A Student Leads the Way

I have been thinking of two men.  The first is a former student who gave a presentation to our school this past week as a member of the Get Real organization that encourages tolerance, understanding and fairness to all.

I was moved by the presentation of our former student.   He spoke of how a Catholic teacher really saved his life by making a stand against homophobia and gay slurs in his classroom.  The young man was in grade 11 at the time and he told us, "I really didn't hear what the teacher said for the rest of the class.  I only heard that he said it was Ok to be gay and that I deserved to be respected."  This is the power and responsibility that teachers have. With a few words we can damage a life or we can save it.  We can rectify an injustice. We can make things better.

But when the former student spoke to the staff at our monthly meeting, later in the day, I began to think of another man, a former colleague.  He and I worked together for over twenty years. He met his partner around the same time I met Christine.  They have been together as long as we have and it wasn't until his retirement party that he felt comfortable enough to include his partner in the social life of our school.  His partner never attended a staff function; he never came to a graduation, a theater production, a game. His partner never felt included enough to chaperone a dance, to come to a staff sponsored Jays game or to attend the Christmas party.  He never spoke of his partner, about their weekends or their vacations.  He lived far away from the school and our small town so that his secret and our shame, would never be addressed.

When I heard the student's story, I was moved but I was angered as well. The very teachers who are asked to work to create inclusive environments, classrooms free of bullying and prejudice are themselves victims of both.  I have worked with many gay teachers over my career and all of them have been forced to live double lives.

We live in strange times. So many barriers have come down yet we live in a time when a Catholic teacher can still be fired for loving someone.  It is bizarre that Kathleen Wynne, the Premier of our province and a former Minister of Education, could, if she could get past the prejudice hiring practices of Catholic boards, be fired for her marriage.

This is an injustice and the only way it can be resolved is if Catholic teachers demand justice.

Defending Civility

I am coaching my son's basketball team at a tournament in Toronto.  My wife is going to come to the second game and bring our daughter, to watch our suburban team take on one of the best teams in Ontario. She calls me, asking for directions to the school and I go out into the parking lot of the school to get better reception and give her better directions.

I'm distracted by the phone, the upcoming game and as I look around the parking lot, it seems I have stumbled into a fight.

Now, I'm from Oshawa.  Fights in Oshawa were fights, you know.  There was no rolling around on top of each other with somebody's friends piling on and out manning some poor kid. The fights in the suburban school I teach in had always been little more than slap-fests with someone vowing to get their Mom to call the school.  Fights in Oshawa were generally, one on one and usually ended with someone either capitulating or being knocked unconscious.  The fight I stumbled into was an Oshawa style fight. Except for the bystanders.  Many of them weren't kids, many of them were adults, maybe even parents of the two kids fighting.

Well, I'm in it now aren't I.  I close my flip phone, use my teacher voice to tell the kids to stop fighting.  No effect.  When I say they were kids, I mean they were teenagers but each was well over 6' tall.  I yell again. No response.  Finally, I wade into the fight, grab one fellow by the ear (I don't know where that came from) and the other fellow by the scruff of the neck. Now, as many of you know, I am a powerful 5'7" but even at that great stature, I had both my arms well above my head and the two combatants were now hunched over like church ushers.

I am yelling "stop, you stop" and then I look at the crowd that has now assembled in the parking lot and I start yelling at them; "you should be ashamed of yourselves, you're an embarrassment."  I take the two kids into the school, noticing that they both have the same basketball jackets on and deliver them to their coach.

Months later I am telling this story to a group and after I tell it, one person comes up to me and tells me she's a cop in that area and that what I did was foolish.  I could have been killed she tells me.  She tells me, in that area of Toronto, they don't get out of the cruiser unless there are at least two other cruisers there.

It is a story I tell with some hesitation because of the ability of stories to build myth.  I am asked to tell it a few times a year and I always do so with some trepidation as to not sound boastful or heroic in any way. I tell it to you now because we live in dangerous times .

Maybe I was foolish.  Maybe I was lucky and I certainly wouldn't recommend others take a similar risk but the world has changed.  Maybe the civility we inherited and have been expected to maintain, has taken a hit or two.  Whether it is in a parking lot, or in a plane, at a dinner table or on social media we have to confront boorishness and in order to protect civility, the "snowflakes" as we are sometimes called, might have to bend an ear or two.

Lighting our way Home

There is something about an old school at night.   There's one around the corner from my house.  It has been abandoned for years, recently sold to a developer and is soon to find a new life as the center of a condo project.  Its skin thin windows, are always dark. The cement and stone steps, where generations of children and their teachers marched, jumped, skipped, ran and trudged up, are now cracked and full of weeds in the summer, covered in snow this cold night.

I pull up to the stop sign near the school.  It is that time of winter when the days are getting longer and as I pull over to look, everything, cars, road, snow and school is coloured by a pink hue of a setting sun.  It is a scene out of a Frost poem.

There it is,  a light in the second floor window, in the corner classroom and just for a moment, I am happier than I have been all day.

Just for a moment, I think the school is alive again.  There is a teacher in that room.  She is grading some papers or she is preparing tomorrow's lessons.  I think she should get home, it is too late and her family needs her.  Or maybe there are students there.  They are staying late, practicing for an upcoming concert or play.  Maybe they are working on a class project and the teacher is helping them.  Maybe it's the custodian, pushing the chairs in, getting ready to wash the floors, picking up a sweater  that has dropped from a desk. Or maybe it is the principal, sitting with some parents, discussing their child's progress, each trying to find difficult answers. Or maybe it is the parent's council, trying to figure out how to raise some funds for a school trip.  In my mind, they are all there tonight and it makes me smile to myself as I put the car in gear.

A light in a window of an abandoned school has somehow made me warm on a cold winter's night.  I turn the corner and head home but my eyes keep glancing to my rear view mirror, hoping to see a silhouette of a person in the school; hoping to see all of those people who make a school.

But it's not just the desire to see the building alive again that has warmed me.  It is the importance of these places. We have built these places and while some need to be torn down or re-purposed, they remind me of the great commitment that we have made to one another and of our dedication to each others' children.

This is the light that guides me home.

The Rolling of the Lemons

Ontario's public education system is, by any measure, one of the best in the world but there are two festering sores that, if not treated, will cause this system to suffer irreparable damage.  The first, the hiring of new teachers, I dealt with here.

The second is the dismissal of incompetent teachers.

Let's begin with the case of a teacher who, according to an investigation by the Ontario College of Teachers, was found to have:

• Failed to maintain a the standards of the profession
• Failed to keep records according to the standards of the profession
• Failed to adequately supervise people under his or her care
• Failed to comply with the Education Act

Evidence was presented at the teacher's hearing that he or she was:

• unprepared for class
• did not provide students with feedback
• did not monitor students properly
• did not know how to manage a classroom
• did not know the curriculum

The teacher was reprimanded and publicly admonished in the College of Teacher's magazine Professionally Speaking.  Remember, this represents a case where the Principal, the Board, the Union, the teacher's colleagues, the parents and students all did what they were supposed to do; they reported, they documented, they gave adequate defense, they counselled.  

This teacher is still in our classrooms.

This is the shame of my profession and there's plenty of blame to go around.  

First we have boards and the government of Ontario.  The boards poorly screen new hires in their first years, failing to weed out obviously flawed candidates. Connected to this is the Ontario government and its regulation 274 that hires teachers on seniority rather than merit.  You could not design a better system to encourage mediocrity. 

Once an incompetent teacher is hired, boards move them, rolling these lemons on a regular basis and remaining unmoved by the pleas of parents, teachers, administrators and students.  Boards of education remain terrified of law suits and as a result grow more and more comfortable with the incompetency that they have permitted to grow. 

Why did the board of education, who employs the teacher in the case above, continue to employ the teacher?  

Next, teachers and their unions are to blame.  Many times teachers, for fear of reprisal, fail to report gross incompetency.  They turn a blind eye to the incompetent across the hall, willing to throw other people's children in front of these disasters.  The teachers' unions, trying to defend "the process" defend gross incompetency, with little regard for the harm it does to students and the reputation of their membership and their own credibility in the educational conversation.  Some of these incompetents are defended by the union their entire careers, wasting the time and energy  and resources of the union that should be used to protect and promote the good work most teachers do.

Finally, the public and the College of Teachers must shoulder some of the blame.  The parents, for quietly trying "to get through the year" and not willing to report gross examples of incompetence and the College of Teachers for only tackling the most egregious of behaviors and maintaining such a low bar of professional conduct that even teachers who have been drunk in classrooms can step over it. A reprimand in these types of cases is not enough.  The College should strip the licenses of these incompetents on a far more regular basis.  This would at least justify the expense and opulence of the College.

There are over a 110,000 teachers in Ontario and we can all agree the vast, vast majority of them are competent, hard working, conscientious professionals.  However, listen to any discussion of public education and you will hear that everyone has had an experience with an incompetent teacher at some point in their time in the education system.  This is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable that we take our most vulnerable people, our children, and place them in front of an incompetent for up to six hours a day for an entire school year and we do nothing about it.   

I know that the best in our system, our teachers, are sick of our worst.  Let's get rid of them.

The Common Hero

As I type this, there is a lawyer at JFK airport trying to free an Iraqi man, Hameed Darwish, who has worked with the American military in Iraq.  He is being detained on an executive order signed by President Trump and the lawyer cannot meet with the man.

I am thinking of that lawyer.  No doubt he is an extraordinarily, common man.  I don't know his name.  I bet he had to take a cab to the airport.  I bet he hasn't eaten well in the past twenty four hours.

As I type this, there is a reporter, no doubt poorly dressed, chasing down a lead on Trump's connections to Russia.  She probably has sore feet.  There is a very good chance her entire week will be dedicated to a part of a large story that may not make it into print.  We will never know.  She will wonder if any of it is worth it.

As I type this, there is a teacher, marking final exams.  She is looking at the essay question:  "In a clear and concise, logically constructed and textually supported essay, decide if Orwell's assertion that "Man is infinitely malleable" is true."  She is sitting at her kitchen table, coffee cup cooling as she begins to see if her students have mastered the critical ability to think.

Three common people.  Three people, any one of whom, you might walk your dog with or have a glass of wine with or who might be coaching your kid's hockey team.  You may even be one of them.

Robert Bolt in his masterpiece A Man For All Seasons, begins his play with "The sixteenth century, like all centuries, is the century of the Common Man."  In this young century, with the encouragement of technology and social media, we have begun to disparage the common men and women who do common work.  We question our doctor because we diagnosed ourselves on the Internet.  We question a need for a lawyer and make jokes at their expense.   We dismiss journalists as biased and we ridicule teachers as lazy.

Interestingly, we attack these common people in these professions while we assert our own uniqueness, our own individuality. We want special menus.  We want unique treatments.  We want elite programs for our children, we want our own music and we want it now. We, we argue, are unique.

When Bolt used the term "common" he didn't mean it in a derogatory way; he meant it as, that which we all share.  The common is what connects us; the common should be exalted.

Our teacher has refilled her coffee cup and is looking at the exams, all of which have been written by common people who she hopes will do uncommon things.  She is imagining one of them chasing down a story that will make our democracy safer and more vibrant.  She is thinking that one of them will rescue a stranger in a windowless room in a large airport, assuring rights apply to all.

Our teacher knows, that Bolt was right:  The twenty first century, like all centuries, is the century of the Common Man.

It's Time to do More than Talk

I've been teaching in the most typical of high schools in Ontario for nearly thirty years and if my experience of mental health is consistent with schools across the country, then folks, we have a serious problem.  I want to start with the macro and move to the micro.

 Here are the statistics, taken from the Ontario College of Teachers:

• Half of all lifetime cases of diagnosable mental illness begin before age 14, and three-quarters begin before age 24. 
• Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people age 15 to 24. 
• Ninety per cent of those who commit suicide have a diagnosable mental illness.
• 10 per cent of boys and 11 per cent of girls age four to 11 have symptoms of depression. 
• Mental-health problems in children are expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2020. 
• Seventy per cent of childhood mental-health problems can be solved through prevention, early diagnosis and intervention.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that:

• We've lost a number of students to suicide.
• We've lost a teacher to suicide.
• We have a small epidemic of anxiety in both our students and our teachers.
• Some in our school suffer from mental illnesses ranging from depression to personality and bipolar disorders. 

I think the Ontario education system contributes to this epidemic.  We work everyone too hard, we keep students and teachers inside (in my case, without a window), we limit physical activity, we emphasize results at the expense of process and we don't get enough sleep.  Our language, our work places, our classrooms, our hallways, sometimes encourage competition over cooperation.  We don't give anyone enough time to talk, and think, and decompress.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, we provide little help to those who feel unwell in such a system.

I'm  a teacher and I don't pretend to be trained in psychology but I have seen a few people over the past thirty years and I think I've learned what can keep them happy and healthy:

• Let's build schools that are made for people.  Let's have open windows, buildings that provide natural light and invite nature in.
• Let's give elementary teachers the training and ability to screen for mental health issues and then give families and students the supports they need. 
• Let's provide supports for teachers who far too often are left to struggle with their own mental health while still trying to be effective teachers.
• Let's screen teacher candidates, much like pilots, for mental health issues and either provide them support or discourage their entry into this profession that demands the most stable of psyches.

The mental health of our children and those who care for them is the most serious issue we currently face in education.  Let's do more than talk.  

A Day in the Life of a High School Basketball Coach

It starts with a 7am shooting practice to prepare for the 4:45pm game at another school that afternoon.  His team is sluggish after the weekend tournament; two students are late to practice.  Most of the kids have colds. He sends them off to class after 45 minutes, with one player staying behind to talk to him about a family issue that has arisen.  He will be late for his home room class.

He teaches a full class load, including covering for other colleagues working on other extra curricular activities and eats his lunch at his desk as he organizes the school's home tournament scheduled for next month.  He's been working on the tournament since last May.  

That tournament is one of two this season that are out of town and requires him to book rental vans, and hotel rooms on his credit card and arrange for another chaperone to attend.  The board of education insists he fill out a package of forms that is over 12 pages long for those tournaments.  It doesn't matter if you are taking students to Oslo or Orillia, it's the same number of forms.   His team will play close to forty games this year, requiring two hours of practice a day, five days a week, to prepare and four to six tournament weekends.  You can't be competitive at this level without that minimum time commitment.

The phone rings.  It is one of the parents of a player on his team.  Dad wants to know why his son is not playing as much as the other players.  The parent is angry and he needs to explain that he is teaching the merits of hard work and discipline.  He suggests the parent speak to his son about his effort.  He hangs up realizing the parent is still angry and he is late for fourth period.

After the bell rings and before he leaves for the game, the Vice Principal stops by. The Vice Principal wonders if he could speak to a player about an incident in math class. The math teacher is having difficulty with the class and the Vice Principal would like the student to be a leader in the class.  He promises the Vice Principal he will.

He will, against the advice of his union, drive students to the game this afternoon in order to save money.  He will use his car, his gas.  One player has forgotten his away uniform but he always packs a spare one in the ball bag.  During the warm up, one of the students from the other school takes one of his basketballs.  He has to follow the student down the hall to retrieve it.  The referees are late.  As a result he will miss his own kids' bedtime.  

The game will end at 6:30 and he will drive two or three players home who do not have rides.  One young man needs to be dropped at work.  He obliges, recognizes the student hasn't had dinner and gives the student a few dollars so he can eat.

That night, after he has tried to spend a moment or two with his wife and having looked in on his own sleeping children, he lies in bed thinking about the team.  He thinks he could have been better.  He thinks he made some mistakes, he feels badly about the parent phone call.  He feels badly that not everyone can play.

He rolls over and questions why he does this, season after season, year after year.  He thinks of the players and their improvement.  He thinks of the bonds that have formed, the struggles faced, the love that has been shared.  He thinks about the opposing coach and takes comfort in their effort as much as his.  Those coaches become his life long friends.

He thinks about the sacrifices that so many teachers make for the "extra" curricular at the school; how kind and considerate and how hard working each is and he thinks most particularly about the fine men and women he has coached and is thankful for each one of them.

He's ready to do it again tomorrow.