Lessons in the inequality of the past
Imagine a time when the internet didn’t exist, when teachers weren’t prohibited from physically punishing their students and when there was no minimum age limit on when a child could leave school. Imagine having to search through a library for hours, endlessly trying to find the information you could get in ten seconds via the internet. This was the case for Brenda Smith, a woman born in 1931 who experienced a very different education to the students of the 21st century.
The evolution of our society has caused many things to change, ranging from corporal punishment in schools being made a criminal offence in 1974, to WWI calling for gender equality and sparking the Suffragette movement. As time progresses, so does the human race; our opinions change, our outlooks on life change, our morals change and our knowledge of the world changes. Therefore, it makes sense that our laws and education systems change with the times.
Brenda Smith - an 88-year-old woman, originally from Northampton - has experienced education in many different guises over her lifetime; first as a student in the 1930s-1940s, then as a teacher from 1952, and a mother experiencing it second-hand from her children whom she raised in the 1970s and her grandchildren who grew up in modern schools in the 2000s. It’s safe to say that she has a good grasp of how education has changed and the benefits these changes have had, particularly for women’s education.
“When I was at school it was more frowned upon for women to do subjects like science,” begins Brenda, explaining the depths of inequality for women in education in the 1930/40s. Brenda illustrates the emotional abuse that went along with attempting to study a more academic subject; if you were a woman, as you were expected to study more 'feminine' subjects like home economics and if a woman was to sit in a science class, she would be penalised for her masculine decision and underestimated, as it was largely assumed that women were inferior to men in their studies. Brenda once sat in a science class - largely made up of boys - and, after being completely ignored by her teacher, she finally gave up and left, taking up domestic science instead, a subject she ended up teaching in her adulthood. However, Brenda still regrets the decisions she was forced to make during her academic years saying, “If I was at school now I would probably choose to do a subject like history or science because there is more gender equality in schools in the twenty-first century.”
Brenda took up teaching in the 50s, a time when schools looked a little different inside the classroom. “The tools used in teaching were blackboard and chalk, textbooks, exercise books and writing equipment.” This seems somewhat archaic to a 21st century student with the endless opportunities that technology gives us; from smartboards to Ipads and macbooks, schools are exceptionally equipped with the best tools for teaching and aiding students in their journeys to adulthood. Because of this rise in technology, modern students have a much easier way of finding a much wider range of information - through the internet - which saves the twenty-first century students from spending hours searching through books in a library, like many of their parents did. Brenda describes the current decade of education as the “technology decade” and believes that “children of five now are better informed, more aware, more confident and more articulate than fifteen-year-olds were in 1952.”
Not only has the education in schools changed with time, but so have the schools themselves, “there were no electric appliances - no choppers, blenders, mixers; not even a refrigerator, let alone a freezer; no washing machine, no dishwasher; just a gas copper to boil the tea towels, and a gas heated stand to heat about sixteen flat irons.” This made preparing school lunches and teaching food economics a lot more difficult than it is in the 21st century - think about how much the students’ arms would ache from mixing their cake mixes with a wooden spoon instead of an electrical whisk!
Brenda compares her own story to the opportunities that presented themselves to her brother and all other men of that generation. “When men came home from the forces, after WWII, they were given government grants to help them to qualify. This scheme continued after the war, and my brother, who was too young for war service but had to do National Service from 1946 to 1949, benefited from it when he went to University from 1950 to 1954. He was the first, and only member of his generation and all generations before him in our extended family to achieve this. I am sure he was not the first to have the innate ability. Mother could have done it, given the opportunity.”
But women of that generation simply weren't offered the chance. It was not only primary and secondary schools, but universities that also discriminated against women. Talking about her mother’s intelligence and naturally creative personality, it is saddening to hear that due to a close-minded society where women were oppressed and not allowed to study at the same level as men, she missed out on the opportunity of having a fulfilling education and career. This missed opportunity occurred with so many women in the 20th century: “Careers were rarely open to women as doctors, dentists, vets, solicitors, lawyers, architects and so on," explains Brenda. "Most women graduates went on to become teachers in Grammar Schools. I do not remember any starting their own business.”
This type of a male dominated workplace and so few opportunities for women would shock a 21st century woman, given the huge extent of jobs that are available to us; pilot, lawyer, conductor, TV presenter, journalist and so on. Brenda remembers: “The world was strongly male-orientated, with all the interesting and powerful jobs reserved for men, and no equal pay for women even in the professions like teaching. In 1952 I was paid 80% of a male teacher’s pay, simply because I was a woman.”
It’s safe to say that women are given much greater opportunities in the 21st century than they were when Brenda and her mother were in education, studying home economics. Not only are women prepared for their futures in a more equal way with their male peers, but they are also taught using easier methods of teaching - smartboards and Ipads - and are prepared to go into much more powerful and fulfilling jobs than were available for Brenda in the 1950s.
Amelia Lorrimore, year 12
The evolution of our society has caused many things to change, ranging from corporal punishment in schools being made a criminal offence in 1974, to WWI calling for gender equality and sparking the Suffragette movement. As time progresses, so does the human race; our opinions change, our outlooks on life change, our morals change and our knowledge of the world changes. Therefore, it makes sense that our laws and education systems change with the times.
Brenda Smith - an 88-year-old woman, originally from Northampton - has experienced education in many different guises over her lifetime; first as a student in the 1930s-1940s, then as a teacher from 1952, and a mother experiencing it second-hand from her children whom she raised in the 1970s and her grandchildren who grew up in modern schools in the 2000s. It’s safe to say that she has a good grasp of how education has changed and the benefits these changes have had, particularly for women’s education.
“When I was at school it was more frowned upon for women to do subjects like science,” begins Brenda, explaining the depths of inequality for women in education in the 1930/40s. Brenda illustrates the emotional abuse that went along with attempting to study a more academic subject; if you were a woman, as you were expected to study more 'feminine' subjects like home economics and if a woman was to sit in a science class, she would be penalised for her masculine decision and underestimated, as it was largely assumed that women were inferior to men in their studies. Brenda once sat in a science class - largely made up of boys - and, after being completely ignored by her teacher, she finally gave up and left, taking up domestic science instead, a subject she ended up teaching in her adulthood. However, Brenda still regrets the decisions she was forced to make during her academic years saying, “If I was at school now I would probably choose to do a subject like history or science because there is more gender equality in schools in the twenty-first century.”
Brenda took up teaching in the 50s, a time when schools looked a little different inside the classroom. “The tools used in teaching were blackboard and chalk, textbooks, exercise books and writing equipment.” This seems somewhat archaic to a 21st century student with the endless opportunities that technology gives us; from smartboards to Ipads and macbooks, schools are exceptionally equipped with the best tools for teaching and aiding students in their journeys to adulthood. Because of this rise in technology, modern students have a much easier way of finding a much wider range of information - through the internet - which saves the twenty-first century students from spending hours searching through books in a library, like many of their parents did. Brenda describes the current decade of education as the “technology decade” and believes that “children of five now are better informed, more aware, more confident and more articulate than fifteen-year-olds were in 1952.”
Not only has the education in schools changed with time, but so have the schools themselves, “there were no electric appliances - no choppers, blenders, mixers; not even a refrigerator, let alone a freezer; no washing machine, no dishwasher; just a gas copper to boil the tea towels, and a gas heated stand to heat about sixteen flat irons.” This made preparing school lunches and teaching food economics a lot more difficult than it is in the 21st century - think about how much the students’ arms would ache from mixing their cake mixes with a wooden spoon instead of an electrical whisk!
Brenda compares her own story to the opportunities that presented themselves to her brother and all other men of that generation. “When men came home from the forces, after WWII, they were given government grants to help them to qualify. This scheme continued after the war, and my brother, who was too young for war service but had to do National Service from 1946 to 1949, benefited from it when he went to University from 1950 to 1954. He was the first, and only member of his generation and all generations before him in our extended family to achieve this. I am sure he was not the first to have the innate ability. Mother could have done it, given the opportunity.”
But women of that generation simply weren't offered the chance. It was not only primary and secondary schools, but universities that also discriminated against women. Talking about her mother’s intelligence and naturally creative personality, it is saddening to hear that due to a close-minded society where women were oppressed and not allowed to study at the same level as men, she missed out on the opportunity of having a fulfilling education and career. This missed opportunity occurred with so many women in the 20th century: “Careers were rarely open to women as doctors, dentists, vets, solicitors, lawyers, architects and so on," explains Brenda. "Most women graduates went on to become teachers in Grammar Schools. I do not remember any starting their own business.”
This type of a male dominated workplace and so few opportunities for women would shock a 21st century woman, given the huge extent of jobs that are available to us; pilot, lawyer, conductor, TV presenter, journalist and so on. Brenda remembers: “The world was strongly male-orientated, with all the interesting and powerful jobs reserved for men, and no equal pay for women even in the professions like teaching. In 1952 I was paid 80% of a male teacher’s pay, simply because I was a woman.”
It’s safe to say that women are given much greater opportunities in the 21st century than they were when Brenda and her mother were in education, studying home economics. Not only are women prepared for their futures in a more equal way with their male peers, but they are also taught using easier methods of teaching - smartboards and Ipads - and are prepared to go into much more powerful and fulfilling jobs than were available for Brenda in the 1950s.
Amelia Lorrimore, year 12