Standing Up for Ontario Students

(Revised Jan. 29th)

Do retired teachers still care about issues affecting education? Absolutely! There is probably nothing more important than the education of our future citizens. Besides caring about society in general, I have a personal interest because of our grandchildren.

So the current disputes and rotating strikes here, have certainly caught my attention. Last week I listened with interest to CBC radio's Ontario Today. On Jan. 20th  the open line show discussed some of the issues which have led to the current teachers strikes. Then on Jan. 23rd, the show focussed on class size. It's hard for non-teachers to imagine teachers' work days.  If you're working in an office, with adults, it's hard to imagine how a school day, spent with unpredictable children, unfolds. The last few calls to the Jan. 20th show demonstrated that unfamiliarity.

A ten year old girl called in and expressed her concern about the size of her class. She stated that there were 31 students in her combined grade 4/5 class. Host Rita Celli asked her what grade she was in, and when the girl replied that she was in grade 5, Rita said,  "Your actual class is kind of a nice size....You only have maybe 14 kids in your class.... So that's not so big, I don't think."   Really?

Imagine organizing your child's birthday party. Would you find it easier to entertain and keep track of 6 or 12 or maybe 18 little kids? Would you like to have 30 kids at that party? However, it's only a party. There are no learning objectives to pass along. There will be no assessment of their learning at the end of the party. All you have to do is entertain and feed them. Still, would you not find it easier to keep track of a dozen of them?

That teacher has 31 bodies in a classroom. With desks, chairs and equipment they hardly have any room to move. It's a combined grade. That teacher has to teach both the grade 4 and the grade 5 curricula. Sure, if the teacher had only 15, grade 5 students that would be a great class size. However, this teacher has to keep her grade 4 class engaged in meaningful tasks, while she teaches the grade 5 class. The age and ability spread in any split grade is often very wide. You may have students in the grade 4 class with learning disabilities who are barely reading and writing. At the same time there may be gifted grade 5 students who are functioning at a grade 8 level. Add to that, the students with various special needs. It would not be unusual to have a number of students with behaviour problems and some ESL kids.  Ontario has welcomed many new Canadians in the past few years. How well are we serving their needs? There may be an autistic student, or others with hearing or visual impairments. 

Following that girl's call, there was a call from a retired teacher. She stated that she was tired of today's teachers complaining about their jobs. When she was teaching,  she was dedicated to her students, taught large classes and everything was fine. She thinks that today's teachers only want more money.

Fortunately, Rita Celli asked her when she retired from teaching. It was in the 1970s!  That's when I started teaching. It was a whole different ballgame back then. Teaching was a lot less complicated than it is today. There were more special education classes. (Today those students are all in regular classes.)  The curriculum was not so involved. IEPs (individual education plans) were unheard of.  I must confess that I did not have a good understanding of learning disabilities or autism back then. Any ESL students had their own classes and teachers.

I taught for 4 years in the 70's, then took a long time off with my own children, before returning to the classroom. My last eight years were spent as a special education teacher. Education in general and teacher expectations in particular, have really changed since the 70's.

In the 80's, our family was very grateful for the Learning Disabilities classes that existed in Ontario. Those classes, which were limited to 8 students, were a wonderful place for LD students to receive intensive instruction for a few years, before being re-integrated into regular classes. Sadly, LD classes are long gone, making school life so much more difficult for LD students, as they struggle to keep up with their classmates.

Today's teachers are called upon to teach large classes, composed of students with a variety of needs and abilities. We start kids in school when they are barely 4 and push them along, year after year, regardless of their achievements.

Just a few months ago, this same radio show, Ontario Today, held a two day discussion on the failure of Ontario schools to teach many students to read. This was based on Ontario's human rights commissioner announcing a study on the issue. "Today, (Oct. 3, 2019) the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) launched Right to Read, a public inquiry into human rights issues that affect students with reading disabilities in Ontario’s public education system."

Well folks,  let's connect the dots here. We have a large homeless population, we have too many people in jails, crime and violence are increasing. Many of these problems can be traced back to the failure of our education system to address the complicated needs of our students. The problems that exist in Ontario's schools are not going to be resolved with less professionals in our schools.

According to the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario website:

• 1 In 10 people in Ontario are impacted.(by learning disabilities)
• 35% Of students with LDs drop out of school
• 62% of students with LDs will be unemployed a year after graduation
• 36% of youth in correctional facilities have specific learning disabilities.
• Almost 50% of adolescent suicides have a diagnosis of an LD. 

 These strikes are about the quality of our schools, class size, the student/teacher ratio and the impersonal, inadequate nature of e-learning. These strikes are about the future of Ontario's society. We need more trained professionals (special education teachers, ESL teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, social workers, speech and language pathologists) in our schools, not less. E-learning cannot replace a caring knowledgeable teacher.

Education is not a simple business. It is a complicated, vital aspect of society. How Ontario's students emerge from high school will affect all of us, in countless ways. We need to take care of them while they are young, if we expect them to take care of us, when they are older.