This talk will examine how teachers were professionalized and regulated, beginning in 1876, and explore the development of the teaching organization that became the NLTA in the context of the political and social debates over the purpose of education and the place of churches in education. Teachers came to take on significant roles in government and developed complex relationships with the denominations who controlled the terms of their certification and employment. This talk will consider how power shifted in 1973 with unionization and the role the NLTA and teachers played in instigating large scale reform of the denominational system in the 1990s. Developments relating to teacher activism reflected Canadian trends but also demonstrated nuanced local realities shaped by the province’s unique denominational/public education system.
Watch the lecture at: From Collective Begging to Collective Bargaining