Courtesy
By Guy Rex Rodgers
Local Journalism Initiative
The past really is a strange place. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to visit it in the company of Quebecers who started school here between the Second World War and Bill 101 in 1977. They have been sharing stories about their education experience as part of a research project I am conducting.
Most of us know that before Quebec began transitioning to linguistic schools in 1997, we had denominational school boards based on religion. However, I spoke to one man who attended English Protestant school in Rosemount during the 60s but didn’t realize until middle age that his school had been ‘denominational.’ It had simply been the local school where ‘everybody’ went.
Other people have vivid memories of religion and education. Quebec’s French Catholic school system began turning away immigrants in large numbers after the Second World War. This was partly because the Baby Boom filled schools to the rafters, and partly because record numbers of immigrants arrived, although the English Protestant and English Catholic systems succeeded in integrating large numbers of immigrant children while struggling to manage their own Baby Booms.
It is an established fact that French Catholic schools did not accept non-Catholics. Thousands of Jewish students were sent to the English Protestant system. It is also an established fact that French Catholic schools did not accept Protestants, which included Greek students, although Orthodox theology was closer to Catholicism than any form of Protestantism. It is not an established fact – indeed it is still highly controversial – that French Catholic schools turned away thousands of Catholic students because they were immigrants.
A tidal wave of Italians arrived in Quebec after the Second World War and, according to available data, the percentage of Italian students who attended English schools grew from 25% (1941) to 75% (1971). What was going on? School records shed no light on whether Italians were increasingly attracted to English schools or increasingly turned away from French schools. That is one of the reasons we are conducting research.
A woman whose parents fought to get her into a French Catholic school was shocked that all the teachers were nuns. Back in 1950s Italy, the education system employed professionally trained lay teachers. Her parents moved her to an English Catholic school so she could get more education and less religion. Another woman remained in a French Catholic school but founded the constant emphasis on religion disturbing. She told a strange story about a nun who died, and then her mortal remains were exposed in the school for a week.
A number of Jewish students who arrived from French-speaking countries tried to get into French Catholic schools but were turned away. If there are any exceptions to this ‘rule’ I would love to speak to them. In the meantime, I am happy to speak to students who followed the familiar path of enrolling in the English Protestant and English Catholic systems.
One aspect of the education story unfamiliar to me was the French section within the Protestant school system. Originally it was created for a smaller number of Huguenots, but during the 1960s French-speaking immigrants from the Maghreb arrived in Quebec. Turned away from the French Catholic system, many enrolled in French Protestant schools. They were followed by Haitian immigrants who were also Francophone but not Catholic. The French Protestant system grew to be quite large. This is a particularly interesting and little known part of Quebec’s byzantine education system. I would like to speak to more people who experienced the French Protestant educational environment.
The unintended consequence of creating so many alternate forms of education was that untold numbers of students were educated in English (Protestant and Catholic), and growing numbers were educated in the French Protestant system. This left the majority of Catholic French-speakers segregated and isolated. Everything changed in 1977 when the PQ hastily implemented Bill 101. All immigrants, even English-speakers, had to attend French schools.
Educators trained to teach Francophone children suddenly found their classes filling with immigrant children whom they could not understand, and who could not understand them. Classes d’accueil were only implemented later. “They didn’t teach us French. They taught us math IN French, and we couldn’t understand anything!” It was brutal, like emergency surgery without anesthetic. Many of the guinea pig children of Bill 101 still bear the scars.
This is a complex story that can only be understood through lived experiences. If you were educated in Quebec – in any of the school systems: English, French, Catholic or Protestant – please take a few minutes to fill out the Quebec School Question survey via this link. http://tiny.cc/QSQ