975. In: Bascia, N., Fine, E., Levin, M. (eds) Alternative Schooling and Student Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54259-1_6

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