The Legacy of Learning: A View of Public Education's Contribution to British Columbia's Development"

Dr. Ron Faris

Take from the Alter of the Past, the Fire, Not the Ashes

Jean Jaures

 The reality for many people reading this essay may well be like that of myself - they are the first in their family to have the opportunity to attend a post-secondary institution. While today we in Canada take universal public education for granted, mass public education has existed in most leading nations for just over an hundred years. In too many other countries universal education is still a dream. In Canada provision of elementary education was initially undertaken in the 19th Century and opportunities for public post-secondary education were gradually made available to the economic and intellectual elites by the 20th century. As we reinvent the means of public learning in the emerging knowledge-based society, a social historical perspective of the struggle for public education in Canada ought to be of interest.

     A generation of citizen-soldiers returned from the First World War with a new consciousness of nationhood and social justice. Social movements, such as trade unions and co-operatives, arose dedicated to the ideals of economic democracy and social justice. Their survival depended upon an educated membership and they used new adult education methods such as discussion groups, and novel techniques like radio to reach new audiences and transmit the notion of education for social action. Nowhere was this philosophy more evident than in the rural Nova Scotia, where St. Francis Xavier University was the base for the Antigonish Movement - a social movement dedicated to community and economic development through co-operative self-help. Its vision was stated by Moses Coady, a leader whose views influenced adult educators across the nation:

"We have no desire to create a nation of shopkeepers, whose only thoughts run to groceries and to dividends. We want our men to look into the sun, and into the depths of the sea. We want them to explore the hearts of flowers and the hearts of their fellow men, We want them to live, to love, to play and pray with all their being. We want them to be men, whole men eager to explore all the avenues of life and to obtain perfection in all their faculties. Life for them shall not be in terms of merchandising but in terms of all that is good and beautiful, be it economic, political, social, cultural or spiritual. They are the heirs of all the ages and all the riches yet concealed. All the findings of science and philosophy are theirs. All the creations of art and literature are for them. If they are wise they will create the instruments to obtain them. They will usher in the new day by attending to the blessings of the old. They will use what they have to secure what they have not."

Moses Coady, Masters of Their Own Destiny, 1939

The adult education movement is based on the belief that quite ordinary men and women have within themselves and their communities the spiritual and intellectual resources adequate to the solution of their own problems. Through lack of knowledge and leadership these resources are often not mobilized or not directed in constructive ways. The primary tasks of adult education, therefore, are to awaken people to the possibilities and dangers of modern life, to help them with knowledge and leadership, and to provide channels of communication between different cultural, occupational and social groups so that the solution of human problems may be sought against the broadest background and in the interests of all. In short, the task is the imaginative training for citizenship.

     With the return of veterans, many of whom had previously had neither the chance nor the motivation to go on to post-secondary education, an older and non-traditional wave of students, supported by federal grants, obtained a university education.⁷ As in the US, with its GI bill, the seeds of a significantly larger middle class were sown - thanks to mass free post-secondary education - a largely unanticipated and overlooked consequence of an exceptional social policy.

     For over twenty years after the Second World War the federal government provided significant funding for vocational-technical training and post-secondary education and research. An infrastructure of colleges was created in provinces like Ontario thanks to this largesse, but in British Columbia the provincial government, intent on building highways in some parts of the province, refused to join in a federal/provincial educational partnership. Importing a skilled workforce rather than training British Columbians was the shortsighted policy of the day. Little wonder that by the late 1980's BC was tied with Newfoundland for 10th and last in terms of post-secondary participation rates!

     Ironically the weak provincial government commitment to post-secondary education in British Columbia served to unwittingly provide one unanticipated blessing when finally an American social invention⁸ - comprehensive community colleges - challenged government planners and educational leaders who were aware of increased pressure for greater access to post-secondary education, particularly in non-metropolitan areas.

     By the early 1960's it was apparent that some action must be taken. A report by John B. MacDonald, then President of the University of British Columbia, entitled Higher Education in British Columbia and a Plan for the Future became the catalyst for action. MacDonald toured the province and at meetings and in personal interviews gauged the thirst for increased access to a full range of post-school educational offerings in rural BC. Published in 1962 the Report, which was the product of MacDonald's personal initiative, recommended creation of a college system on the California model. It resulted in legislation amending the Public Schools Act to enable groups of school districts to combine to form a college, subject to referenda to ensure community support and local accountability.

     The first college in BC was formed by the Vancouver School Board in 1965 (to be known as Vancouver Community College). Between 1965 and 1971 eight more community colleges were established. Five were created in what were then chiefly rural areas:

1.Selkirk College (1966) 2. Okanagan College (1968)
3. College of New Caledonia (1969)
4. Malaspina College (1969)
5. Cariboo College (1970)

Three were developed in largely urban areas:

1. Capilano (1968)
2. Douglas College (1970)
3. Camosun College (1971)

In 1974 Fraser Valley College was created, and in 1975 four more colleges were developed to serve in chiefly rural, and remote regions: Northern Lights, Northwest, East Kootenay, and North Island.

     I had the privilege of working with the Task Force that in 1973-74 was asked to clarify college roles and to recommend changes in legislation leading to a Community College Act, as well as steps by which college services could be extended to all areas of the Province. Gary Dickinson and Leo Perra were among the very dedicated and able Task Force members - as was a wonderful and unforgettable prophet of the college movement, Frank Beinder.

     Frank had been, among other community roles, Chairman of the Trail School Board and later Selkirk College, President of the BC School Trustees Association, and President of the BC Chamber of Commerce. One of Frank's constant asides during and after the Task Force process was about the "donkeys" who would not or could not understand the deeper democratic values of what he saw as a college social movement.

     The only time I heard Frank complain of our arduous Task Force travel was when he and I were seated, facing each other, in a Beaver float plane heading for Ocean Falls, one of our 100 hearings in some 63 locations attended by three thousand citizens.⁹ Frank was determined to take photos of our journey and therefore had his camera slung around his neck. Thus, when we hit a gut-wrenching air pocket an indelible scene was enacted. First I saw Frank's camera float in the air and then I heard Frank's English-accented voice produce a cry from the heart, "My God, what am I doing here!" What he was doing was what he and thousands of other British Columbians who cared about their communities were doing - collaborating to build a college movement in which lifelong learning and community capacity-building were at the heart of their vision.

     Towards the learning community, the 1974 Task Force Report, begins its discussion of the nature of the community college by asserting that:

"Learning is a natural and necessary human activity that should not and cannot be confined to formal educational institutions. It is a life-long process which occurs in the real-life situations of the community as well as in educational facilities. A fundamental purpose of a community college, therefore, is to provide learning opportunities and encourage learning throughout the wider community as well as within college walls."

     Among the most important Task Force recommendations that the government incorporated into draft legislation was that the community colleges would "engage in Community Education Development Services to assist communities in identifying, assessing, and meeting their needs." The colleges were to actively assist individuals and organizations in promoting "a greater sense of community and developing community resources." - a social animation role. The draft legislation died with the demise of the government in 1975.

     The ever-feisty Frank Beinder, in 1983 - in a period when education generally and community colleges specifically were under severe financial cutbacks and central control (a Ministry edict had informed colleges that they were no longer "community colleges" but rather regional) - was Executive Director of the BC Association of Colleges. At that time of "restraint" he wrote a booklet on The Community College in British Columbia: The Emphasis is on Community. In it he shared his vision:

" The community college in British Columbia represents the crystallization of a dream of service to people. It is something more than and different from the old community of scholars concept of higher education. It represents an idea of dynamic involvement of the total community. It was seen as an entity subservient to no other institution. It was not to be an extension of the public school, nor a mini-university. It was a social invention, whole and legitimate in its own right designed to solve a particular problem created by a highly complex society."

In referring to the 1974 College Report, Frank noted that:

"The Task Force was impressed by the evidence that isolated communities don't exist only on the islands and inlets of our north-west coast or in the northern part of our province. There are pockets of isolation on the borders and in the far reaches of some of our most populous regions.

Sometimes there is more involved than mere geographic isolation. There is isolation resulting from inadequate income, from educational deprivation and insufficient training, from racial prejudice and from being the product of an inadequate home environment.

In these uneasy economic times, sophisticated critics are heard to say with increasing frequency that colleges are educational institutions, not welfare agencies. The responsible and far-sighted response is that wherever we can, through education and the instilling of knowledge and understanding, inspire new life, new hope and a capacity to share the wonder of the human family, our community colleges have a mission."

     Frank held strong British Liberal values and therefore bridled at critics who criticized those who spoke of a college "movement"¹⁰ . He conceded that

"…there truly was an element of missionary concern in what they did. They were clearly concerned with the life chances of people. That's missionary business."

"We all drink from wells that others have dug"

Arab saying

Some Future Challenges

     A host of challenges exist as we build upon the best of the legacy of public learning. Some are long-standing issues while others are novel but important concerns about how new knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of learners (both educators and students) can be mobilized to enhance learning inside and outside college walls - largely in collaboration with partners from civic, public, economic and voluntary/community sectors.

False dichotomies

     Perhaps one of the greatest obstacles to sharing our public legacy of learning has been the traditional and out-moded view of education that dominates so much of our thought and action. It is a paradigm based on the false dichotomy between education and training that has led to such follies as the creation of separate ministries for each, and promoted the view that academic learning is prestigious and valued, while vocational training is not. It is reflected in dichotomous thinking about the mental and the physical, and the cognitive and the affective learning domains. It has caused some to speak of resource-based versus knowledge-based industries, as if highly skilled tasks are performed only in offices and not in modern mills or value-added enterprises. Fundamentally, it has ignored the fact that, as Alan Thomas noted, "Education and training float on a sea of learning."¹¹

Lifelong Learning for All - A Common Good

     It is the recognition, valuing, and celebration of learning in all its forms - formal, non-formal, and informal - whether in the home, the community, the college or at work that enables investment in learning as a common and public good. Learning is both an individual activity and a social process that occurs throughout one's life. Many of the most important things we learn are with or from others. Learning is also a seamless process by which we all can learn to better perform our roles as active citizens, effective parents and family members, productive workers and informed consumers, and creative learners.

     Learning is a social-historical process. It has taken our species many millennia to achieve the measure of progress that many enjoy in the industrialized world. Our progress has been slow, costly and uneven. How many men have died agonizing deaths on battlefields, how many women have suffered and died while giving birth - before we have gained new medical skills or drugs that have benefited humanity? History is replete with examples of scientists who have been imprisoned and/or killed for expressing unpopular views, while instructors of earlier generations lost their jobs or their lives for criticizing the political or economic elite of their day. Yet we seem too often to forget the price which others have paid for our legacy of public education and learning.

Options for Learning Within the Public System

     Perhaps the most serious current challenge facing those who support the public provision of learning opportunities is found within the education establishment itself. Administrative convenience, coupled with a lack of social imagination have led some educational "leaders" to maintain a formal system that too often has been neither learning nor learner-centred. A centralized and bureaucratic education system with institutional and financial obstacles to access and learner progress is perhaps more efficient but it is increasingly indefensible as learners seek more options within the framework of the public education system. With practical imagination, new learning partnership models such as the learning community/learning village concept developing in several BC communities can be the incubators for a host of experiential learning approaches.¹² Such approaches include service-learning, development of new social and economic co-operatives, modern apprenticeships, and pre-natal to pre-school initiatives and involve the local colleges or university colleges in new forms of partnership with local civic, private, public and voluntary organizations.

A Global/Cross-Cultural Perspective

     Today there are many third world countries in which access to a sustained basic education is unavailable, particularly for females. In over half the world access to public post-secondary education is unattainable for all but a relatively small elite. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that the gap is widening between the rich and poor, educated and undereducated, within and among more and more nations. At the very time in which the popular rhetoric is about a global knowledge-based society, the reality is of increasing disparity and impoverishment and exclusion for hundreds of millions.

     As BC becomes an even richer ethnic and cultural mosaic, it is important to note the contributions of many non-Anglo Saxon traditions, including the:

• knowledge/ecological insights of First Nations elders
• rich tradition of learning and invention of Chinese scholars
• Islamic scientific and artistic achievements

If we are wise, we will draw upon the insights and thought, knowledge and learning of all Canadians, the oldest and the newest.

     In our province, with its linguistic and cultural diversity, the potential for dynamic cross-cultural learning in our public education system is possibly unparalleled. Such a culture gives British Columbia a comparative advantage in a 21st Century global economy where international familial links and multi-lingual skills are a competitive edge.

     Those of us who have participated in the community college movement know the "twin impostors" - victory and defeat. Our objectives were clear. "What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all"- knowledge for the people, lifelong learning for all. The worldwide struggle is fundamentally just and ceaseless.

     Today we fight for social inclusion and community development via new means - learning communities (geographic, institutional, and virtual), community service-learning, new forms of experiential and cognitive learning - all topics of Kaleidoscope 2000. We can draw upon the values, principles, and inspiration of the pioneers of a movement who knew how precious the public legacy of learning truly is. We can build upon this legacy to nurture the community links and partnerships that will be crucial for the future of public post-secondary learning systems and the communities they serve.

As for the future, your task is not to fore-see but to enable

Antoine de Sainte-Expurey, French author/pilot