Audrey Waters of Hack Education fame wrote in her weekly newsletter an article about the Chicago teachers strike and her tagline asks “Which side are you on?”. I do understand the question and the why of the question but I think that the whole issue becomes so greatly exacerbated by the asking of such a divisive question in the first place. I live in a jurisdiction (British Columbia, Canada) where teacher strikes and similar union issues seem to be everyday occurrences. Political polarization eats us as a society regardless of where you live. I think however that although many of our education issues and concerns are different (to begin with our two countries are culturally different) yet what is not different is that we are so influenced by our close proximity to each other and therefore our reaction to many of the issues and concerns does spill over and we look at our neighbours for encouragement and support. A major difference in the systems is that in the US, K-12 has a national federal connection (Dept of Education) whereas in Canada our federal system plays no part in the K-12 system – it is all controlled by the provinces.
The challenge however is still money and resources and control and curriculum and pedagogy and still all of the problems appear to be forever placed at the feet of the teachers. Teachers in Canada are paid significantly more than their counterparts in the US but from my perspective, apart from salary and a few benefits the woes of failed schooling systems still gets dumped on the lap of the teachers. In Audrey’s newsletter I read about issues of
“education reform”… [including issues around] more charter schools, fewer unions, less job security for teachers, more standardized testing, and (here’s a particularly big sticking point for the Chicago Teachers Union) using those tests to in turn assess teachers’ performance.
In my local context I hear similar types of issues and I really struggle to understand why the public so quickly chimes in with the “blame the teacher” line and does not appear to care enough to see the bigger issues instead of the wrong-headed political/corporate agendized issues that avoid the real conversation of learning and teaching and of really helping our children. Is it that we just don’t give a damn and think that it is better to hide and hope that someone else can make it right and then I no longer need to be bothered? During a recent teacher’s job action in the spring of this year a young parent was interviewed about the school and teacher situation and when asked what she knew of the issues she responded that she knew nothing and could care less. She stated that all she cared about was whether her child’s school was open and she indicated that she shouldn’t have to take the time to care what the issues were – all she wanted was someone to look after her child.
Ouch – no wonder we have problems. So when you ask what side any one is on I think we all need to ask a whole bunch of other questions first. The Chicago issues are sadly quite American in nature however their potential real solutions are far more global. Stop blaming the teachers. Stop this industrialized testing system that has NO place in our classrooms. Get the corporate bean counters out of the education systems and stop seeing our children as nothing more than widgets to be tamed and shaped into industrial clones. How many times do we have to look at countries such as Finland to see what is right and what works?
It is all about philosophy in the end – Do we dare to continue to ask about taking sides or do we move forward believing that everything is a continuum and that right and wrong and good and bad and my world and your world are all just different perspectives of the same thing. We need to change our outlook and recognize that as long as we push people to take sides they will.
This was the most excellently written, most whole-heatedly honest piece if writing I have read all day. Thank you for writing this and sharing it with the world. You are definitely an agent-of-change. Love it!!
Sad. I have heard that attitude from parents before – teaching as babysitting.
We place such high expectations on teachers that it is no surprise that people see them as failing – there is no way they can do everything people expect them to do. And to tie teachers salaries directly to standardized testing scores ignores that fact that a teacher is just one component of learning. There is no consideration for context or circumstance.
I feel for teachers. They are in an impossible situation, being asked to take responsibility (and be judged on how well they meet that responsibility) without the ability to control all the factors that contribute to student success.
Thanks Clint
I know you are involved in the school your children attend – it is a huge responsibility and we all have to step up in one form or another – at least if we wish to be part of the solution.
We really must stop the “Are you with us or against us” mentality – it just creates an untenable situation for everyone. We talk about pedagogy but pedagogy is philosophy and philosophically we must ask and seek to find the answer to “what gifts do we want to give to our children” and we have to create environments that help parents really “see” what kinds of environments are needed to support the receiving of these gifts. I remember gr 6 in Mr Turner’s class at Willows – a happy time