Introduction
The modern era of education is not the first to grapple with the question of how to make all students successful. Indeed, people have been concerned with improving the human condition through various forms of education since time out of mind; be it those of the Socratic tradition, the scholars of the Enlightenment or today's educators coping with the complications to education in our post industrial society. Certainly the question was one that occupied much of my father's professional life, as it now does mine.
The proposal and implementation of a Sheltered Classroom system of education at Rothesay Junior High School was an attempt by their staff to address this long standing question. What is interesting, for me, is the way that the system, at that time, allowed individuals to take significant initiatives with relatively little in the way of a safety net. To illustrate this, in several of our conversations on this matter my dad explained that the superintendent gave tacit approval for what was happening but the success or failure of the endeavor would be squarely placed on his shoulders.
Just to be clear, the philosophies associated with the Sheltered Classroom were in existence during the 1970's through writers like Robertson Davies and others. This essay is to specifically examine what a group of educators did with these ideas in a very specific environment. Like many of us that teach they may not have invented the wheel but they did examine and modify those wheels left to them by others. There were an interesting set of circumstances that all serendipitously occurred in such a way, as is so often the case, that this unique program came to pass.
Rothesay, New Brunswick in the 1970's was a rapidly growing bedroom community located about 20 minutes, pre-four lane highway, east of Saint John, New Brunswick. In the space of a few short years Rothesay Junior High, a school designed for approximately 375 pupils was dealing with approximately 585 students. While the superintendent and board scrambled to increase class space, something that would be several years in the making, with the building of Harry Miller Junior High on the land adjacent to the existing school; Rothesay Junior High adopted a split shift program, where half the students attended classes beginning at 7:45 am and the last students left the building at 4:45pm. This overlap of students and slight increase in staffing allowed for several unique things with respect to both the Sheltered Classroom as well as tutorial and literacy initiatives.
The information that will be used in the rest of this exploration is based on interviews as well as a document that was prepared by D. H. Gillmor for use by the Superintendent's Office for the purpose of approving the program initially.
**The documentation that I am referring to is a series of mimeographed sheets that I intend to scan and attach in the near future.**
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