File: mcquaidjenny-oh-consolidation_M.mp3
Speakers
JM — Jenny O'Hanley McQuaid
KP — Curator Ken Perlman
KP: When did they go from the old district schools — And I guess every community is actually a school district — Is that the way it works out?
JM: Yes. Every little community…
KP: Monticello, Naufrage?
JM: Goose River — Monticello School, and there's Goose River to the west, St. Margaret's School…
KP: Right. So all the signs you see on the road are school districts?
JM: Yeah. Selkirk was — Armadale School but it's in the Selkirk area. Schools were about, uh, I guess four, five miles apart, five miles apart. You'd have a school about every five miles.
KP: When did they go to the consolidated schools?
JM: I think early 1960s. You see there was some — Consolidation, it didn't all happen, really all at once. There were some schools who were, in some areas. Unit Four was in first, I think as a consolidated area.
KP: Where was that?
JM: That would be the Eastern Kings area. I think that was the first to be consolidated.
KP: What do you think the effect was on fiddling and the traditional culture, of the school consolidation?
JM: Well, I think consolidation had an effect on everything. I don't know [if it was] a "chicken and egg" situation or not. But I'm saying that…
KP: You're saying it's just one of a number of…
JM: It's one of a number of factors I think. But school — But it certainly did have a lot of ramifications for — Where parents or people had — It was their school and where they worked together to raise funds or to get something for it. You had cohesiveness in a community where parents did care if the school was warm, or they'd see that there'd be wood there and they cared that they got home, that everybody got home on a stormy day. And whoever didn't have a horse and sleigh would — The person with the horse and sleigh would see to it that these kids would get home. That — Caring for each other and knowing one another. If they weren't in school today, well, you knew very well why they weren't there. The word was around: they were sick or had measles or something. I mean you had all that instant feedback about everybody. And what was wrong or what was wrong at home or all that. And if there was a death in the community, school closed. And it just had that sense of I guess, family. And if you got people together who knew one another well enough that they'd dare to sit down and jig and talk and tune. I mean you got to know somebody fairly well before you sit down and display your talents to them. (laughs) All that would be gone by the wayside once you'd get into a consolidated school, where kids get in with more urbanite people, village people. They would probably be dressed differently or better and would have talked differently, and would seemingly be sitting on top of the world with their fancy books and school bags and all the rest. So, you know, it would have that — I'm sure a lot of the people who went from little schools to areas where kids had been used to larger things, I'm sure it had that kind of influence. It would probably — In some instances, with some kids it may make them more proud of their situation, you know. It could make them note their uniqueness. But probably, I think in a lot of areas, when you see that kind of [inaudible], I think that the less vocal minority would probably recede a little bit I think. And, "Just let George do everything; let the big shots handle the schools and education, and so on. We don't have a voice, we can't talk, and we can't…" So you would see them not going to meetings and — Yeah I think it just turned out, "Well OK, education's in the hands of whoever and we'll just try to have our focal point in some other area." But I'd say, school consolidation had that effect that, the little local idiosyncrasies about music and dancing and so on, were — I don't think they were on the go as much. I don't think they were portrayed. Maybe kids didn't even like them as well. Perhaps kids preferred the other. And the structure would be so different. You see the bells and so on — You just had — They went on buses, they had to leave; you had maybe a half hour for lunch in order to get home, and going from class to class. There's just no time in that structured education. Whereas at noon hour in our schools, well we didn't move anywhere, didn't go anywhere. We were in the same room; when we ate our lunch and tuned and sang while we ate. We were all sitting around in one area. And, if you went over an hour for lunch, well it didn't matter greatly. I mean, you could always get a ten minute extension or something like that. Just had the atmosphere that consolidated schools wouldn't lend itself to anything: only army-type regimentation, and that's about all of it.