by Jennifer Martin
Integration. Most of us are facing it in one degree or another. The image that has occurred to me that it is like being on a moving sidewalk. We try to stand tall, maintain our balance, keep on moving forward despite programme cuts, personnel cuts, budget cuts and the Social Contract. Taxpayers, with help from the media, are hostile towards teachers and the teaching profession, expecting teachers to pay for more than their share of the Provincial debt. Carleton teachers alone, it is estimated, have paid more than 25 million dollars through the Social Contract and other concessions over the past three years.
Education has become a very political game. Trustees are more concerned with votes and have decided to target teacher salaries to cut costs and please the public. Provincial officials want to reduce funding, increase class sizes and still improve the school system. This will not work without detailed implementation plans. Plans that include networking to collaborate on what works and what doesn't.
The media publishes research results that have shown that it is parents with children in the education system who are most in tune with what it is we are trying to accomplish and believe in what we are achieving, despite the economic situation, integration and reduced funding. Nationally, 47% of taxpayers gave an A or B grade to the public school of Canada. However, 72% of those with students in the public school system gave an A or B mark. The general public believes media misrepresentations of our "failing" school system.
Media fails to examine the details of educational studies. Barlow and Robertson point out that while Canada's standings in international studies appear to be low, it is because we are comparing a country with a dropout rate (in 1991) of only 18% and an integration policy which places students in our classrooms of limited abilities, with other countries who are testing the top 13% of their population. They also tell us that in Japan if a school does not perform well on this tests their marks are not included by administrators who would lose face with poor results.
The Royal Commission has come up with many new reforms for us in Ontario. We are going to cut out higher education in order to give preschoolers a chance to get started on their education. We all know that young children learn best by playing. The Day Nurseries Act, which governs those teaching preschoolers, requires a teacher pupil ratio of 1 to 6. How can schools replicate these numbers? Nursery Schools and Day Care Centres have a cook who is required to provide a balanced, hot meal. They also require facilities for children to have large muscle play opportunities and an afternoon nap. (We may have children as young as 2.8 years in our school system.) Our public schools don't have the space for such reforms. Nor should we. Educators in the Early Childhood Education field have worked long and hard to develop standards of excellence in early childhood settings. The very young child could conceivably be placed in a K to 8 school. They would need separate play areas, more supervision than other students and special facilities. Who is going to pay for these reforms and when are we going to be trained to handle them? These children are far better of in Day Care settings, with adequate facilities, not a formal school system.
The Common Curriculum espouses cooperative education, a philosophy that goes hand-in-hand with the integration philosophy but where is the MOE when we are coping with these new strategies? As with the open concept philosophy, and the other Hall-Dennis recommendations of the 70's, we are not receiving enough training in the how to's. We try, while standing on the moving sidewalk, but often fail to grasp new strategies thrown at us by an eager MOE. We may or may not be able to find resource materials which will help us fulfil our mandate. Increasingly, Boards and the MOE expect us to do this kind of professional development on our own time. Something has to give.
We are being asked to change our mind set but before we can do that we must have a clear idea of where we are headed and what it is we are expected to do. Are we educating students, teaching them how to think and expand their minds or are we training them for the work force? A work force that is decreasing with downsizing, automation, NAFTA and the transfer of work to Third World countries.
We are now required to serve an integrated group of students with little preparation or experience and fewer financial and human resources. We must learn to juggle parallel or even totally independent programmes as we are called to teach students who may be three or four grade levels below the grade we are teaching. We have to differentiate for gifted children, behaviourally challenged students, children with A.D.D., and students facing personal crises of which we know little. As always we are parent, priest and psychologist.
In destreamed Transition Years programmes children who may have taken general programmes in the past are being streamed with gifted students. Students with little aptitude or inclination. Teachers complain that can't manage to cover the entire grade nine curriculum. How will we compact grade nine to O.A.C. curriculum into fours years? Surely our dropout rate will rise. A paradox exists between integration and National testing.
Many teachers are unprepared to handle integrated students in their classrooms. For those who are fortunate to receive support and training they are devoting non-instructional and preparation time to meeting with support personnel to learn about the disability a particular child faces but, with a limited amount of time in which to do the work, we spend less time preparing for the other twenty-five or thirty students. We have no implementation plans for this process.
There are time and financial constraints: budget and salary cutbacks have produced a population of teachers who are unwilling, perhaps unable, through daily stresses and the need for a personal life, to stand and deliver programme in a new way. Stress related illnesses seem to be on the increase.
When will it end? When will we say no to budget cuts, and stop working so hard for so little? Not only money but respect. We are going to have to learn to be stronger advocates and discuss these issues with the public. Our federations will have to be pushed to study issues such as integration. They are going to have to the media and lay it on the line. We are not responsible for the ills of our society. We can't cure these students. It is the average student who will lose out in terms of teacher time, energy and attention.
We must stand up for ourselves. Many of us are facing too many challenges. We will have to develop collaborative strategies in order to help us accommodate these reforms. Federations will have to work together to share information and ideas in these trying times. Several years ago I heard a colleague complain to our Director that she is not opposed to change- it's the only thing we can count on in these difficult times, she is opposed to being dictated to and forced to do new things in a new way without adequate support, without consultation. "Too many teachers are too busy teaching to worry about education." Get involved in your federation and lend your voice to this battle. We can't let the politicians and the media start this sidewalk moving even faster without our input. We have the power to shape the future of education in Ontario. Let's take it on and speak out and speak up.
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