20 Rules for parents, teachers and students

1)  They aren't doing homework in their rooms.

2)  If you can't function without a phone for eighty minutes, you have a problem.

3)   A kid who changes his or her name at some point in his or her high school career is in trouble.  I'm not talking changing it from Donald to Don,  I am talking my name was Kathy and now I want you to call me Egoyan.  There's a problem here.

4)  A person who can't look you in the eye is a person you want to keep your eye on.

5)  A kid with a locked bedroom door, is a kid doing something they shouldn't.

6)  You need to knock before you enter.

7)  If he or she won't leave the house without a backpack or bag of some sort, there's something illegal in the bag.

8) They skipped.  There wasn't a mistake.

9)  If they like the teacher that you have heard is terrible and they hate the teacher you have heard is great, they are wrong and you are right.

10)  If you chose a school with a uniform but cannot conform to the uniform, there's something wrong with you, not the uniform.

11)  If you don't know their friends, you're in trouble.

12)  If they like sleepovers a lot, they're not at a sleepover.

13)  The parent who is Ok with the kids drinking at their house, is no friend of anyone.

14)  That kid who binge drinks all the time?  He or she is an alcoholic.

15)  They didn't study as hard as they said they did.

16)  He wasn't holding it for a friend.

17)  That thing in the closet, is a bong.

18)  The music he or she is listening to is as misogynistic, sexual, racist, angry as you think.

19)  Your parents know, they just don't want to tell you yet.

20)  If the kid is too nice, they're too nice.

The Gradual Instant

It is fourth period and our Catholic school is hosting our annual boys basketball tournament.  There is a stoppage in play, just as the afternoon announcements and prayer begin.  As one of our students reads a prayer over the PA both public school teams in the gym stop, bow their heads and wait.  Our Catholic school students wander out of the gym, yelling and making plans for the weekend.  The public school teams are respectful, tolerant of the Catholic school. The Catholic students are not.

The incident reminds me of Anne Michaels' book Fugitive Pieces and how she develops the motif of the "gradual instant."  She asks the question, when does something change from one form to another.  What is the exact moment when a skeleton becomes a fossil? When does lava turn to stone?  When is a Catholic school no longer Catholic?

My education in Catholic schools, from kindergarten to postsecondary and my work in them spands all but six years of my life.  A member of my family has been working in or going to, a Catholic school for nearly seventy years.  I think it would be safe to say, I know something about them.   They are good places. that are tended to by a large and dedicated group of professionals, teachers, administrators, support workers, trustees, directors and parents who want to see the Catholic system thrive because they are honest people of faith. They've inherited and protected the system at great sacrifice.

The publicly funded Catholic school population in Ontario is comprised of three groups.  The first, and perhaps the smallest group, is Catholic students in religious and faithful Catholic families that attend Church weekly and believe in the tenants of the religion.  The second group is the non-Catholic, fundamentalist Christian and now, lately, Muslim families who hope to benefit from an education system that is trying to "instill" some sort of religious values.  The third group, and by far the largest, is lapsed Catholics who have a tradition of attending Catholic schools but are no longer believers in any faith and enrol their children out of some vague sense of duty or faith. They have some superstitious notion that God should be part of something.  This group likes the convenience of the system but would never fight to defend it because they don't really believe in Catholicism.  Their children were the ones walking out of the prayer during that basketball game.

All of these groups cling to the tattered idea that Catholic schools are more disciplined and better.

This composition poses problems for Catholic school systems across Ontario.  The first problem is despite all sorts of initiatives, including discriminatory hiring, Catholic graduate expectations, integration of religion in all subjects, permanent full time chaplains, prayer centers and the demanding of compliance in faith celebrations, they can't make their students and their families, Catholic. Secondly, the growing segment of their population, fundamentalist or Muslim, has no intention of ever becoming Catholic.  Both of these problems, slowly, gradually and in an instant, transmutes the school, changing it into something else.

The current Catholic system will be at a crossroads shortly.  Governments and courts are starting to understand that the system, while governed by dedicated Catholics, does not have a constituency that is Catholic and that there just are not enough students to go around to keep two school systems running in most communities.  Pressure will build to move to one school system and some political party is going to take advantage of this pressure.  An astute provincial political leader will learn that the system simply doesn't have the numbers to defend itself.

In Ontario, if the current leaders of the Catholic system, Directors of Education, OECTA and Chairs of the Board and trustees and dioceses were proactive, they'd recognize this gradual instant and manage it.  They'd open discussions with the government around the integration of the separate school system into the public, guaranteeing Catholic education would continue in some form in the new, unified system.

If they don't recognize that the system they are governing has changed, then, in a gradual instant, it will become a fossil.

At the feet of Masters

Ghirlandaio, his first master, made him sketch his left hand over and over again.  The young apprentice, in a fit of arrogance, sketched his right hand with his left.  The mentor remained unimpressed.  When he moved to sculpture, Bertoldo, the master, would not allow the artist who would eventually create David and the Pieta, to touch marble for two years. His masters and mentors knew of his potential but never revealed it to the young genius, recognizing that complete dedication to the craft will bring discipline to the artist and that will allow the genius to be revealed.   Both masters knew, that both teachers and students are below the subject, supplicating themselves to it in order to allow brilliance to emerge.

Ghirlandaio and Bertoldo did not recruit the young artist to their studios and interestingly, Michaelangelo's parents showed little to no interest in his potential or his talent.   Oh, to have the Renaissance again; where young apprentices showed loyalty, humility and dedication to their craft and waited patiently for their genius to be recognized by their masters first and then the wider public.

I am reading Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy in preparation for our fall trip to Tuscany.  It popped to the front of my brain as I watched the Biosteel High School All Star basketball game this week. The Biosteel game (sponsored by a drink that tastes like liquid gum) brings together Canadian "all stars" to show off their talents.    The players spend a good deal of time banging their chests, pointing at their opponent, making three point signs on a rare make and mostly, roostering around the court.  I think I saw two passes the entire game, one of them was to a ref.  It is a depressing affair if you love the art of basketball.

When you watch the game, you know that everyone is playing for himself.  There is no team play here, no loyalty to the other, no discipline instilled by the coaches. The idea of a dedication to a craft is supplanted by the fake glamour of a staged game hosted by a liquid candy floss company.   You can see the parents, hanging their dreams on their young sons and you can see the athletes themselves, physical specimens to be sure, but as unskilled in the fundamentals of their craft as any journeyman sculptor.  Perhaps worst of all, you get the impression that the masters, the coaches, are either impotent on the sidelines unable to offer the apprentices anything of worth or are desperately hoping for their own minute in the sun.

Michelangelo sat at the feet of his masters.  He submitted himself to their teachings with humility and patience and with discipline.  He did this because he knew that his masters had sat at the feet of their masters with the same humility and discipline.  There must have been a great temptation to introduce the young protege to the world early, to show him off so that Bertoldo and Ghirlandaio could bathe in the light of his brilliance.  The teachers did not bend to the temptation.  We could learn from these two teachers.  If we don't, the world may never see another David again.

When it's time to hang it up

This is an image is didactic.  It is taken from Muhammad Ali's last fight.  He was lured into a return to the ring to fight Larry Holmes, a former sparring partner, and regain his heavyweight championship for a record fourth time. Ali was beaten to a mumble.

In the past month I have been asked many times "are you sure you want to retire, you're so young?"  This has come from my parents, my siblings, my friends, my colleagues, some of whom I taught, but one group of people has never asked me that question-my students.

I'm no Muhammad Ali; I'm no champ.  Ali wanted to stay for a legacy.  The very nature of schools and their ability to renew themselves, offers no such promise.  Holmes, while pummeling his former mentor, begged him to quit.  This is something we should all try to avoid.

The simple truth is that there are reasons that both pull me into retirement and push me out of teaching.

I am being pulled by a cohort of teachers I grew up with in the profession, who are all now happily retired. These are people I worked with for almost three decades, we shared marriages, divorces, births and deaths.  Many of them were my mentors and role models.  I want to join them.

I am  pushed by another cohort of teachers.  Whether teachers at retirement age or beyond know it or not, young teachers are watching us.  A young person in teaching has done as many as seven years in temporary work. I've written about this before here.  Teachers at retirement age or beyond have many reasons to stay.  Lost marriages, dependent children, late starts in careers and financial difficulties in complicated lives compel people to stay and they should stay if they wish.  But be under no delusions, your younger colleagues want your position and the reality is, your effectiveness in the classroom will  fade. It's time to hand my job to a younger person.  I'd rather have someone ask me to stay than quietly imply I should leave.

I am pulled by a larger life.  There's some travelling to do, some more writing, maybe some painting.  There's some hikes and there's a fitness regime ahead that I hope I can stick to.  There's some canoe trips and some reading and there's some road trips with Christine and the dog(s).

I am pushed by age.  This is an uncomfortable thing for people in education to face and many disagree with me but teachers have a shelf life.  Your students first see you as a friend.  They then see you as an older sibling.  Then you are a parent.  When they see you as a grandparent, it's time. To a fourteen year old, anything over fifty is ancient.

Finally, I am pulled by a pension.  Teachers, because of careful planning and by choosing to defer some benefits, have developed a pension plan that is the envy of most people.  It is a good plan, not a gold plated one, but a good one.  I've contributed  8-12% of my income from each and every cheque  since I was 24.   My employer has contributed.  My representatives have hired professional managers who are paid in salary not in fees.  Those managers have invested money so we have surpluses and my representatives have shaped benefits so that the plan can be sustained.  It is a model that should be adopted by our government for everyone.  I'm going to retire because I can.

So this week, papers will be filed,  a resignation letter will be penned and hopefully on June 30th I will walk out of the school like this:

System Memo: Prayer Centers

System Memo #3666-04a

To:  All  Catholic Teachers

From:  Superintendent  Mr. O. Dei, Prayer Headquarters (PHQ) 

CC.: OECTA, Kathleen Wynne, Public Tax Payer

Subject:  Prayer Centers

Rationale:

It has recently come to the attention of Prayer Headquarters (PHQ) that students and teachers require a public place to pray during class.  I know we have chapels in every one of our secondary schools but apparently prayer is a big thing in the school boards around us so we want to jump on that bandwagon. Heck, in some of those boards students pray up to five times a day and we don't see why our kids can't put in that kind of effort. 

Now, we know kids here at Prayer Headquarters (PHQ) and we know that teenagers being teenagers, they just feel comfortable praying in front of their classes.  Why if a kid wants to jump up and rattle off a Decat of the Rosary or throw down a few Acts of Contrition, who are we to stop 'em?  We just want to help the youth of the day and increase our prayer quota because let's face it, it shows we are different from those other boards and a fair bit of funding is riding on that.  So please find your new prayer center installed in your classroom.  

Installation and Equipment:

We've installed a prayer center in every one of our classrooms in every one of our fifteen secondary schools at head level.  Please read the concussion protocol memo that will follow.  

Please take a moment to examine the prayer center and ensure it has the following:

1)  Lack IKEA floating shelf installed

2)  A sealed Bible

3)  A Rosary

4)  A Crucifix

5)  A picture of the Pope

6)  A picture of Mother Teresa

7)  A picture of the shroud of Turin

8)  A finger of an 8th century saint

9)  Air freshener

10)  Holy Water

11)  A prayer of the Day

12)  A picture of Notre Dame's football team

13)  Gold, Incense and Myrrh

14)  A Bell

15)  A picture of Bill Davis and Cardinal Carter smoking cigars

Finally, please ensure that students have a clear path to the prayer center so that they can jump up and rattle one off at a moment's notice. Maybe during that test you are giving or maybe when you have gone on too long with the lesson they could just pop on over to the prayer center and pray for deliverance.  Just let them jump right up and pound one out.

Thanks so much for your care and attention to this matter.  We look forward to the roll out of our live Crucifixion event in the Cafeteria in April. Please forward any names of students or teachers you want to participate in the event.

Yours in Prayer,

O. Dei

Superintendent of Prayer Headquarters (PHQ)

Spring Swings

I will miss spring in a high school.

I am in my portable at lunch, trying to keep ahead of the marking, looking out the window at the abandoned swing set from the elementary school that use to occupy the site.  It is a spring day that makes me want to leave this musty classroom and run full speed backwards to my days at university and playing baseball when I should have been studying for finals.

They appear like forsythia, the first flowers of spring.

The boy arrives at the swing first.  He sits down and curls his legs underneath him, shortening them so that just the tips of his toes are dragging on the ground.  She arrives shortly after and sits on the swing beside him.  I should return to my marking, shouldn't be watching from my desk in the corner of the room but the essays are not as compelling as this.  They begin to talk, each facing forward.  The wind blows her hair in front of her face and she pushes it back into place. His swing begins to spin, as his toes touch down and move it in a spiral moment.  It is very gentle.  She does the same and as they twirl, their feet begin to touch.

The swings slow down and the two slowly come to a stop, facing each other.  I pick up my pen, glance at the papers.  I have miles to go.  The swings move slightly in the breeze with their feet, toeing and brushing towards each other.  They talk and glance and move slowly in the breeze.  She touches her hair again and he looks away and then towards her again.

Finally they both stop.  Their knees are touching, they are laughing in that spring sunshine.  The swings move slightly, as they toe the ground, swinging towards each other.  The school bell sounds and they walk hand in hand back to school.

They make me think of Robert Frost's poem:

Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Youth in spring have, over the years, lifted me toward heaven.  They've become a daily reminder of my own youth, they've demanded that I remain with them.  I could have done worse than be a swinger of birches.

Flight Deck

As I write this I am high above Canada, flying home from my last March Break.  I am secure in my seat, but the thought does creep into my head; is my pilot any good?  How do I know that the static filled voice that tells me the weather in Toronto, knows what he is doing?  Ultimately, I am relying on the other professional that sits to his or her right in that cockpit.  I am trusting that each is evaluating the performance of the other.  I trust that, while they are flying the aircraft, each has an eye on the other.

To compare flying a plane to piloting a classroom may on its surface, be perverse.  However, we lock children, vulnerable people, in classrooms with teachers for up to six hours a day for ten months at a time. And while a teacher rarely  makes a life or death decision in his or her daily business, a teacher can have a large impact on the well being of a student.  So it seems to me, that an evaluation and improvement of a teacher is as important, in the long run, as an evaluation and development of a pilot.

The most meaningful evaluation of my work has not come from the standard performance appraisal I have had once every two to three years as mandated by my contract.  Most of these were monotonous affairs, where an administrator, who may know little about my area of curriculum and in some cases had far less experience in a classroom than I, filled out a form created out of a union negotiation.  Ultimately, this produced a performance appraisal that was as helpful to me as the food service on this plane is to its navigation.

Evaluations of me by students haven't been any better.  Some blow smoke at me as they look for a higher mark while others carry out vendettas on-line.  Helpful insight has been rare among parents as well, who know as much about teaching as I do about flying this plane.  After all, I've been on a plane before, so how hard can it be to fly it?

Setting aside the stale jokes about airline food and lost bags, there is a lot to admire about the aviation industry.  There are regular checks on pilots and most importantly, each professional demands the best out of the person next to them.  This is what the evaluation and improvement of teachers needs to be like and I have been lucky enough to work in such an environment.

The best evaluation, the most important professional development, has come in a workroom not much bigger than the flight deck of this aircraft.  The nine teachers in that windowless room have managed to create a professional work environment that encourages constant improvement.  We read widely outside of school.  We develop and share resources.   We talk constantly about our courses, techniques that work and over our weekends and holidays use a "group chat" to augment our teaching practices.  Finally we are in and out of each other's classrooms and  like the pilots here, we help each other make subtle course corrections as we go about our daily work.  We share all of these things and in so doing, we demand a better performance from each other.  This may not be the case in all schools but my hunch is that it is as common in education as it is for a plane to land successfully.

I have to return my tray to its upright position now and fasten my seat belt.  The lights of Toronto are below and with the care and attention of a  team of professionals, I will be on the ground shortly, heading into the last leg of my career.  I'm looking forward to seeing those teachers in that windowless room.