Prairie Classroom, 1915

Introduction

This is a black and white photograph of Prairie classroom at Bruderheim, Alberta. Prairie schools were to be the vehicles by which immigrants would be assimilated (courtesy Glenbow Archives, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/history-of-education/). I chose this photograph for my analysis assignment because this photograph has many things to look upon and ponder. This photograph was taken in 1915 which shows a scene of the classroom where students and teachers are posing for the photo, various portraits, flags, surround them and other classroom properties which depict different things regarding the classroom/school conditions of that time period. By looking at the photograph, it is possible to make the conjecture about not only the physical scenario of the classroom but also the psychological and emotional overlook of students and teacher in the photo.

Analysis

This photograph depicts that this school was a property of Englishmen as the flags hanging on the wall is of British. We do not have any information about the photographer of this document but by judging the entire scenario of the photograph, it looks like it is taken by a newspaper reporter because as it seems that all the people in the photograph are arranged and groomed well before taking it or it might be taken in the first hour of the school or it could be just a class photo. Reporters might be supposed to print good about the school system and might be answerable to English officers. The portraits on the wall on each side of flags could be the king and queen of British. Looking at the arrangement of students standing in the photograph, the class does not look like inclusive one because the boys and girls are standing separately which shows that there might be a problem of gender discrimination. All the boys in the photo are wearing the black suit except one boy who is differently dressed than others which indicates that he might be related to any British official and hence getting special treatment as he stands in front as a class representative. As the teacher is not standing in the gap between two groups, he seems like not having affection towards his students and it seems like the students were not emotionally attached to their teacher. It also tells us about the teacher as an authority figure who had ultimate responsibilities and powers to control discipline according to his own expectations. As I extracted this photograph from the above-mentioned website, I found out from there that the students in the photograph are immigrants. Although they were provided with the neat and clean school environment, these immigrant students might be kept under strict conditions in school. There might be a reason behind assigning the male teacher to the class to keep the students under pressure of strict rules because female teachers could be more emotional towards children that could have made the situation different and not as the officials’ expectations. This photo gives a clear idea about students’ ratio of boys and girls in a classroom as the number of boys are more than the number of girls in the classroom. Although it looks like everything was in favor of Englishmen as they were on the ruling side, education for the immigrant students was totally free and compulsory. This compulsion to attend school might have created a sense of fear among students as the teacher for not attending school regularly might punish them.

Bibliography

GAFFIELD, CHAD. “History of Education in Canada.” Http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. July 15, 2013. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/history-of-education/.

Prairie Classroom (1915), Glenbow Archives, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/history-of-education/.