Slouching to An End

In the late 1980s I was hired to teach religion at The York Catholic District School Board.  I was educated at Catholic elementary and high schools and at St. Michael's College at University of Toronto.   I spent 30 years teaching in the board that now sits at the center of a national, if not international, storm around the refusal to raise the Pride flag above its offices and its schools. In 2017, the year I retired, I wrote this blog about my experiences as a teacher and in it, I included an entry warning of the storm clouds ahead for the Catholic system.  Now it slouches to its end in disgrace.

Perhaps there are readers who think that the refusal to raise the Pride flag is a one off, that it is merely a reflection of a growing backlash to "wokeness." Or maybe you believe that the board has taken a principled stand.  This is not the case. 

The YCDSB, like all of Ontario's publicly funded Catholic Boards, have been on a long journey to this point.  There have been many stops along the way.   The firing of pregnant women in the '60s instead of granting maternity leaves. The insistence of hiring only Catholic teachers and administrators, their Catholicity verified by predatory priests. The intimidation of teachers throughout the '70s and 80's for having the temerity to end their marriages and wishing to remarry.  Warnings to teachers who lived common law to keep it quiet. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, a refusal to properly educate high school students in the use of condoms.  The dismissal of gay teachers for daring to have a civil union in the '90s, the many years of  "don't ask, don't tell" when it came to teachers with same sex partners, who were so intimidated that their partners did not attend graduations, retirements and staff celebrations. The unwillingness to address issues arising from gender.

And now we are here.  Unable to accept the differences of others, unable to celebrate all students and to only tolerate differences, quietly, with a whiff of shame; never in the glory of a June spring breeze at the top of a flagpole.

The Catholic boards, their directors, their superintendents,  their consultants, their administrators, have tried to wrestle with the baked in hypocrisy of a publicly funded Catholic school system. I've seen it in action.  The province demands an AIDS curriculum?  Sure, but just don't say condom until a student asks.  The province legislates meaningful indigenous education? Sure, but be sure to say a Catholic prayer before and after the smudge ceremony.  The province mandates gender inclusivity and acceptance of all people in all their expressions?  Sure, but do it quietly behind closed doors and be aware of who is watching. Make sure you can remove your Pride sticker from the classroom door, if you share it with a certain teacher.

The professional staffs, and certainly their dedicated teachers have tried for decades to keep the system a float, using their wit and professional judgement to try and bridge the gap between what it is to be Catholic and what it means to have public funding.  But it is now a bridge too far. They could not fend off the zealots, the bigots, who stormed the YCDSB meetings, could not think strategically to avoid the debacle they now own and could not corral trustees better suited to governing a school system in 1723 than 2023.

It's time to end the charade.  Fold the Catholic system into the public one.  Free those teachers from this hypocrisy.  Most of all, protect and educate our young people and help them become citizens with a clear vision of equity, inclusivity and fairness.

Pictures

We are in every school. You jostle past us, brush against us on your way to class, to the staff room, to the gym.  We are heroes and villains, champions and participants, stars and stage hands unnoticed in frames.

We wear dated uniforms and glasses too big for our faces.  Our hairstyles are out of the times but we grin, soaked in sweat from a victory that has always just happened.  Do you see us?  We played hard like you do. We gave everything to coaching just like you do.

We are in graduation composites; vice principals and principals looking stern and officious in the centre. Row upon row of us look out from the walls as you make your way to lunch or the library.  We line this great hall, legions of us, watching to see that you carry on what we started.

We are the band pictures.  We have music teacher faces, pinched in permanent winces from hearing songs in the wrong key.  We are drama pictures and if you look at the back, you can see the drama teacher poking her head out from behind the curtain as we take roses and final bows.  Lean in and listen to the applause that is still ringing.

And now I am here, only in these pictures.  Schools do not lend themselves to long term memory.  It will only be a semester or two after I am gone and I will be forgotten.  True, there will be a teacher or a colleague who will remember but really only a few pictures on a wall will remain.

It is a strange thing to imagine yourself as only a photo on a wall.  Generations of students and teachers will walk by me and I will not be able to wave or call out.  I won't be able to point to what I did here or what others did for me or what we did together.

Maybe you will stop on your way.  Maybe on your way to parent night or in the quiet of the hall on your longest day.  Maybe you will stop after a game or a performance and see the beauty you are creating. If you stop and see us behind the glass of these frames we will see you. We cheer you on, encourage you in the most important work in the world.

I hope you stop and see me.  Lean in close and listen too.  You are becoming part of a larger picture. You are building citizens, you are building a community, a country, a democracy.  You are part of something beautiful and profound.  Just promise, on the rare occasion, that you will stop and give a wink to those of us behind the glass.

Dad

They're going to throw the books out.  I suppose I can't blame them.  I was the only one to use them and after I leave they will just be taking up shelf space.

Robert' Bolt's A Man for All Seasons has seen its time in the sun.  I enjoyed teaching the play but it's time to say goodbye like so many things I've been saying goodbye to this past week.  Perhaps its central conflict, a man trying to be true to himself, when the forces of church and state are pulling at his cloak, is unreachable for today's audiences.  I hope that is not the case but it may be.

If I assigned you to write an essay on the play's lead character, Thomas More, you'd discuss More's commitment to family, to faith, to intellect and to his country.  You'd make the argument that More was able to excel in any venue: public institution, private life, church.  You'd conclude with the argument that More was at home with Kings and Common Men but preferred the Common to the royal.

I'm sure I would be stunned with your literary brilliance and give you an 'A'.

I like the play for all the reasons you listed in your essay but I really stuck with the play for so long, not because of its literary merit but because it always reminds me of my Dad.

If you had him as a teacher or as a principal, you knew of his intensity and felt his simmering power. You knew that this was not a man to cross.  Age has softened some of these characteristics but the clarity of thought, the principled approach to life have not faded.

He is quite capable of being at home with Kings but has always found more joy in the Common Man. He has always placed his family at the centre of his life and has a deep, private faith in God.  His love of country literally brings him to tears. He has faced times in his life where he had to adhere to his own principles when forces wanted him to bend to their wills.  He did not choose these battles but never shrunk from them.  Most impressively, like More, he has remained silent about them.

One of my favorite scenes in the play and one that most reminds me of Dad is where More exhorts a character "Be a teacher" he says and when the character asks who will know if you are a good teacher, More replies "your students, your friends, your family, your God.  Not a bad audience that."

Literary characters give us comfort because, as Northrop Frye says, they remain like "Giants in Time." They are a constant in our lives, teaching us what to avoid, what to move towards and how to live.

I've been most fortunate to have giants at school and one at home.

Regrets, I've had a few...

Unlike Sinatra, I have enough regrets to mention:

1)  In my first years of teaching, I wasn't straight up with parents.  I was slightly intimidated by parents and as a result, didn't deliver some of the news about their son or daughter that they deserved to hear. I've corrected this error in the latter half of my career and I hope my older colleagues at the time delivered the news I couldn't.

2)  To the girls basketball team that gave me a George Michael poster and an Alf key chain as a coaching gift; I am sorry if I did not seem suitably appreciative at the time.

3)  I said and did some things on high school basketball courts that I am not too proud of.  I lost my temper too many times and my language turned blue as well.  I forgot to play some kids and benched some who didn't deserve it because I wanted to win.  I was not very friendly to the opposing coach. Sometimes I let my ego get in the way and when I did, I made the game more about me than the kids.

4)  I took the support staff at the school for granted.  I'm sure I'm not alone here. At times in my career I didn't recognize just how important the secretaries, the custodians, the educational assistance and the child and youth workers are to the education of our children.   I've tried to be better at acknowledging their contributions but I regret that I was late to this in my career.

5)  I shouldn't have worn the rollerblades in class.

6)  There was a time in the late '90's that I was pretty bitter about how my profession was treated by the government of the day.  I let that government affect my attitude toward parents, some of my colleagues, certainly my administrator at the time and my community.  If it hadn't been for the kindness of many of those people over the years, I could have remained bitter.

7)  It turns out, I spent way too much time marking and not enough time speaking to students about their work.  Kids rarely read comments but when you sit with them and talk to them about their work and what you honestly think about that work, you make a difference.  If I had to do it again, I'd mark everything in front of the kid.

8)  I had no idea about LGBTQ, about privilege and little about racism when I started.  If I only knew then what I know now, I'd be a lot more sensitive to the people I taught and with whom I worked.

9) Dante, I didn't know Peter lit your hair on fire in class.  I regret this.

10)  I didn't give my wife enough credit.  Christine is funnier and smarter than I am and she has always tempered my reactions to things and as a result, she's made me a far better teacher.

Thoughts from atop an AV cart.

How I got on top of the AV cart on the third floor of my school is largely irrelevant.  It's really about the why.  The fact that I had the cart, that it was fourth period on a lovely June day and that the hall was relatively empty was simply fortuitous.  All that was required was that I lean on the cart, take two or three good pushes with my right leg and hop right on up.  I may have yelled a little "yippeee"  as I cruised by the open doors of the classrooms of the third floor and really only came close to hitting one unfortunate student who was making her way to the bathroom in the general vicinity of my now AV scooter.

Now, to the why.  You, my faithful reader of these past few months, may be correct in your speculation as to why I was riding an AV cart.  If you guessed that I was overcome with the sheer joy of June, you would be partially right.  Some of you, who read my blog out of a sense of duty because you work with me or you're married to me, may think I was riding the cart, because I have fewer than four weeks left to work and could not contain myself.  You would be close to correct.  And those of you who have read through these blogs, hoping that I can make some sense of public education for you, may speculate that I was perched atop the cart as a symbol of my defiance to a system run amok.  You too would have some claim to being right.

But if I am being completely honest, and what else is a blog for other than to be honest and self-centred at the same time, I really didn't know why I was on top of that AV cart until I listened to a seminar from one of my students shortly after riding into the classroom on said cart.

In her seminar on the novel No Great Mischief, the student pointed to the fact that the fulfilled characters in the novel feel a sense of mastery of their work and a sense of community and meaning from it.  I think that I have been lucky to feel a great sense of community and meaning in my work and maybe, I will let my students decide, a certain amount of mastery.

In No Great Mischief, the matriarch of the MacDonald family asks her grandson, "Do you sing at work? We use to sing at work."  He is unfulfilled and replies "no".

If asked the same question I would reply "no" as well but I might add "have you ever ridden an AV cart?"

Jesus leads a field trip

"So, Jesus, I understand you want to take your class skating.  Correct?"

"Yes sir, just up the street to the outdoor rink.  A little time outside I think would do them a world of good."

"And your assistant?  Who's going to lead this trip with you Jesus?"

"Well, ah, I was going to take Peter, sir".

"Peter?  Peter?  You know you can't rely on him, Jesus.  Remember the last trip?  He left you alone before noon.  I don't know about your judgement sometimes, Jesus."

"Yes, sir.  I just want to take the kids skating sir."

"Look Jesus, you probably think I am a bit of jerk, but Jesus, I have to take into consideration the risks to the kids, the risks to the Board and of course, I mean, have you thought of the risk to me?  Ok, Jesus, let's review the documentation for this skating trip.  Did you get my email?"

"Yes sir, I filled it out the best I could. It's six pages long.  I don't know if this is a level II or level IIa excursion"

"Jesus, everyone knows it's a level II.  Come on Jesus.  IIa's are trips to animal viewings and fire stations.  Now, let's see.  Things seem to be in order here.  Wait, wait a minute.  Jesus, you don't have any first aid qualifications.  What if someone got hurt?  What if a kid got his ear cut off?  Come on Jesus.  You have to have first aid."

"But sir..."

"And Jesus, are you a certified skating coach or have any of your skating or skate excursion levels?"

"No sir...I have some experience taking people on trips on water."

"Jesus, that doesn't count.  Jesus, what will you do about hydrating the children?  You didn't fill in bullet point 38 on hydration.  See, it says right here:  provide detailed hydration plan for students."

"Sir, we're going for an hour.  I don't see how hydration is relevant."

"Are you getting sassy Jesus?  Eh, Jesus?"

"No sir.  I will fill out bullet point 38, sir.  Does everything look good to go sir?

"Ok Jesus, I am going to send this off to the Superintendent of Education for his approval and we will get back to you.  Give it six weeks, Jesus."

"Ah, sir.  It's end of March, the ice will be melted by then.  Is there any way we could speed this up? The kids really want to go skating."

"Forgive me Jesus, but poor planning on your part...."

"Does not constitute an emergency on my part, yes sir, I've heard that one."

"Jesus, I'm not a miracle worker."

"Thank you sir.  I've changed my mind.  I think we'll just watch a movie on skating.  Happy Easter, sir."

Thomas

To the untrained eye the scene looks like teenage boys playing soccer on the first spring day of the year.  It is warm and the sun bathes them in a light on the tarmac of our parking lot like something out of a romantic painting.  The sun places the boys in relief.  I can see the details of each.  I can see glasses and unkempt hair and that sheen of sweat that develops as they play an organized unorganized game of soccer on their lunch in the spring before classes resume.

He is standing in goal, yelling at his "teammates" to get the ball.  You think he is no different than the other boys but I see what you cannot see.  I see what you have done.

He arrives with no credits even though he should be halfway through his high school career.  A family friend has taken him in and serves as his guardian.  I imagine that guardian is not very much different from you.   The guardian clothes him, feeds him, shelters him.  You would do the same, as a matter of fact, many times you have done the same through your generosity to charities. Most importantly and stunning to me, is when the boy gets his first report card, the guardian writes a note back to me,  outlining the goals for the boy in the next few weeks.

He barely speaks as he enters the classroom, barely looks at me.  Over the semester he improves.  He never misses a day; keeps his head down and works.  Towards the end of our time together, he writes an essay about his former life.  It is everything I can do to not put my arm around him.  You gave me a chance to teach him in a small class.  You provided a place for him to recover some of the things he lost.

He takes steps forward, he moves some steps back.  I see the boy over the next year and half in the hallways.  He is sometimes by himself but we make sure he is never alone.  He fails some courses but seems to dust himself off each time.  He keeps at it, keeps working.  His guardian keeps an eye.  His teachers take special care to build him up.  You funded his counselor and his special classes and you allowed the system time to do its work.

I see him on this beautiful spring day playing soccer with a group of friends.  He will leave us soon, graduating and moving on to challenges, to a world of growing opportunity.  All of us should be proud of his accomplishments.  You should be so pleased about your support. You, as a citizen, have saved this young man and you did it because you believe that everyone plays a role in supporting public education.  You will be rewarded with an educated young man who will one day be your neighbour, your friend.

And I, I will miss a spring soccer game in the sunshine.