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#Part 1 – The Final Reunion - 3 June 2000
Starting from the "Final Midland Reunion" of June 3, 2000, I started to enquire into the causes and consequences of the announced closure of my old high school - Midland Avenue Collegiate Institute in south-central Scarborough, Ontario. Talks with Rick Scofield, city historian, Bob Gidney and Wyn Miller, education researchers, old friends Sharon Thurston and Pat Hipgrave, teachers and former classmates Cal Francis and Brian Sanbourne, and my dear, departed friend Doug Hart start us off on this journey of 40 years of existence and service to the community.
Starting from the "Final Midland Reunion" of June 3, 2000, I started to enquire into the causes and consequences of the announced closure of my old high school - Midland Avenue Collegiate Institute in south-central Scarborough, Ontario. Talks with Rick Scofield, city historian, Bob Gidney and Wyn Miller, education researchers, old friends Sharon Thurston and Pat Hipgrave, teachers and former classmates Cal Francis and Brian Sanbourne, and my dear, departed friend Doug Hart start us off on this journey of 40 years of existence and service to the community.
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ÉducationTranscription
00:00My family moved to West Scarborough when I was 10.
00:30We first lived in a bungalow here on Glenshepard Drive just beside the Montreal train tracks.
00:43I started school in grade 6 at Walter Perry Public School on the other side of Danforth.
00:52Things must have been tough for my parents.
00:54My dad was a bricklayer and building subcontractor, immigrating from England.
00:59Bricklaying was a pretty seasonal activity even in Toronto.
01:03We'd just spent a year in Saskatoon following the advice the Canadian government was giving
01:06to immigrants in the building trade.
01:09It had been lousy advice.
01:15As for my mother, she'd worked part-time in England, but here she found herself having
01:19to work a full 40-hour week on the harbour front at a time when the transport system wasn't
01:23nearly as good as it is today.
01:26It's only now that I realise how exhausting all this must have been and where some of
01:30the frayed tempers in our family came from.
01:34Anyway, I started grade 7 and we moved from the bungalow to what must have been a lower
01:39rent apartment above the smoke shop on Nob Hill Plaza on Eglinton.
01:44Daycaps Variety, 40 years ago Bob's Smoke Shop, not a hell of an evolution.
01:54The plaza looks pretty much the same also.
01:56Some of the shop names haven't changed, others are a bit more exotic, but otherwise it's still
02:01the same ugly example of No Frills Canadian commercial building.
02:09Having a friends over to a back terrace under the phone lines wasn't as much fun as having
02:12your own backyard, so when they could, my parents moved out again.
02:19We found a house to rent back on Glen Shepherd.
02:22My brother and I stayed at the same school, we each had our own bedroom, and by the time
02:26I started grade 9 they were talking about buying the place.
02:33They eventually did, and on the left is the bedroom window I looked out of all the way
02:37through high school up to the end of my BA.
02:40What I didn't realize then was that we were part of a whole demographic movement, even
02:45more, of a big upheaval of change in the society, in the city, in the education system.
02:52Rick Schofield of the Scarborough Archives told me about it.
02:55What can you tell me about the evolution of the demographics of the area, the Cashman
02:58area that Midland drew its students from?
03:01The area was initially established about 1920s as an extension of Scarborough Junction.
03:09It was called Kitchener Park, and there were a lot of houses that were built on both sides
03:14of Midland Avenue between 1925 and 1950.
03:21Very small houses on small lots.
03:25Not well to do people, but people who nonetheless wanted to live in single family houses as opposed
03:31to living in downtown where apartments were starting to be, you know, three, four story
03:36walk ups were being built.
03:38So there was a core group of people living in that area from about 1923 on.
03:47The name Kitchener Park conjures up memories.
03:50We often crossed it with my friend Doug coming back from school.
03:54He lived in one of those small wood-frame houses Rick talks about on the other side of the park.
03:59His mother still lives there.
04:01Scarborough at that time primarily looked after the elementary schools.
04:07There was an elementary school in that area called Kitchener Park.
04:10It was a small one-room school that housed the children from that subdivision.
04:15And the high school children initially left Scarborough to get their education.
04:20Immediately after the war, there was a beginning of amalgamation of the rural school boards.
04:28And in 1954, the Scarborough Board of Education was established.
04:32At that point in time, it was decided that more secondary schools were necessary.
04:36So they split the R.H. King community up, built David Mary Thompson Collegiate, and then in 1962, Midland.
04:44This is Eglinton Avenue.
04:46This is Midland Avenue.
04:50And you are looking east, about 1952.
04:57Okay, so we can see that north of Eglinton is still farm.
05:00Yeah, north of Eglinton, which is this area here, is all farmland.
05:03And this area down here is the Kitchener Park area.
05:07Okay, in this picture, this is Eglinton Avenue here.
05:10This is the railway tracks that is midway between Midland Avenue and Kennedy.
05:15And over here is Midland Avenue.
05:17This is the original Kitchener Park subdivision that was constructed in the 1930s and 40s, prior to the Second World War.
05:24This is a more recent subdivision that was constructed in the early 50s.
05:29This picture is taken in, I believe, about 1956 or 58.
05:35This area here, which is a large empty field at this time, is where Midland Avenue Collegiate is today.
05:42Midland Avenue Collegiate was the school I went to from 62 to 66, grades 10 to 13.
05:48We were grateful when it opened.
05:51Before that, we'd had to walk the mile and something to and from Thompson Collegiate on Lawrence every day.
05:58Midland was a new school, with a great auditorium, wide corridors, bright cafeteria.
06:03Later, a swimming pool was added on.
06:06It had well-equipped commercial and tech wings, going with the highly streamed and segregated education of the time.
06:12And it was big.
06:13Very big.
06:14Even today, the massive brick walls look down like some fortified cathedral onto the racetrack and sports field.
06:27Bob Gidney and Wynn Miller, education historians, talked to me about the movement of the time from their point of view and as teachers.
06:34The context of the massive building program that took place in the 50s and 60s, it happens for several reasons.
06:45One is simply demography.
06:48Ontario and most of Canada, I mean, most of the Western world had some kind of baby boom in the years after the war.
06:55Canada had one of the highest rates of birth anywhere in the Western world, from very late 40s to the very early 60s.
07:01And Ontario, of course, as the big industrial province, experienced just massive growth in terms of its population during those two, two and a half crucial decades, from roughly, from 1947 or 48 through to about 65.
07:18And so that under any circumstances, there would have had to be massive school building going on right across the province.
07:29And at the very same time, of course, you have the urbanization of Ontario, very rapid urbanization.
07:35And, of course, the rate of urbanization is highest in the greater Toronto era, which, in the 50s and 60s, meant what are now called the inner suburbs, Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke.
07:48So there's the demographic effect.
07:50It's called the baby boom itself.
07:52Secondly, there is the policy decision to keep all our kids in school, high school, which puts tremendous pressure for high school expansion.
08:00Then the third factor is individual parents and kids, and particularly working class parents and kids, making the decision that even though I don't have to stay in school beyond 16,
08:13we want our kids to stay in school until they finish and go on and have opportunities.
08:18And the classic phrase that I was raised with, to have opportunities that we never had ourselves.
08:23So there's tremendous pressure on the high schools, and, not surprisingly, in an era where we've got a booming economy,
08:32where we not only got pressures on the schools, but we can afford to build those schools, schools get built.
08:38When you think of the stats, 1945-1946, Scarborough has one single high school, Scarborough Collegiate Institute, which becomes R.H. King.
08:49Four high schools, four high schools in 1956, seven and 61, right?
08:57Now, 1969, it's got 17 high schools, right?
09:031972, it's got 20.
09:06So what are we looking at?
09:07We're looking at 13 new high schools in less than 15, 11 years.
09:13That's a staggering expansion.
09:14We both taught 64 to 66, and we just had to walk into the teacher hiring, and they would say,
09:22OK, I want you.
09:23And so you got your job first, and you said to them, well, my wife wants a job, too.
09:30I said, oh, OK, walk me over here.
09:33We'll take you there.
09:33So I went to West Hill.
09:34And the other thing about them was the staffs were young.
09:37This was very young staff.
09:39The average teaching experience in Scarborough in the mid-60s was two years.
09:44We thought the department heads were old.
09:46The department heads were probably 35.
09:49My bet is, I wouldn't want to guarantee you this, but at Wilburne, I would bet that Sheila,
09:56your head, she was 28.
09:58Which was a very different experience from the 80s, because by that time, the whole thing
10:04had frozen, right?
10:04That's right, absolutely.
10:06So the staffs get older and older and older, right from this period on.
10:10And, of course, the experience rate goes up.
10:12But, of course, as the experience rate goes up, so does the gap between the teachers and
10:17students, and so does the burnout rate.
10:21Right.
10:21So, I mean, everybody's talking about retiring.
10:23Every time I talk to a teacher who's got my age, they're all talking about retiring.
10:26Oh, absolutely.
10:28Absolutely.
10:31Bob and Wynne were not the only people to remind me of the euphoria of education expansion in
10:35the 60s.
10:36Many of my classmates finished up in education.
10:40Pat Hipgrave went on to become an English teacher at the school she had left only four
10:44years before.
10:46Sharon Thurston, another ex-classmate, also did her BA in teacher training and joined the
10:51education system.
10:51When I filmed them in the winter of 2001, they were both on the verge of retiring.
10:57I guess the thing that I remember, or that now I value, is that there were people there
11:04who understood adolescence and could provide an opportunity for adolescence to grow and
11:11to be who they are.
11:12And I remember one time, I guess maybe in high school it was an opportunity to learn to stand
11:18up for your rights and object to things.
11:22Maybe this is part of the teenage rebellion and maybe it was just part of the 60s.
11:26But I can remember one time being very indignant about a teacher we had who we really did not
11:33feel was a very good teacher, and especially because we'd had a teacher the previous year
11:39for the same subject who had been absolutely superb.
11:42And I remember marching myself into the office and insisting that I would see the vice principal
11:47or principal and just laying out what I thought and being given the freedom to do that.
11:56And that's, I think, what sometimes people don't appreciate about high school teachers.
12:00They have to be able to deal with that kind of emotional black and white that sometimes
12:09adolescents see.
12:11But it was the opportunity to stand up.
12:13There were no repercussions after it.
12:15Nobody did a suspension.
12:18It was just, this is part of growing up.
12:20These are basically good kids.
12:21Let's not worry about it.
12:23Let's just go on.
12:24And I'm not sure that the general public always realizes that this is a gift that people
12:32who deal with adolescents have.
12:34And if you don't have it, you really shouldn't stay in the teaching and you really aren't
12:39going to have much of an influence.
12:41This is Doris Garb and Jim and Sharon.
12:46And this is Ross.
12:50Contrary to the warm feelings Pat and Sharon expressed, I hadn't really enjoyed my high
12:55school years.
12:56They're right about one thing, though.
12:58The academic teaching hadn't stuck out in my mind.
13:01It mostly involved memorizing and reproducing information from textbooks, as far as I could
13:05remember.
13:09I guess the most permanent influence was that it got me started off in French.
13:14No, the strongest memories are about the feelings of being included in or excluded from
13:19this or that clan of possible friends.
13:23Invariably, the ones you felt excluded from were more attractive than the guys you were
13:27hanging around with.
13:28Not to mention the problems I had with girls at the time.
13:31If I happened to be attracted to them, they scared me shitless.
13:37Still, I got interested in the period again when my mother, who keeps sending me Toronto
13:41star clippings, told me in 1999 they were talking of closing Midland.
13:46To me, that seemed absurd.
13:47Midland may not have been, for me at any rate, much of a social experience, but there
13:52is no doubt it was a great public building, and when I occasionally walked by it on my
13:56trips home, it seemed like new.
13:59Plus, the idea of closing an educational facility just rubs the wrong way.
14:03I mean, we as a generation grew up believing in the virtues of continuing education for
14:09all, not just kids, but working adults, old people, everybody.
14:14It was part of the ethos of the time.
14:16And if life since then has taught me one thing, it's that society at large needs a lot more
14:22shared culture, intelligence, more capacity to think things out, certainly not less.
14:27All right, let's go in.
14:32So why were they closing it?
14:34Was anybody fighting the idea?
14:36Weren't there any alternatives?
14:36Having spent much of the last 30 years making social documentary, I decided to pick up my
14:43camera and explore these questions.
14:46I went to the final reunion, organized June 3rd, 2000.
14:50I met up with a number of people, including Duncan Green, who was busy collecting signatures
14:55for a future association, Cal Francis and Brian Sanborn, alumni and teachers.
15:00Above the hubbub and the noise of the crowd, they gave me a round of ideas about the whys
15:06and wherefores of the closing, and this stimulated my curiosity.
15:13So, starting with their statement of things, I set out to talk to more people, trying to
15:18understand in detail what was at stake and what really had happened.
15:25This film is a record of my inquiry and a trace of the answers that I found.
15:30I should add that, among other things, Duncan Green salvaged from the garbage, was a series
15:35of cassettes recording aspects of Midland life.
15:38Some of the images you will see come from the rushes of a 1992 school-made promotion video
15:43entitled, Midland, A Great Experience.
15:49The lovely space that we have at the front of the room here.
15:53And the lights.
15:54The light, the beautiful cafeteria, I've forgotten about that.
15:57The hall, the halls, the halls are wide, do you know that the halls are wider than actually?
16:02That's right.
16:02Most schools in Starbucks, man, and I like the fact that they put in benches, no, to,
16:07hi, they put benches in here for kids to sit, some of the newer schools don't have the kind
16:15of space that this has, and it's, it's really too bad that we're actually losing it.
16:27Well, I'm Duncan Green, and I went to Midland in the 60s, I think 1963 to 68.
16:33I think, like a lot of kids, the early years of high school are the most tumultuous, that,
16:39you know, I didn't participate a whole lot, but I did in the later years, starting at 11
16:44and more so in 12 and 13.
16:47And, you know, perhaps when you're in the middle of things, you don't think of it this
16:52way, but looking back, I think it was tremendously important in terms of the friendships, in terms
16:59of my learning, and I look back very fondly to those years, that, not that I would head
17:07back there at all, but I think it was an important part of my, my youth and my experience.
17:13What was your reaction when you heard of the news of closing the school, and...
17:18I certainly knew that there were going to be downsizing and cutbacks in the schools, but
17:22I, when it was actually my high school that was closing, I thought, well, initially, that's
17:27a shame, because it removes the physical context, uh, by which people who graduated from that school
17:35can get together, and so there's no central focus anymore.
17:38And, I guess, I felt a bit orphaned as well, that, you know, your high school's not supposed
17:44to close, it's not supposed to become obsolete, it's supposed to be always there to go back
17:49to, and, uh, even though I only went back for reunions, uh, it was somehow comforting to
17:57know that it was there.
18:08So, Doug, do you have fond memories of this place?
18:15No.
18:16Very few.
18:17You don't remember?
18:18You remember?
18:19Don't like Jim?
18:20Didn't like Jim?
18:21Didn't like Jim.
18:22Didn't like Jim.
18:23He's in the cafeteria.
18:24If I could have had a plate of chips and gravy, it would have been one of the most pleasurable
18:29experiences.
18:30It brings back all the, all the memories of when we first came here, when I, I don't
18:37remember when you came here, but when I...
18:3966.
18:40Yeah, okay.
18:41You came here 66.
18:4266, 67.
18:43That was the year I was leaving.
18:44I was, Michael was here, I guess, the first year, I was here the second year.
18:48And, uh, 2200 people.
18:50That's what we had in 1966.
18:52Yes, that's right.
18:53And about a dozen portables.
18:55Exactly.
18:56That's why I forgot about the portables.
18:57I forgot about the portables.
18:58I forgot about the portables.
19:00Do you control it?
19:02I forgot about the portable, if I copy my name.
19:03I forgot about, because I'm in a prescription.
19:05I forgot about the portables.
19:06I forgot about the portables.
19:07You can see that I'm hanging off myplace over there.
19:08I need to link in my mempies of myasis, for it.
19:09Do you計?
19:10Be sure it is okay, so, including....
19:11I forgot about it.
19:12I know, but I'm going to participate.
19:13There's one person who takes over there.
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