500

here are 28 students visible in photo 3 with possibly more not in the photo which is more than the current cap in B.C. Perhaps class size was bigger in the fifties because of the teaching strategies used or the lack of students with high needs at that time. All of the students’ hands are in front of them which tells me that this was an expectation with which they are complying. Most of the students are either looking at the t.v. or at the teacher which tells me they are engaged in the lesson. The girls are wearing dresses while the boys are wearing pants and shirts which I interpret to mean that there were distinct gender roles in society at the time. The boys could’ve been more rough and tumble while the girls were cautious and neat. They were probably raised to fill different roles as adults like stay at home moms and working dads. Because all the boys have short hair, and the girls have longer hair, I think that they lived in a conservative society with traditional norms. The students are not always sitting beside someone of the same gender. Perhaps there was assigned seating which means that the teacher needed to control their behaviour somewhat. I assume that the students didn’t need many visuals to keep their attention since the classroom walls seem bare. The children obviously didn’t need a lot of stimulation. Perhaps this means people weren’t regularly bombarded with visuals in their daily life like billboards, commercials, etc. Because the teachers removed the desks to allow students to sit in chairs, I am led to believe that the students were sitting for a long period of time. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go through the hassle of doing that. This suggests that the students were able to concentrate for a long period of time. Maybe it was because of the technology which holds the attention of many of our youth today or because of their ability to focus. The children were all caucasian which I interpret to mean there was not a lot of cultural diversity in Calgary at that time. People must not’ve done a lot of travelling or air travel wouldn’t have been accessible to everyone. If there were other ethnicities around, the children didn’t go to the same school. These documents are important to analyze because they show a glimpse into education and childhood of my parent’s generation. From looking at the differences between their childhood experiences and mine, I can better understand their point of view on certain topics like how to raise my child. Considering I work with some teachers who are my parents age, I see why it would be harder for them to embrace 21rst century teaching methods and technology because it is a very different approach compared to how they were taught.