(All pictures have been removed from the articles because they take up so much memory in each post. To see the pictures use the web address and visit the sites of the newspapers.)
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/jun/27/secret-teacher-we-help-pupils-to-but-how-long-before-its-exposed
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/jun/27/secret-teacher-we-help-pupils-to-but-how-long-before-its-exposed
Secret Teacher: we help students to
cheat, but how long before it's exposed?
Teachers who break the rules will have nowhere to hide when
exam-only syllabi come in, leaving us easy prey for our critics
Saturday 27 June 2015 07.00 BST Last modified on Monday 29
June 2015 16.35 BST
On the first day of the school year the staffroom buzzes
with nervous whispers. Everyone is eager to hear the big news about results. Is
an Ofsted inspection imminent or are we safe in our jobs for another year?
Thoughts whir as the senior management team present their annual analysis of
assessment data.
But there is an enormous elephant in the room; most of the
members of the audience know the data is false. This is because we know how
much we help children cheat in the modular tests brought in to replace
coursework.
Controlled assessments are not properly scrutinised by line
managers and exam boards, a problem that gets worse every year. More and more
teachers allow students to use extensive written notes when only limited
prompts are allowed. In April I found students in the library “redrafting”
controlled assessments for the sixth or seventh time when they should not be
attempted more than once.
A number of my year 11 tutor group – mostly of C/D
borderline ability – proudly told me they had achieved A*s. They were unaware
that the amount of help their teachers gave them – by providing detailed writing
frames, editing their initial drafts line by line and giving intensive
one-to-one guidance – meant it was practically done for them.
When we internally moderate school-based assessments,
obvious discrepancies, such as students who have only just started learning
English writing like prize-winning authors, are ignored in the near certainty
we will not be caught. The exam boards select work from random students to
scrutinise, but they have a vested interest in schools choosing their syllabi
so they are unlikely to be too rigorous.
It is hard to be sure how aware students are about this
constituting malpractice. Some, of course, smell a rat but stay quiet. Most
expect their teachers to allow repeated redrafting because it has become so
much the norm that they would be disadvantaged without it. When parents get
involved, they expect the same.
Friends and colleagues, who are decent people, insist that
what we do is fine because “everybody” else is doing it. When I discussed my
concerns with our headteacher, who is much better than most, they echoed that
sentiment exactly. They even said that in grammar schools repeated redrafting
was par for the course and that this was always done “with the best of
intentions”.
The problem is that teachers have no choice. If students do
not achieve their target grades/levels, we get the blame. In the current
climate this argument has force: without the malpractice we indulge in, the
head says we would slip from “good” to “requires improvement” or even
“inadequate”. The aftermath of such a judgement is our biggest fear –
academisation.
The impact on results is most pronounced in the English
department. The head of English is a shameless careerist and assists in most of
the redrafting personally, boasting about how the A-C English language pass
rate has been raised from the “below floor target” prediction to over 70% in
the final exams last year. Of course the rest of the department know that these
results would be significantly worse without malpractice, but it allows the
“team leader” to look good, despite driving good teachers out with dire
interpersonal skills and appalling judgment.
Soon, English and some other subjects will see controlled
assessments replaced by exam-only syllabi. When that happens, I worry that results
will fall dramatically and the level of cheating in schools will be exposed to
the public. They will not have sympathy for the “you don’t bring a knife to a
gunfight” line of defence, and the fact that the fight should never have been
called for in the first instance won’t matter a jot.
Secret Teacher: how I became trapped in the cheating game
Our students, who think we are doing nothing wrong now, will
look back on their education with deep cynicism. Our reputation will take an
almighty hammering and once we lose that standing with parents and communities,
we will be easy prey for the vultures who want to privatise our great
profession.
• This article was updated on 27 June 2015 to correct the
picture, which initially showed an osprey, not a vulture.
Secret Teacher: I am too overworked
to give trainees the support they need
New recruits deserve mentors who can spend time with them
and be role models. All I can offer is a team of burnt-out teachers struggling
to meet targets
Helping hands: ‘I am sorry that even when we manage to
attract new graduates into the profession, I can’t offer them the training they
need and deserve.’ Photograph: Alamy
The Secret Teacher
Saturday 11 July 2015 07.00 BST Last modified on Saturday 11
July 2015 07.03 BST
It’s that time of year again when my inbox fills up with
requests from universities to host a PGCE student. Taking on a trainee is
always a bit of a gamble: the majority are excellent but the odd bad apple
falls through the net. Take Heidi, for example. She thought teaching was a 9am
to 3pm job. Linda was no better – she took to carrying spare tissues with her
as she couldn’t face a class without crying.
Most heads of department want PGCE students: we get a weekly
free period to coach them and even bag a little extra money for a few
textbooks. Trainee teachers mostly bring enthusiasm and ideas to tired, old
departments and can plan lessons and share their resources. But before you can
enjoy the advantages of an extra pair of time-saving hands, these new recruits
need training – and therein lies the problem.
Mentoring a PGCE student takes time – far more than the
additional period we are given. We have to coach them, guide them and comfort
them when yet another student has left their lesson through the window or
locked them in a cupboard. (One of Linda’s development targets had to be that
she wouldn’t remove her keys from her lanyard – her habit of leaving them in
the lock when she walked into a cupboard was just too tempting for some
students.)
The bigger problem is that PGCE students start by watching
us teach. I’m a head of department so the amount of time I now spend planning
lessons is negligible. Usually it happens when the first student walks in and I
ask, “Where did we get to?” That’s it: the rest of the time I am filling out
paperwork and crunching numbers.
Don’t misunderstand me, I want to spend more time planning
and teaching amazing lessons. But in reality, my day is spent filling in
spreadsheets to show how much progress a child has made, updating the classroom
risk assessments or rewriting schemes of work (again) so that French definitely
includes teaching “fundamental British values” (seriously).
But if a PGCE student is watching you, you have to pull out
all the stops. Objectives, tick. Starter activity, tick. Differentiation, tick.
Peer assessment, tick. Plenary, tick. Silencing the child who asks why all your
lessons aren’t like this, tick.
Even if you get the extra time you need for these perfect
lessons, it doesn’t stop there. After a few weeks PGCE students have to teach.
We can’t just pass them the board pen with a cheery “Off you go then”. We give
them 10-minute chunks to teach, which need to be closely planned with us.
Another problem is fear. Yes, I am afraid. As I have said, I
don’t plan lessons for non-exam classes anymore and I barely have time to mark.
I work 8am to 7pm most days, but I don’t have time to do the basic duties that
people would reasonably think a teacher should. What if my trainee notices?
What if they see that I set my team targets to provide weekly and fortnightly
assessments of children’s work , but I don’t do them for my classes?
Of course I could delegate. I could palm the bright-eyed
PGCE student off on one of my stressed-out team members. The problem is that I
know most of my team don’t plan or mark properly any more either. I turn a
blind eye to it, aware that they are focusing their efforts where I need them
to – on the exam classes and targets. But none of this helps aspiring teachers.
They deserve someone who is going to spend time with them, guide them through
the challenges and be a role model. I don’t have any role models left in my
department, just a team of burnt-out teachers struggling to meet ever-changing
targets.
In an ideal world we would welcome the trainee teacher with
open arms. Their mentor would be given a free period every day to work with
them, plan lessons and generally check they are on track. The mentors would be
less stressed out, have less paperwork to do and be able to set a good example
to those coming into the profession, instead of saying: “Do as I say not as I
do – well at least until you’ve qualified.”
I am sorry that I won’t be offering a place to a PGCE
student this year. I am sorry that even when we manage to attract new graduates
into the profession, I can’t offer them the training they need and deserve.
PGCE students across the country are being trained by overworked, disillusioned
teachers who don’t have time to do the job properly themselves, never mind
showing someone else what to do. What kind of teachers will this produce? I
wish this year’s cohort every success in their training. But until the
government stops the endless targets, the constant threat of Ofsted, the
ever-changing goalposts (don’t even get me started on the new curriculum, GCSEs
and A-levels), I simply can’t help them.
Provinces spend $4.2B on child care:
report
OTTAWA — Government spending on daycare has reached an
all-time high with new data showing the provinces — with help from the federal
government — are spending more than $4.2 billion to provide regulated daycare
spaces across the country.
Although the increase is driven largely by the almost $2.5
billion Quebec spent on its child care program in 2014, the data compiled by
the Toronto-based Childcare Resource and Research Unit also show year-over-year
increases in spending in Ontario, Alberta, B.C. and Manitoba that has helped
add more than $602 million in daycare spending since 2012.
That spending has helped add some 200,000 regulated daycare
spaces across the country, bringing the total inventory to more than 1.2
million spaces.
Those spaces would cover about 25 per cent of all children
age 12 and under — an increase of four per cent from just two years ago.
Part of that spending is helped by transfer payments from
the federal government that pay for myriad social programs across the country.
Just how much of the Canada social transfer goes to child care is unknown as it
competes with other needs — affordable housing, post-secondary education,
social services — that provinces have to fund.
Combined, though, it adds up to an unconventional national
child care program, said Martha Friendly, the organization's executive
director.
The data suggest there is "fertile ground" for the
next federal government to work with provinces on their daycare dilemmas, given
the federal parties have talked to varying extents about how to pay for
daycare, expanding parental leave, and income supplements in the form of child
benefit payments.
"When I look at all this stuff, the provincial
territorial stuff and the national stuff and you sort of mix it all together, I
think, 'You know what, we might be talking about a real national child care
program,'" she said.
The data from the biennial report on child care in Canada is
being released Wednesday in the midst of an election campaign where the three
major parties have put forward differing child care plans as they vie for
family voters.
The platform promises remain broad brushstrokes and the
devil is still in the details when it comes to turning a promise into an
effective policy, said Friendly, a longtime advocate for a national daycare
program.
The NDP has provided the most detailed promise, vowing to
bring in a national daycare program that would cost parents no more than $15 a
day and cost the federal government $5 billion — and the provinces $3.3 billion
more — once the program is fully ramped up after eight years.
Details like how the party will set quality and
accessibility standards, for examples, are all issues that Friendly said would
have to be addressed in a child care policy.
The Liberals have also promised to work with provinces to
develop a "child care framework" with provinces that, the party's
platform says, would meet "the needs of Canadian families, wherever they
live" and provide "affordable, high-quality, flexible and fully
inclusive child care." The platform doesn't put a specific dollar figure
to the promise.
Other promises each party has made, like extending parental
leave to 18 months and the value of monthly child benefits, can also be seen as
part of a national daycare strategy, Friendly said.
The prospect of a national child care program has stirred
debate about whether it would help Canadian children excel academically and
socially, and whether it would be financially sustainable for the federal
government.
Follow @jpress on Twitter
By Jordan Press, The Canadian Press
Facts and figures of childcare in
Canada
OTTAWA — A new report on the dollars and cents of childcare
in Canada is being released Wednesday. The biennial report from the Childcare
Resource and Research Unit looks at how much the provinces and territories
spend on childcare, and what the money buys. Here are some figures from the
report:
1,201,377: regulated child care spaces in Canada
70%: employment rate of mothers with children aged 0-2
$4,273,366,946: Provincial and territorial spending on child
care, which includes funding from the federal government
$602,696,961: Increase in provincial and territorial
spending on child care since 2012
$1,676: Median monthly fee for an infant child care space in
Toronto, the most expensive in the country
$1,324: Median monthly fee for a toddler daycare space in
Toronto, the most expensive in the country
$998: Median monthly fee for a preschooler daycare space in
Toronto, the most expensive in the country
30%: Centre-based child care spaces in Canada that were in
for-profit daycares in 2014
By The Canadian Press
Ontario offers kids a nasal spray flu
vaccine
TORONTO - Ontario is introducing a new nasal spray flu
vaccine this year as an alternative to an injection in the arm.
The nasal spray, which will be available starting Oct. 26
for children aged 2 to 17, will offer protection against four flu viruses
instead of three.
The added protection is against a B-strain of the flu that
affects children and youth more frequently than adults.
Parents will still have the option of having their
children's flu vaccine delivered via a needle.
Adults will still be given the shot in the arm that the
government says will help protect against three flu viruses this year.
The Ministry of Health says up to 20 per cent of Canadians
get sick every year with the flu, which sends about 12,000 to hospital and
kills about 3,500 people annually.
--
Follow @CPnewsboy on Twitter
By The Canadian Press
The i(pads) have it
By Emma Graney
Grade 2, late-1980s, Australia… Sitting inside my primary
school’s computer lab, we played Sheepdog Round-Up on huge Macintosh computers
that were, for the time, pretty swanky. Remember DOS? Yep. That. Sheepdog
Round-Up was the highlight of my week. I hated mathematics (still do), but it
helped with my addition and subtraction skills and made learning — dare I say
the f-word? — fun.
My generation was on the cusp of the computer era. We were
taught once a week in a special computer room, but we were also taught how to
type by clickity-clacking away on good old paper-and-ink typewriters.
Computers weren’t in any classrooms and the Internet wasn’t
a thing. At all.
I say this not to explain how old I am (GET OFFA MA LAWN,
SONNY! Aaaarrrrg there goes me hip), but to illustrate how much classrooms have
changed since I was in school.
And you know what? That’s not a bad thing.
I use a computer every single day… one at work, one at home
(and thanks to Netflix and YouTube, the laptop at home replaces having a TV at
all). I tweet prolifically, I use Facebook constantly for story ideas and
contacts, my email accounts are a hive of activity and I can’t imagine living
without Google.
Why deny our kids the opportunity to learn the awesomeness —
and pitfalls — of technology from an early age?
I spent time inside Mrs. Maley’s Grade 1/2 classroom
recently (see the story here), where the kids regularly use Twitter and
blogging as a learning tool. They also use their iPads to help with math
projects; the day I was there, they were wandering the hallways, excitedly
looking for patterns of which they’d take photos and show off to the class.
That’s right, people — these kids were enjoying math
(*GASP*).
The reaction from some folk is to take all of the technology
off the kids and make ’em learn on paper, just like you used to because you
turned out just fine and so what’s wrong with it kids nowadays can’t pay
attention to anything because of the damn television sets and the internet why
I remember back when ….
Look. Technology isn’t a bad thing. It can be scary and it
can suck you in, but life is about learning how to focus on what’s important.
The kids in Mrs. Maley’s class sit quietly with their iPads
on their laps while the other students give math presentations, because they
KNOW that now is a time for listening — not for playing Angry Birds. They are
engaged with their stories when they blog and they know way more than I do
about functions of an iPad (seriously, it was embarrassing).
Life’s also about balance, which is unarguably important.
That’s why kids in Mrs. Maley’s class still write with pencils on paper, still
read books, still talk to each other in group projects, and still have to watch
the whiteboard during the day. They still have to learn basics, and they do.
But they also get to use tools that are now an integral part of everyday life.
In my mind, that can only further arm them for the future.
————-
Follow me for more education-related fun from Saskatchewan
on Twitter @LP_EmmaGraney
- See more at:
http://blogs.leaderpost.com/2013/10/01/the-ipads-have-it/#sthash.tGhFpBVU.dpuf
At Recess it was Easy to Lose Your
Marbles
By Cam Fuller,
Star Phoenix
About this time of year, kids would start playing marbles.
Maybe kids still play marbles. But I doubt it, because you have to go outside
to play marbles and I haven’t seen a kid outside playing anything since 1987.
Not true. Now that I think of it, some kids played road hockey on my street one
day this winter. I should have snapped a photo to prove it really happened,
like a Loch Ness Monster sighting. I hated to have to drive by them to get to
my house. I was worried they would get discouraged and stop playing road hockey
forever. Kids aren’t as resilient as they used to be, you know. And I was
right. I never saw them again, the whole winter. So let’s assume kids don’t
play marbles anymore. Man, are they missing out. Marbles were the best. THE
BEST. This was partly because playing marbles was one of the first things kids
did after the snow was gone. The sun was finally warm and you could start
smelling mud and green grass again. The world felt like a gift. You didn’t know
what you’d done to be so lucky. Kids didn’t even play marbles the right way,
and it was still huge. A game of real marbles was horribly complicated. You had
to draw a circle in the dirt and … That’s just it. Only two kids in 20 knew
what to do next. Sometimes you did see kids playing real marbles but you
usually felt sorry for them because it looked like something kids would have
done in the 1950s — and when you thought of things from the 1950s, you pictured
the See Spot Run books where the boys had brush cuts and crisply ironed
button-up short sleeve shirts and nerd bikes AND REALLY BORING LIVES. But you
were cooler because when you played marbles, you played “hit ‘em, you get ‘em.”
This was great. Half the kids were like carnies in their game booths. The other
half were suckers. The rules were both simple and indefinite, if that’s even
possible. A kid would sit and line up a few marbles in the playing triangle
formed by his outstretched legs. He’d place a few marbles in a row. He decided
how many marbles, and of what type, and how much space was between each. Then
another kid with marbles would come along and try to hit the lined-up marbles
with his marbles — from a distance determined by the kid running the operation.
The contestant got to keep the ones he hit. The operator kept the ones that
missed, often amassing bulging pockets of marbles by the end of the day. This
is how casinos got started. Marbles taught you about life. Some kids were rich,
some were poor. Some were reckless, some were cautious. Some were greedy, some
generous. Like kids, not all marbles were equal. Everybody had the cheap cat
eye ones. But what you really wanted were “crystals.” They didn’t have anything
in the middle of them, just more glass. They were miraculous. There were
rumours you could actually buy crystals at a store called the Rock Shop but no
parent was ever going to drive you there. And then some kid would come along
who not only had crystals but the beyond-rare super-large crystals. How the
heck? And then you’d find out the kid’s mom bought them for him. Instantly,
envy changed to pity. Any kid who got crystals from his parents instead of
winning them honestly on the pavement was spoiled. Spoiled kids were reviled.
Sorry, but that’s just the way it was. And then there were steelies.
Technically, they were ball bearings and not marbles at all, but a steelie the
size of a Ping-Pong ball was spectacular because it weighed about a million
pounds. One day, some kid gave me a steelie. Just gave it to me. It was the
best thing I’d ever owned. I couldn’t wait to get it home. Then I promptly lost
it during recess. It fell through a hole in my pocket. That’s another thing
kids don’t have anymore — holes in their pockets. I scoured the playground
through misty eyes looking in vain for the lost steelie. I was so upset I
didn’t hear the bell and the teacher had to come out and find me. The defeat!
The humiliation! Sadly, that wasn’t the last time I lost my marbles. - See more
at:
http://blogs.thestarphoenix.com/2015/05/04/at-recess-it-was-easy-to-lose-your-marbles/#sthash.No934vXe.dpuf
IB program ‘quite a journey’
By Jodi Lundmark, CJ staff
Graduation time
The graduation ceremony for Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate
and Vocational Institute’s IB program is held on the Thanksgiving weekend
because the school doesn’t receive the full results of the program until July
and the actual diplomas don’t arrive until September.
Posted: Sunday, October 11, 2015 6:00 am | Updated: 6:00 am,
Sun Oct 11, 2015.
By Jodi Lundmark, CJ staff
Just shy of his 18th birthday and only six weeks into his
first year of studying engineering at the University of Waterloo, Callum
Mitchell feels confident he will succeed.
“I’m performing more strongly than I expected and I think I
can thank (the International Baccalaureate program) for that,” he said.
Mitchell was one of 25 people graduating from Sir Winston
Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute’s 14th IB program on Saturday in Thunder
Bay.
The advanced academic program encourages community
involvement and also prepares students for university.
“It’s been quite a journey,” said Mitchell. “There were
definitely some challenging points but it was definitely worth it because now
I’m going into university into a fairly challenging program and I feel prepared
to handle everything.”
In the IB program, high school students are given
larger-scale projects to work on over a couple of months.
“That is something you see quite a bit in university so the
fact that you’re introduced to that in high school is really helpful,” said
Mitchell.
Churchill’s IB co-ordinator, Clarke Loney, said of the 25
students, seven completed full program diplomas and the rest received diploma
course certificates.
The graduation ceremony is held on the Thanksgiving weekend
because the school doesn’t receive the full results of the program until July 4
and the actual diplomas don’t arrive until September when the students have
already left for university.
Loney said the greatest benefit of the program is it makes
the students more globally aware and community-minded, as the IB program
encourages community involvement.
It’s also second to none in terms of university preparation,
he added.
“We’re super proud of these kids as we always are of our
graduates,” Loney said. “These kids will, without question, change the world.”
False Accusations: A Growing Fear in
the Classroom
Male role models are becoming increasingly scarce in
Canadian classrooms, and the demographics indicate that the current low numbers
will continue to decline. New teachers are quite prepared to take up the
pedagogical issues raised by changing standards and a changing demographic;
however, the spectre of violence and false accusations adds a level of danger
that is truly frightening – the former to female student teachers, the latter
primarily to males. It is reported that one in seven male teachers has been
falsely suspected of inappropriate contact with students, and Canadian school
systems do not have procedures in place to respond quickly and to protect the
reputation of those who are wrongly accused. While the safety of students must
be paramount, the rights of teachers need to be protected as well.
“Where are the male teachers?” Male role models are becoming
increasingly scarce in Canadian classrooms, and the demographics indicate that
the current low numbers will continue to decline. While general statistics are
open to flux and are often several years behind reality, it is clear that male
teachers in elementary and middle schools will soon be a thing of the past.
Secondary schools fair a tad better, but males are an increasing minority
within the teaching ranks at all levels. Generally speaking, the male-to-female
ratio in elementary schools is 20-to-80; in secondary schools, 35-to-65.
Whatever data one teases out, there is no question: our classrooms are
increasingly dominated by female teachers.
Recent Narrative
Henri Fournier, a teacher with the Commission scolaire
Grandes-Seigneurs in Quebec who has an impeccable 30-year employment history,
has had his life turned upside down by a set of circumstances straight out of a
B-grade movie. Several students (all girls between 8 and 12) accused Mr.
Fournier of inappropriate touching. Acting with dispatch so as to protect the
children, Mr. Fournier’s school board placed him on unpaid leave. He was
investigated by the local police, charged by the Crown Prosecutor, and sent to
trial.
As part of this shrinking minority myself, I watch with
concern the declining numbers of males who select elementary education as a
career path.
Almost two years would elapse between the laying of the
charges (ready for this – 34 separate charges!) and the commencement of the
court trial. During this time, one can imagine the chatter on the Internet and
the emails that winged back and forth. The climate in the school was tense and
– notwithstanding overt attempts at privacy – everyone knew the identity of the
girls and what Mr. Fournier was alleged to have done. Throughout this ordeal,
while proclaiming his innocence, Mr. Fournier was supported by his union; but
at the same time he was the object of all manner of scurrilous innuendo and
talk within his community.
There are those who may look at this situation and be
pleased with the swiftness of the action. A predator had been caught, and the
lives of so many girls saved from eternal harm. Even though a couple of the
girls recanted their stories prior to formal court proceedings, and the justice
system was grinding slowly, Mr. Fournier was going to get his just rewards.
One small difficulty: Madame Justice Odette Perron threw out
every charge! Further, in a somewhat scathing rebuttal, she noted that all of
the accusations were without foundation, many of the so-called statements were
contradictory, and she could find no fault at all with Mr. Fournier.
Then, in what can only be described as educational
decision-making run amuck, Mr. Fournier was reinstated by his school board (no
back pay, by the way) and assigned as a teacher to the same school where many
of the accusing girls were still students.
Whatever the formal ruling, Mr. Fournier is branded. No
charges were ever laid against the minors who made false police reports, no
disciplinary action was meted out to overzealous officers or educational
administrators, and the insult of reassigning Mr. Fournier to an environment
where his former accusers have free and unfettered reign to continue the gossip
borders on harassment. In a final irony, a labour arbitrator recently ruled
that Mr. Fournier is entitled to no back salary or benefits, and there will be
no compensation for his additional legal expenses.
Status of Male Teachers
Such stories concern my students. As a teacher of teachers,
I have a special interest in the status of male elementary teachers. As part of
this shrinking minority myself, I watch with concern the declining numbers of
males who select elementary education as a career path, and I view with sadness
the kind of impact cases such as Mr. Fournier’s have on my education students.
At McGill’s Faculty of Education, the percentage of males
opting for elementary teacher training rests, now, around five percent. This
number has been slowly declining – from about 20 percent over my tenure with
the Faculty. Within the broad Anglophone school network, many elementary
schools are now places of a single gender. Many factors contribute to falling
numbers of male teachers (lack of merit pay, stifling administrative
regulations, double standards, and the like), but the sad reality is that the
committed male classroom practitioner is slowly becoming a thing of the past.
From the principal to the custodian, it is often the case that all in-school
staff are female. To highlight this issue, it is not at all unusual for school
administrators to call our Student Teaching Office and plead for a male student
teacher.
There is no question that classroom teaching today is
extremely challenging. Internal educational pressures are mounting as more and
more special needs students are integrated into regular classrooms, and
instructional materials are found wanting as increasing numbers of immigrant
students bring diverse cultural histories into play within the close confines
of the classroom environment. It is also fraught with danger. On a regular
basis, as aptly documented in a CTV/W5 report “Unsafe to Teach” released in 2005,
teachers are being verbally and physically assaulted, and increasingly
subjected to false accusations of inappropriate behaviour. More and more
teachers are leaving the classroom for other careers.
My students – both male and female – are quite prepared to
take up the pedagogical issues raised by changing standards and a changing
demographic; however, the spectre of violence and false accusations adds a
level of danger that is truly frightening – the former to female student
teachers, the latter primarily to males.
False Accusations
As there is no central database documenting false
accusations, and as many cases are reported only at a local level without
receiving any kind of national attention, attempts to accurately appraise the
number, degree, and kind of false (and real) accusations of inappropriate
behaviour against male teachers has been a daunting task. Internet
organisations, such as “menteach.org”, have tried to report such cases, and
random searches of various news databases do tease out interesting human
interest cases. However, formal attempts to quantify the issue have been
frustrated by a lack of information.
However, thanks to a ground-breaking study by researchers
from the Northern Canadian Centre for Education & the Arts (NORCCREA) at
Nipissing University entitled “A Report
on the Professional Journey of Male Primary-Junior teachers in Ontario (Gosse,
Parr, & Kristolaitis, 2010), we have an initial benchmark figure.
Approximately 13 percent of the male teachers in their study – one in seven –
reported that they had been falsely suspected of inappropriate contact with
pupils. This is a significant number and, for the first time, quantifies the
reality faced by male teachers.*
Despite the lack of national data, it is clear that classroom
teachers across Canada are being falsely accused in growing numbers. Local
teacher unions and other educational authorities are struggling to identify
such incidents and, at the same time, appear ill-equipped to develop realistic
procedures and plans that safeguard due process and the reputations of those
falsely accused. Since we are not tracking the increasing level of violence
(both verbal and physical) against teachers, it is likely that these incidents
are under-reported, and we tend to ignore the extremely high dropout rate of
teachers who leave the career path after less than a decade of experience. We
don’t know how many leave because they have been falsely accused, or because
they see others losing their reputations and careers because of lies, rumours,
and innuendo.
There is no question that the children must be protected;
any adult who does indeed act in an inappropriate way must be drummed out of
the school system. But here comes the conundrum: how are the rights of innocent
teachers protected?
Although schools, school boards, unions, and other
educational stakeholders are scrambling to develop and implement policies, this
is a complex issue on many levels. There is a general assumption that any
student accusation simply must be true (kids don’t lie), and this is especially
true if the accusation is made by a female student against a male teacher. The
rights of children (often couched in the phrase “we must protect the students”)
appear to take precedence over the rights of teachers. There is no question
that the children must be protected; any adult who does indeed act in an
inappropriate way must be drummed out of the school system. But here comes the
conundrum: how are the rights of innocent teachers protected? And what action
is taken against students and their parents who are shown to lie? In far too
many cases, there is no “right to privacy” or “right to innocence before
judgment”; rather, there appears to be a rush to judgment with little regard
for the impact on the falsely accused individual or the collateral impact upon
the school and other professionals within that environment.
False accusations are being made against both male and
female teachers. These reports often take one of two broad avenues. In the
first, and less severe, the teacher is accused by one or more students of being
“unfair” or “picking on” a student. These accusations are usually wrapped
around words such as “harassment” or “culture”. The second set of false
accusations levelled against teachers is far more serious and might be broadly
termed “sexual”. In these cases, students accuse a teacher of various forms of
touching and/or other inappropriate communication.
Now, let’s be very clear on two fronts; some students lie,
and some teachers act inappropriately. With millions of pupils in schools and
tens of thousands of teachers in classrooms, inappropriate and questionable
speech and actions are bound to occur. In many cases, such actions can be
easily explained by the close quarters and natural connectedness between teacher
and pupil. On the other hand, teachers do cross the line. Similarly, not every
story out of the mouths of adolescents rings true. Incidents can be stretched
and expanded and, in a growing number of cases, simply made up.
To help my male students prepare for an environment in which
the usual student-teacher interactions can be misconstrued – intentionally or
unintentionally – I have developed a list I call the “Six Nevers”. They
illustrate how the threat of false accusations can interfere with the development
of a warm, caring relationship between students and teachers, and why males
considering teaching as a profession might have second thoughts.
Never touch a student!
Never be alone with a student, and never in a closed
classroom!
Never use language/tone that can be interpreted as anything
but professional.
Never use Facebook/Internet to chat or communicate with
students!
Never maintain an outside school association with a
student/family.
Never allow your guard to falter!
Another Narrative
A senior administrator characterized Ron Mayfield as an
energetic and experienced teacher who related well to his students; his death
was tragic. Mr. Mayfield was accused by one of his students of a physical
assault. In line with school policy, he was immediately suspended (with pay)
and police and youth services were notified.
While various investigations were carried out by many
agencies, Mr. Mayfield was left on the sidelines. He was not kept abreast of
actions and was left open to the rumour mill that swirled about in the school
and the community. Unlike many such investigations, this one moved quickly and,
within two weeks, it was clear that there was no substance to the charges.
Further, the 13-year-old student had recanted his accusation.
Unfortunately, no one in any of the agencies thought to
inform Mr. Mayfield. Sadly, he committed suicide. While it may never be proven,
his family (and many colleagues) share the view that Mr. Mayfield sought this
drastic release because he could not bear the stain of a false accusation and
the thought that his whole career was on the line.
Accountability
What is the punishment for students who lie about teachers?
In today’s Canada, little is done in a systematic manner to hold youth
accountable for their false narratives. In case after case, parents leap to the
defence of apparently “abused” children and, when the dust has settled, offer
no compensation to the aggrieved teacher. This skewed arrangement puts more
emphasis on unsupported adolescent narratives than on verifiable facts.
In some isolated cases, individual teachers are fighting
back. Teachers, both male and female, are personally resorting to the courts to
seek redress from parents and school officials. In a small number of U.S.
cases, the teachers have prevailed and been awarded significant amounts. Closer
to home, falsely accused Quebec teacher David Fletcher, in a precedent setting
case, was awarded damages in the $70,000 range. Nonetheless, far too many
falsely accused teachers are on their own as they attempt to deal with legal
and educational systems that do not have procedures in place to deal swiftly
and fairly with student accusations.
The history of school-based abuse is a clouded one. The
mainstream press is filled with recollections of religious transgressions and
sexual abuses committed by teachers in First Nation and elite private schools.
There is no question that children were abused in the past, and many reports of
abuse were ignored (as evidenced by the Residential School situations). Yes,
the reports of these abused children were discounted, and those in authority
sometimes acted criminally. However, the common contemporary assumption – that
any and all accusations against teachers (specifically male teachers) are true
– flies in the face of data.
Many of the accusations made against teachers are false.
They are stories – lies made up by students who find support in parents and
friends who are far too quick to point fingers. Careers are ruined and families
lost, and those who make such false accusations often face no consequences.
Along with those who support them, these students are being allowed to
undermine a pillar of the Canadian justice system: guilt must be proven in a
court of law, and innocence is something that cannot be given back when falsely
wrenched away.
EN BREF - Les modèles masculins deviennent de plus en plus
rares dans les classes canadiennes et les facteurs démographiques indiquent que
leur faible nombre continuera de diminuer. Le nouveau personnel enseignant est
bien préparé aux questions pédagogiques soulevées par les nouvelles normes et
par une nouvelle composition démographique des classes, mais le spectre de la
violence et des fausses accusations ajoute des dangers qui font vraiment peur –
aux étudiantes-maîtres dans le premier cas et aux étudiants-maîtres dans le
deuxième. Un enseignant masculin sur sept est faussement soupçonné de contact
inapproprié avec des élèves et les systèmes scolaires canadiens ne disposent
pas de procédures pour réagir rapidement et pour protéger la réputation des
innocents faussement accusés. Bien que la sécurité des élèves soit primordiale,
les droits du personnel enseignant doivent également être protégés.
* Please note that on April 29, 2011 a correction was made
online to this paragraph, clarifying the results of the research cited.
Grey Cup to be on the curriculum in
Manitoba schools
Posted: 10/5/2015 9:13 AM | Last Modified: 10/5/2015 6:07 PM
| Updates | Comments:
Teacher Nissa Chmilowsky of Darwin School uses the new 103rd
Grey Cup innovative teacher tool to students. Left to right: Jordan Nelson,
Tristan Turner, Tiana Normand, Erin Tormey and Madi Hope.
JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Tossing a football in class is verboden, but tossing around
Grey Cup facts and figures in the run-up to the 103rd Grey Cup will be on the
curriculum in Manitoba schools.
A 45-page teacher's toolkit was has been released that
includes more than 200 examples of how the Grey Cup, football and sport can be
used to teach other subjects. Manitoba teachers can integrate football history,
statistics, and team building into classroom mathematics, social studies and
even dance lessons.
The program was launched today by the 103rd Grey Cup
Festival team at St. Vital's Darwin School, chosen because it has already
adopted the education supplement. The Grade 5/6 teacher Nissa Chmilowsky won
for her innovative approach to integrating football to her class to explore
community engagement and fair play.
The school was visited this morning by Winnipeg Blue Bomber
players, Matt Bucknor and Maurice Leggett, and Bomber mascots Buzz and Boomer.
Education Minister James Allum was also on hand.
The education supplement can be found here.
The 103rd Grey Cup game is in Winnipeg this year on November
29.
Some 34,000 Quebec teachers off the
job to protest lagging contract talks
By: Lia Levesque, The Canadian Press
Posted: 09/30/2015 9:53 AM |
Last Modified: 09/30/2015 4:16 PM
MONTREAL - Nearly one-third of Quebec's public school
students had the day off Wednesday as their teachers went on strike to protest
lagging contract talks with the provincial government.
The French-language teachers demonstrated outside schools
before making their way to Montreal for a rally to decry what they call a
decline in working conditions and the quality of education offered to students.
French-language public school teachers demonstrate in
Montreal, Wednesday, September 30, 2015, where they protested against
government austerity cutsl. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
The 34,000 unionized teachers, part of a federation
encompassing several boards, represent about one-third of the province's
educators.
Wednesday's strike affected about 300,000 students at some
800 institutions in the Montreal area, the lower Laurentians region north of
Montreal and the Outaouais area near Ottawa.
Union officials say there has been no progress despite 70
meetings between negotiators and they blame the province and school
administrators for wanting to increase class sizes, thus putting a huge burden
on teachers while significantly reducing student services.
The province is offering the same deal to all government
employees — a two-year freeze followed by a one per cent annual hike over three
years. A common front of para-public and public sector unions is seeking 4.5
per cent per year over three years.
"We consider the wage increases reflect the work we're
asked to perform with respect to the students," said union president
Sylvain Mallette, adding salary is but one sticking point.
"There's also working conditions in which they want us
to work with students, and these are unacceptable."
He noted that class sizes are set to get bigger, increasing
the workload on teachers.
Wednesday was the first of three strike days the union
announced last spring, with the next one scheduled for the latter part of
October. Other unionized teachers have also voted in favour of strikes, with
rotating actions coming later in the fall.
Education Minister Francois Blais says he deplores the
teachers' decision to strike, adding the legal actions only penalize students
and parents.
Blais denied the government wants to add to the workload of
teachers and also denied the province is looking to end special-education
classes.
Blais said in Quebec City a 13.5 per cent salary hike over
three years is unrealistic as the government struggles to get its finances in
order.
"It isn't possible to ask taxpayers to pay that,"
he said.
