One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

 

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I went on Friday for my regular massage, a luxury that I have afforded myself for years now, made especially easy because  my benefits package pays for a large part of the cost.  My masseur and I have been friends now for a long time.  He's young enough to be my son and we have often very frank conversations, sometimes very personal and other times very intellectual.  This week's visit began with the normal family questions and when I asked about the kids and getting ready for school, I opened up a very touchy subject.  He knows that I am a former teacher and also a former teacher of teachers.  He has  never had anything but the greatest respect for me as a professional and so when he started to lambast the teachers in the province I was taken aback.  He has heard in the media how the government has taken to suggesting that teachers don't want to caught in the middle of getting the children in our province back to school safely.  Teachers are pushing for all the things that the science, the medical profession and their own senses of safety for their students would make necessary.  The law finds that teachers are supposed to act in loco parentis, as if they were parents of the children in their care and every suit filed against teachers by parents deals with whether that principle was at play and by how much  So now along comes the pandemic and they are being asked to pretend as if that doesn't matter and they are being viewed as front line workers who just have to do what they are told. Everything they are taught about teaching and learning and managing classrooms is now up for grabs.  Then, in addition to having to ignore much of the pedagogy, they are also being told that they are essential workers and so cannot go on strike or make demands.  Their jobs are on the line.  However, now their health and the health of their own families is also  on the line and that helps to explain why at least 20% of the teaching force is not planning on returning in the fall. They do not want to be the middle man and in the end they have to do what is best for them.  Nothing is coming out of the mouths of the politicians to assure teachers and to suggest that their voices count.  Our premier just talks about teachers make sacrifices just like everyone else. No one understands really what it is like to have the faith and the futures of a class of students on the line in front of you. It is all well and good to think you can just pull strings from the sidelines, but in the end, teachers are parents too and they will act in loco parentis as they see fit and believe is right.  This is one helluva mess we are in and the end result will be changes in the structure and nature of public education.  FOR SURE!

The Battle Rages On

The Battle Rages On

It is hard not to think of what is happening today in all the media as a battle over the future of public education.  Yesterday's Globe & Mail (Toronto) had a headline screaming out that Premier Doug Ford thinks that the teacher unions are being inflexible.  President Donald Trump stamps his feet and yells just to open the schools.  High schools open only to be closed again, universities and colleges open and to be closed again.  Teachers have been polled and administrations in various states are informing the reading public that it cannot guarantee enough teachers in classrooms to cover the student body and that is without accounting for increased teacher needs due to lowering class sizes.  Public health agencies are pointing out the the physical structures of too many schools just are not equipped with the proper ventilation equipment to facilitate proper air circulation.  No one though starts from the assumption that classrooms have to be envisaged from scratch.  Parents and administrators think of school and classrooms through their own experiences from, sometimes decades ago.  In order to move forward safely, everything has to be put on the table.  There just is no way around that.  WE have to think about students and their needs in order to move forward safely.  We have to think about where students are coming from and where they go when they go home. Administration and government has to realize schools are filled not just by students but by a myriad of adults who help keep kids in school and learning.  WE have to remember that public health issues have to be paramount. If any child, sadly, had to deal with special needs due to medical issues........wheelchairs, special hearing accommodations, drugs for diseases, and so forth, the path is set as to how schools have to be run to deal with those kinds of things.  Now, it is EVERY child that needs special things.  Every school needs special things.  Every teacher has his or her own needs.  Teachers have not been trained to be very flexible either.  Having taught so many of them, it is amazing how many come with preconceived notions of what they are entitled to and who has to deliver on those entitlements.  Sadly, everyone involved will have to give up on some things in order to get through this. But, we have to remember, school by school, that we are families in those buildings and good schools see their teachers, their parents AND their students as ONE community and so we have to deal with that one community in the same way.  Sadly the bottom line is that if we don't....people are going to get very sick in some cases and more than a few are going to die and NO ONE wants that on his or her shoulders.  So.....we better all cool it.  If our goal is the good of the kids, then we need to remember this one fact.  Children do not fare well at all when the adults in their world are fighting.  Children, to learn properly, need safe and calm environments, no matter all the other extraneous issues in their lives.

 

Back to the Real Basics

 

Back to the Real Basics

In some quarters suggesting we go back to the basics in school refers to the basics of reading and arithmetic.  In the minds of many, that is where we should begin.  I want to focus less on the what but the where of that expression.  Our academic idea of what education is or what teaching and learning is and where it all began is the Socratic Method. Socrates, the Greek, sat with his groups of students and expounded on topics as diverse as knowledge was in the ancient world.  But he posed questions of his students and allowed them to think about ways to answering them.  He used, what today we refer to, as the problem based method. He presented students with a challenge and then gave them time to work on a way to meet that challenge. No way was the wrong way and no specific end was ever defined.  It was all about the journey, hence the Socratic method.  It seems to me that, today, that is what we need to turn to, to make advances not just in releasing ourselves from the grips of the pandemic, but helping our students get ahead.  Young minds don't think in terms of subjects, ever, but rather in terms of concepts, or ideas.  They work to refine those ideas and put facts together to get a clearer idea of what those concepts are all about. We talk about the scaffolding of conceptual development and that is a life long journey.  Let's use the best example from our lives today.....the concept of Democracy.  At a young age, students think of democracy in one way, but that way changes as they age and have experience of the world.  However, the point is ....the goal is....to have them have a reason to expand their idea of democracy and too understand through their readings and their problem solving that there are many aspects to democracy and they need to understand as many of them as possible. That is what literacy really is in today's world.  Our goal ought to be to facilitate the ongoing conceptual development of our students in whatever areas they are interested in.  One boy might be interested in hockey but another one in rowing or javelin.  We need to accept, like Socrates, that one size does not fit all and the learning journey is what is important, not the end, because the most important concepts have no finality,  no real end, they just keep expanding.  So, in our classrooms, we need to structure them in such a way that students find challenges that enable them to grow, in one way or another, without feeling excessively frustrated or out in left field.  We need to go back to the basics, but not just for the sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful but for everyone. Every child is capable of learning and every child WANTS to learn.  WE just need to provide the right stimuli for that to happen.  We need to find the right problems to solve so that they grow in their ability to relate what they learn from their daily living.

Public Versus Private

Public Versus Private

This morning, the news channels were filled with items concerning the struggle over getting back children into school safely. The pressure was increased by having a clip from the Secretary-General of the United Nations who pointed out the stakes for children over getting them back into classrooms.  WE are a long way from the early 20th century when public education was not considered a right but a goal for all societies.  In order to understand the struggle taking place right now, one must remember that there was a time when the vast majority of young children went from the bosom of the family to the workplace.  It was only at the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th that it was recognized that child labour was abhorrent and it was far better to have all children in school learning how to read and write and  become productive citizens of democracies.   AS the concept of democracy spread around the world, the idea of universal education spread as well, even to societies that did not think democracy a good idea.  EVERY country instituted a system of public education that was good for all students to Grade 8 and for most to Grade 12.  High School was not seen as absolutely necessary in some societies at first, but over time, free education for all children came to be accepted as the norm.  In most countries, education was controlled by the central government. There are VERY few jurisdictions where education is not centrally controlled.  But that is the reason why there are so many problems now, as we attempt to navigate students back into school following the end of  or rather the control of the pandemic.  in countries like Canada and the United States, Education is not overseen by the federal government but rather by the province in Canada or the state in America.  That means that it is up to the states of provinces to ensure education happens.  IN both Canada and the United States, taxes are levied by the federal government and given to the state governments for, among other things, education.  Here though is where NOW the U. S. and Canada part ways.  Canada sees the need for masks and social distancing and works centrally to ensure that the populace is protected and the pandemic is dealt with properly. WE all know what that has meant south of our border.  But few realize that the struggle between States Rights and Federal responsibilities has meant that education has fallen between the cracks.  Until the Federal government realizes that progress in so many ways depends upon all students having access to the same resources and all students learning in the same way and working on the same skills, progress as a country will be jeopardized.  Sadly, that might never happen and so the United States will sink lower and lower on the list of developed countries and Canada will look better and better.