Junior Red Cross in the Schools

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the Canadian activities of the Junior Red Cross (JRC), the youth division of the world wide Red Cross organization, for an understanding of the role of international movements, voluntary agencies and informal educational practices in curriculum change. The JRC has been one of the very few outside-the-school organizations that has had access to the classrooms in public schools in all provinces in Canada. Its emphasis on health, citizenship and international understanding closely approximated the changing curricular interests in post-World War I Canada. By using a wide variety of learning resources, integrating subject matter, focussing on self-activity as a basis for learning, and promoting mental hygiene, the Junior Red Cross Program was an example of the ‘new’ education in practice.

The success it experienced in the schools was related to the match between its aims and those of the school systems, to the overlapping of educational and Red Cross personnel, to its ability to produce usable classroom materials and to its practical program for teaching health and civics. The JRC began during the first World War and it appealed to the social and educational fervour of that period. Its promoters argued that JRC, like manual training, domestic science and school gardens, could help improve the society. It was an example of the successful adaptation of an international idea to Canadian conditions and needs.