A Sense of Themselves: Elizabeth Murray’s Leadership in School and Community

This vivid portrayal of the late Elizabeth (Betty) Murray recreates the life and times of one of Nova Scotia’s finest educators and community leaders, a does at the grassroots. It examines her activities as a highly innovative rural and urban teacher, as a liaison between Acadia University’s education students and their wider rural community, as a founding member of the provincial Adult Education division and, in retirement, as the author and director of a series of history plays with music about her village of Tatamagouche.

This is a portrait of the changing nature of community, from the traditional and rural model experienced as mid-century to the utilitarian and more urbanized society of today. The values that informed the work of Murray and her colleagues underscore contradictions inherent in contemporary claims of education and action, such as those surrounding wholistic learning, greater choice, advantages of parental involvement, and decentralized decision-making.