Were I to believe in something like predestination, I’d say that my decision to become a teacher was made long before my mother gave birth. She, however, wanted me to become a doctor. After high school, though, I found myself “unready” for university, spent the next seven years wandering from job to job, then out of the blue decided to enroll at Dalhousie University, where my studies would ultimately take second place to my “pretending” to be a freelance journalist doing gigs for the CBC or editing the campus newspaper. However, having now gotten married and a child on the way, it was time for me to end my “experiencing life” phase, so after finishing my B.A., I promptly enrolled in the university’s B.Ed. program.
When I meet teachers who claim to have been run roughshod while doing their practicums (classroom work experience), let’s just say that my experience in that area was both eye-opening and hopeful. It probably had something to do with my being about six years older than the “average” teacher wannabe, but my two teacher supervisors protected me, it seems, from the bureaucracy, all the while giving me opportunities to develop a teaching style and direction so that students felt comfortable listening to what I had to say.
It also didn’t hurt my “development” as a teacher that my Mathematics methods teacher, Mary Crowley, was also a program consultant for U of T professor Frank Ebos when he was leading a team of writers to produce the “Math Is” series of textbooks. Occasionally she’d provide the class some insight as to how curriculum was designed and how such authors had to be extremely careful in highlighting its objectives – a lesson she felt we all should learn well in advance of taking our first teaching “job”. It was advice I would take seriously for life, lobbying for and then being placed on Quebec’s Curriculum Committee by the teacher union in my very first year on the job, and later following up by participating in an experimental class for Grade 11 Geometry while teaching at Athol Murray College – using the just-published “Math Is” textbook designed for such purpose.
Forty years later, things have changed in the classroom, but not for the better in my opinion. In 1979 when I moved my growing family back to my birth province, interest rates were pushing 20 per cent and governments were looking for ways to “cut waste”, which to the Devine government included monies being spent on education. I’d already borne witness to Rene Levesque’s Parti Quebecois “educational reform” priorities driving English-speaking teachers out of the province, while in TROC principals were being asked to cut back on staff, with the result that “senior” teachers usually counted upon to mentor newer staff were deciding to retire, either through pressure being exerted upon them by administrators recommending they retire, or being forced to teach in programs other than those falling within the realm of their subject-specific training. This loss of leadership among teacher ranks still hangs like a cloud over teacher staffing needs in today’s schools, as not unlike our medical schools our governments have systematically underbudgeted to provide for the training of future teachers, especially in STEM-based programs such as Mathematics.
Readers should be aware that my following observations may sound “biased”, but the methods used by school boards to hire staff probably hit mathematics teachers the hardest of all subjects still being offered in today’s classrooms. So-called “big city schools” such as are found in Saskatoon or Regina have the benefit of U of S and U of R education students doing their practicum in their schools, so these teachers are most likely going to apply to their respective Boards of Education, and invariably swallowed up, thus reducing the numbers available for semi-large communities such as Prince Albert, Yorkton or Swift Current.
(BTW, this situation also applies to Science teachers, in particular Chemistry and Physics, both of which also require a high degree of mathematics knowledge – and as a result are as rare in sighting in small school board district classrooms as are whooping cranes or burrowing owls being spotted here in Prince Albert.)
One should be aware that in Saskatchewan, those subjects (English, Math, Biology, Chemistry and Physics, all “30” level) requiring either that a graduating student write a provincial examination “final” for Grade 12 (Grade 10 and 12 in other provinces such as BC) or have that exam administered by an “accredited” subject teacher. On a personal level, I have gone through the administrative process to be certified in mathematics, only to find that program’s advice being ignored by every school board in the province – the “need” to introduce BOTH theoretical AND workplace mathematics as COMPULSORY subjects in Grade 10, so that students have an opportunity to consider trade options in their eventual choice as a career.
Minister of Education Everett Hindley is a Sask Party, Brad Wall era hanger-on with absolutely no experience working in any educational field, but can rely upon Saskatchewan School Board Association cost-cutting spokespersons such as President Shawn Davidson, cattle rancher and part-time veterinarian with NO educational experience whatsoever to get the message out that the Sask Party is taking proper action ” toward more meaningful assessment practices that take the needs of individual students into account while maintaining curricular integrity” – years before the Saskatchewan Student Assessment program will ever become available to students and concerned teachers alike.
Davidson’s statement is a joke; the worst thing is, teachers who have their own academically credible methods for assessing student learning should be decrying such elimination because our rural communities don’t have the resources that would allow their staff members to COVER the ENTIRE curriculum. Grade 12 provincials no longer have a 50 per cent weighting on a student’s final mark making gerrymandering a “pass” final mark possible. Students taking their classes online without teacher oversight don’t even have to write the tests; so shouldn’t the public reaction to this move to now remove those exams be better stated as “What has taken you so long to see the obvious need for reform, in effect further degrading our children’s academic achievements while you ‘ponder’ the need for such action?”
The worst result of the Moe government’s indifference to educational performance, however, is in rural Saskatchewan, where penny-pinching trustees are eliminating the offering of more weighty course studies by defunding “frill” programs such as Art or Music , offering only 24 options for graduation, all while focusing their hiring upon a teaching community in which “experience” is a profanity…
That, however, is a topic for next week’s column.
