Dear Editor:
Re: Will May Day make it to its 150th?
I carefully read your article about the New Westminster school board’s proposal, after some undefined consultation, to remake May Day.
The central point seemed to be to lift the burden from the schools to conduct the ceremony as it takes valuable time away from important curriculum.
I grew up in New Westminster and attended elementary school (F. W. Howay). I have long forgotten any “important” curriculum I had to learn, but my memories of May Day are vivid and long-lasting.
The teachers and schools of the city cannot seem to grasp that the May Day fête is more than a labour taking away from school learning time; it is, in fact, cultural history which the children directly experience.
It would nicely fit into the new inquiry curriculum if properly taught as cultural history.
However, that experience has been eroded over the years due to so-called reforms and modernizations of the fête.
Gone is the evening May Day ball with the lancers, the carnival rides in Queen’s Park with the memorable candy apples, the May Day cannon signalling the fête’s start and numerous other things that made the day special for children.
I think the central problem is the lack of historical understanding of the event and the evolution of the May Day fête over the last 147 years.
If there is to be meaningful consultation, then the school board should bring in the wealth of local expertise about May Day into the conversation. I immediatley think of Archie Miller (also Dale Miller), who is the city’s real official historian. The New Westminster Museum and Archives would be a rich source of expertise; they already conduct school instruction programs, of which May Day could be a part.
I would also point out my own small article written in British Columbia History (Spring 2011, Vol. 44, pages nine to 15) entitled “140 Years of May Day in New Westminster, 1870-2010.” I would suggest that school officials seeking this reform of May Day read my article as well as other sources before they make decisions that could well remake May Day right out of existence.
Dr. Gerald Thomson, New Westminster
