Mahone Bay Old School_A Life and Times_Bob Sayer

Classrooms, Teachers and Grades
• The eighth classroom was not used till the early 1930s, when principal H.V.
Corkum persuaded the Board to add a teacher as a step to establishing grade 12.
• The Library-Lab was actually a common, open, area upstairs, sometimes
used for partial assemblies.
Mixed Grades, Text Books, Tests and Examinations
From these early days, through to the 1950s and early 60s, teaching and
learning was rigidly text book-based with lots of tests, reading, memorizing
and regurgitating. From grade four and five upwards, the year was divided
into three or four terms with exams and marks at the end of each term.
Fred Mosher’s Letters give us a very precise layout of classroom locations,
grades and teachers in these early years. In 1914-15 he entered grade five,
and in 1921-22 he graduated from grade 11. He repeated grade nine. Grades
primary to four were on the first floor.
Grade[s] in Room Teacher Classroom Location
4 & 5 Pearl Keddy front left, first floor
6 & 7 Alice Veinotte front right, second
floor-“upstairs”
8 & 9 Muriel Bruhm front left, second floor
8 & 9 Clara Quinlan same room
10 & 11 G. V. Jacques/ E. H. Langille back left, second floor.
Spare Room
back right, second floor
Of the ‘ New School’ Fred wrote: ‘..My first room was on the left and bottom.
Teacher was Pearl Keddy….The grades were 4 & 5. From there we went upstairs
front right windows,..Teacher little Alice Veinotte…her home was the little home
west of Abdou Younis store….
Leaving Alice, we went across the hall, top left, to grades 8 & 9....teacher was
June’s [Fred future wife] cousin, Muriel Bruhm from Oakland.
Oh, but grade nine was dear Clara Quinlan!…Grades 10 & 11 were in back of 8 &
9…… The other room, back of 6 & 7 was never used in my time.’
• The tradition had started. The younger grades would be on the first floor,
And “going upstairs” to join the big kids was to be a big deal.
Mixed Grade Class Rooms
• At the new school there were 11 grades [grade 12 was not offered.] It was in
Lunenburg and Bridgewater]. Entrance to College/University with grade 11
was common.
• There were seven departments [classroom teachers, including the principal].
So most rooms had two grades. The principal taught grades 10 and 11.
The 1917 Annual Meeting Discusses “Double Grading”
Two grades [more in small rural schools] in one classroom was an
organizational challenge for the teacher and a concern for parents and
educators. At the March 5/1917 annual meeting of ratepayers, the minutes
record the following:
‘It was then moved by the Rev. Mr. Nelson and seconded by Mr. W. Zwicker that the
meeting direct the school board to inquire into the double grading system. After
some discussion in which the opinion of the meeting seemed pretty well divided,
the motion was carried.
Unfortunately, the details of the discussion are not recorded in principal
Bissett’s minutes. The problem was practical. Enrolment in some grades did
not justify one teacher per grade. So each year decisions were made based
on enrolments. Inevitably this meant lack of equity-some big classes, some
smaller. Some unhappy teachers and parents! Some much happier!
The ‘Departments’ for the following September were planned in June. The
following arrangement, with teachers salaries, was made for 1917 - ‘18.
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