Voice Your Views

Nov. 7, 1997 - Ken B. is an occasional teacher in Lambton who commutes from Port Huron.

As teachers we have been told that we have made our "point" but what was it? It seems to me that this question will stay with us for some time!

While crossing into the US, I was asked by the Immigration Officer the purpose of my stay in Canada. I replied, "I've been walking the picket line with other teachers." What followed was a lengthy discussion of the issues. Fortunately traffic was very slow. He asked what it was all about and I attempted to answer him as clearly as possible from my point of view.

"It is about Power," I said and then I thought of my time teaching in the States. The issue is one in which your local school board has been eliminated. In fact the Governor in Lansing has eliminated more than half the local school boards and he along with his cabinet will decide all educational policy, from classroom size to the amount of money available for each school and what will be taught in those schools. Needless to say he was taken aback as a parent. He then asked who was doing most of the lying, the government or the unions and I could not answer the question clearly. I responded by suggesting that there was misinformation or incomplete information from both sides. "For example", I said, "the government is filling the air waves about poor test results of Ontario students and the union was failing to respond with the facts. I told him that in 1995 a Common Curriculum was introduced by the government for elementary students. Boards and teachers then began to implement the government program and within a year the government tested students in grade three and grade six on that curriculum. Grade three students sat for five hours a day for ten days taking the tests."  His eyes grew large and he began to shake his head. My guess he had children. The union failed to point these facts out when the issue of test scores was raised by the government in its propaganda campaign against the teachers and their ability to teach. The government had declared earlier that it was determined to create a crisis in education.

I then asked him a math question. "Pick a type of leaf." He chose a Maple leaf, (how appropriate). "Now could you please calculate the area of that leaf or estimate the area of that leaf in centimetres squared?" He looked dumbfounded. "That's an example of the type of math question a grade three student was asked to answer", I told him. His head simply shook and he began to complain about when computerized cash registers fail at the local fast food joint how people can't do the simple math to give him the correct change. "Basics is the term I thought of and I wondered about the P.C.'s return to basics.

The Immigration Officer also made an interesting statement when he reflectively pointed out that civil servants sure  do a great job of being the worst enemies of the other civil servants. My, how true, I thought as I reflected on The Ministry of Education. In the U.S. taxation without representation is deeply rooted in attitudes despite low voter turnouts. The idea of local control, though not always kept, is certainly a goal. I wondered what local control should become in Ontario? Under Bill 160 I can see at tiered system in which parent councils and parent-teacher organizations will become fund raising entities to make up the losses in funds being distributed to School Boards and the schools from the province. If the economic community surrounding the school is affluent, then lots of cheese and baked goods will be sold and when more paper is needed or a class trip needs to happen, the money will be available. In those neighbourhoods where the economic realities are very different, they will do the best they can and children will be educated to do without. In Alberta this reality is already becoming very apparent. In one news story parents had raised the funds to purchase a new photocopy machine for the school. I wondered what the socio-economic reality of the school neighbourhood was?


So what was the point of ten days of walking the streets in protest over a political act of government to reform education? I'm still not certain and I look for the silver lining. It appears that the "illegal strike" has been countered by the illegal interference of the government in Collective Bargaining Agreements between local teachers and local School Boards. The clearest example of this action would be the removal of principals and vice-principals from the union. For them, if the B.C. model holds true, it will mean lower wages than teachers get.

I took part in a political action. Citizens have a responsibility to stand in opposition to laws they deem damaging to individuals and society as a whole. The consequences to society and individuals are a part of our collective world history. Ghandi and Martin Luther King broke the law and are positive symbols of the human spirit. If I have a responsibility to obey the law, I have a responsibility to oppose peacefully in spite of existing laws or legislation, laws that are not for the public good. As a teacher I must encourage this thoughtfulness and responsibility of citizenship in the students I have been entrusted to educate. In two years I can throw the rascals out legally by casting my vote. Now, as a citizen I can challenge the correctness and morality of government action at any time and in any means short of violence. For two weeks, I with thousands of others across the province chose signs, our feet and our paycheques. Could we have carried the issue further and harder? Could the Union leadership have acted clearer and more concisely? Could the school boards specifically, the trustees have better informed the public regarding Bill 160 and its negative impact on local education issues. Could parents have been involved directly in understanding where we have come from in the past five years? Perhaps these are the questions we must each answer for ourselves. Each of us, in our own way, must do what we can to see that this destructive legislation does not come to be passed.

We are interested in your thoughts, either in response to Ken's thoughts or others related to the topic of the impact  Bill 160 on our education system. Please email them for the posting on this site for others to read and share.