(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.)
April 15, 2018
(TEACHERS OFTEN ARE THE SCAPEGOAT. An experienced teacher told me about several experiences he had and it really serves as a warning to people who are thinking about becoming teachers. He told me about the lack of support in dealing with difficult students. He had heard about the days when some students were taken to the principals office frequently and were given the strap because they were rude and disrespectful to the teacher, using swear words and just saying shut up over and over, or bullying other kids a lot and making them cry. At one time students were suspended and even expelled. But parents complained so aggressively that these practices came almost to an end. Teachers used to send problem students to the vice-principal or principal but today teachers are expected to take several steps to ensure that every student can work in the classroom before that happens and if it happens frequently the teacher is criticized and is blamed. As he reflects on several years of teaching he says he believes that the school boards have successfully shifted responsibility from the board and the leaders in the school onto the teachers. He believes that as long as the board and the principals can convince the parents that the problems in the classroom are the fault of an INEFFECTIVE TEACHER then the board cannot be held accountable or responsible and that's really all that the board cares about. He says he believes that unions often cooperate with the board so that they don't have several grievances and huge legal bills connected with grievances. He heard that unions take weak collective bargaining agreements, (cba's) in exchange for jobs for sons and daughters and he believes that teachers and school boards cooperate to protect sons and daughters so they don't get blamed and have their careers ruined. He believes that there is a system where some non-family teachers get hired but they get pushed into positions they call NO-WIN classes so their sons and daughters don't end up in them such as classes with students with mental illness but the parents refuse to take their kids for treatment or to put them on medication that can have long-term side-effects or to go through the IPRC process that develops an Individual Education Program, (IEP), to have them diagnosed because a parent may have abused the child and they don't want to be found-out. When a teacher is hired into a school board as a substitute teacher one of the first things they discover is which schools are the worst for behaviour. Those are the schools the new substitute teacher gets called to the most the first few weeks they are hired because none of the experienced substitute teachers will take an assignment there. That's why boards bring in a limit on how many hang-up's substitute teachers are allowed a year or they will never get a substitute teacher to take an assignment there. There are many risks in becoming a teacher and the blame-game often leaves the teacher at fault. It might look easy from the outside but it isn't. Especially if you don't have family protecting you, like organized crime. And the media don't want to focus on this horrible situation because they are unionized, too, and they are afraid of making unions look duplicitous in the game of blame on teachers and they don't want everyone to learn more about the family system in a union shop. They have it too. So think very carefully before going in to teaching. You could spend a lot of money only to end up with a criminal record or getting blamed and getting no support. TH)
http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/moment-moment-positive-approach-managing-classroom-behaviour-joey-mandel
April 15, 2018
(TEACHERS OFTEN ARE THE SCAPEGOAT. An experienced teacher told me about several experiences he had and it really serves as a warning to people who are thinking about becoming teachers. He told me about the lack of support in dealing with difficult students. He had heard about the days when some students were taken to the principals office frequently and were given the strap because they were rude and disrespectful to the teacher, using swear words and just saying shut up over and over, or bullying other kids a lot and making them cry. At one time students were suspended and even expelled. But parents complained so aggressively that these practices came almost to an end. Teachers used to send problem students to the vice-principal or principal but today teachers are expected to take several steps to ensure that every student can work in the classroom before that happens and if it happens frequently the teacher is criticized and is blamed. As he reflects on several years of teaching he says he believes that the school boards have successfully shifted responsibility from the board and the leaders in the school onto the teachers. He believes that as long as the board and the principals can convince the parents that the problems in the classroom are the fault of an INEFFECTIVE TEACHER then the board cannot be held accountable or responsible and that's really all that the board cares about. He says he believes that unions often cooperate with the board so that they don't have several grievances and huge legal bills connected with grievances. He heard that unions take weak collective bargaining agreements, (cba's) in exchange for jobs for sons and daughters and he believes that teachers and school boards cooperate to protect sons and daughters so they don't get blamed and have their careers ruined. He believes that there is a system where some non-family teachers get hired but they get pushed into positions they call NO-WIN classes so their sons and daughters don't end up in them such as classes with students with mental illness but the parents refuse to take their kids for treatment or to put them on medication that can have long-term side-effects or to go through the IPRC process that develops an Individual Education Program, (IEP), to have them diagnosed because a parent may have abused the child and they don't want to be found-out. When a teacher is hired into a school board as a substitute teacher one of the first things they discover is which schools are the worst for behaviour. Those are the schools the new substitute teacher gets called to the most the first few weeks they are hired because none of the experienced substitute teachers will take an assignment there. That's why boards bring in a limit on how many hang-up's substitute teachers are allowed a year or they will never get a substitute teacher to take an assignment there. There are many risks in becoming a teacher and the blame-game often leaves the teacher at fault. It might look easy from the outside but it isn't. Especially if you don't have family protecting you, like organized crime. And the media don't want to focus on this horrible situation because they are unionized, too, and they are afraid of making unions look duplicitous in the game of blame on teachers and they don't want everyone to learn more about the family system in a union shop. They have it too. So think very carefully before going in to teaching. You could spend a lot of money only to end up with a criminal record or getting blamed and getting no support. TH)
http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/moment-moment-positive-approach-managing-classroom-behaviour-joey-mandel
Moment to Moment: A positive approach
to managing classroom
behaviour
By Joey Mandel
behaviour
By Joey Mandel
A review of Moment to Moment: A positive approach to managing classroom behaviour by Joey Mandel, Pembroke Publishers, 2013 ISBN: 978-1551382876.
As budget cutbacks result in fewer supports for children who struggle with self-regulation, many classroom teachers are searching desperately for resources to help them manage classroom behaviour. Disruptive behaviour stemming from such issues as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and Attention Deficit Disorder are presenting elementary teachers with challenges that were not present in regular classrooms of 20 years ago.
According to Joey Mandel, teachers need to uncover the
social skills deficits that are causing disruptive behaviours. She maintains
that some children need more help than others to develop the social skills that
allow them to participate more effectively in class. Her book does an excellent
job of explaining the behaviours caused by social skill deficits and provides
many examples of how these deficits affect a child’s ability to function. There
is a very extensive checklist of “Signs of Skill Deficits” but, at over 100
items per student, it just makes me want to lie down. For certain children it
would be worth the time investment to complete the survey, but to do it for all
20+ students in an elementary classroom, as Mandel suggests, would be an
unrealistic time commitment.
For each of the deficits she identifies on the survey,
Mandel provides activities and games that can be used with the whole class or
small groups. I found that many of the activities, which were offered as
appropriate for K-3, were actually beyond many of my JK/SK students, resulting
in frustration. However, if you take the grade recommendations with a grain of
salt, the activities are useful for the teacher and fun for the students. They
do take up precious time that, with the pressure to cover ever more curriculum
expectations, may deter some teachers. However, these activities can often be
integrated into physical education or arts programs, making them more feasible
to include in a busy schedule.
This book is a worthwhile addition to a teacher’s classroom
management and provides valuable insight into the issues that lie behind
difficult student behaviour.
Photo: Dave Donald
First published in Education Canada, March 2015
What If Everything You Knew About
Disciplining Kids Was Wrong?
Negative consequences, timeouts, and punishment just make
bad behavior worse. But a new approach really works.
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis | Tue Jul. 7, 2015 6:00 AM EDT
Social Title: Everything you think you know about disciplining kids is
wrong
June Arbelo, a second-grade teacher at Central School, comforts a student who wants to go home during the first day of school.
Tristan Spinski/GRAIN
Leigh Robinson was out for a lunchtime walk one brisk day
during the spring of 2013 when a call came from the principal at her school.
Will, a third-grader with a history of acting up in class, was flipping out on
the playground. He'd taken off his belt and was flailing it around and
grunting. The recess staff was worried he might hurt someone. Robinson, who was
Will's educational aide, raced back to the schoolyard.
Will was "that kid." Every school has a few of
them: that kid who's always getting into trouble, if not causing it. That kid
who can't stay in his seat and has angry outbursts and can make a teacher's
life hell. That kid the other kids blame for a recess tussle. Will knew he was
that kid too. Ever since first grade, he'd been coming to school anxious,
defensive, and braced for the next confrontation with a classmate or teacher.
[1] Also: Inside the Mammoth Backlash to Common Core [1]
The expression "school-to-prison pipeline [2]" was
coined to describe how America's public schools fail kids like Will. A
first-grader whose unruly behavior goes uncorrected can become the fifth-grader
with multiple suspensions, the eighth-grader who self-medicates, the high
school dropout, and the 17-year-old convict. Yet even though today's teachers
are trained to be sensitive to "social-emotional development [3]" and
schools are committed to mainstreaming children with cognitive or developmental
issues into regular classrooms, those advances in psychology often go out the
window once a difficult kid starts acting out. Teachers and administrators
still rely overwhelmingly on outdated systems of reward and punishment, using
everything from red-yellow-green cards, behavior charts, and prizes to
suspensions and expulsions.
How we deal with the most challenging kids remains rooted in
B.F. Skinner's mid-20th-century philosophy that human behavior is determined by
consequences and bad behavior must be punished. (Pavlov figured it out first,
with dogs.) During the 2011-12 school year, the US Department of Education
counted [4] 130,000 expulsions and roughly 7 million suspensions among 49
million K-12 students—one for every seven kids. The most recent estimates
suggest there are also a quarter-million instances of corporal punishment in US
schools every year.
But consequences have consequences. Contemporary
psychological studies suggest that, far from resolving children's behavior
problems, these standard disciplinary methods often exacerbate them. They
sacrifice long-term goals (student behavior improving for good) for short-term
gain—momentary peace in the classroom.
Teachers who aim to control students' behavior—rather than
helping them control it themselves—undermine the very elements that are
essential for motivation: autonomy, a sense of competence, and a capacity to
relate to others.
University of Rochester psychologist Ed Deci [5], for
example, found that teachers who aim to control students' behavior—rather than
helping them control it themselves—undermine the very elements that are
essential for motivation: autonomy, a sense of competence, and a capacity to
relate to others. This, in turn, means they have a harder time learning
self-control, an essential skill for long-term success. Stanford University's
Carol Dweck [6], a developmental and social psychologist, has demonstrated that
even rewards—gold stars and the like—can erode children's motivation and
performance by shifting the focus to what the teacher thinks, rather than the
intrinsic rewards of learning.
In a 2011 study that tracked nearly 1 million schoolchildren
over six years [7], researchers at Texas A&M University found that kids
suspended or expelled for minor offenses—from small-time scuffles to using
phones or making out—were three times as likely as their peers to have contact
with the juvenile justice system within a year of the punishment. (Black kids
were 31 percent more likely than white or Latino kids to be punished for
similar rule violations.) Kids with diagnosed behavior problems such as
oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), and reactive attachment disorder—in which very young children, often as
a result of trauma, are unable to relate appropriately to others—were the most
likely to be disciplined.
Which begs the question: Does it make sense to impose the
harshest treatments on the most challenging kids? And are we treating
chronically misbehaving children as though they don't want to behave, when in
many cases they simply can't?
That might sound like the kind of question your mom
dismissed as making excuses. But it's actually at the core of some remarkable
research that is starting to revolutionize discipline from juvenile jails to
elementary schools. Psychologist Ross Greene, who has taught at Harvard and
Virginia Tech, has developed a near cult following among parents and educators
who deal with challenging children. What Richard Ferber's sleep-training method
meant to parents desperate for an easy bedtime, Greene's disciplinary method
has been for parents of kids with behavior problems, who often pass around
copies of his books, The Explosive Child [8] and Lost at School [8], as though
they were holy writ.
His model was honed in children's psychiatric clinics and
battle-tested in state juvenile facilities, and in 2006 it formally made its
way into a smattering of public and private schools. The results thus far have
been dramatic, with schools reporting drops as great as 80 percent in
disciplinary referrals, suspensions, and incidents of peer aggression. "We
know if we keep doing what isn't working for those kids, we lose them,"
Greene told me. "Eventually there's this whole population of kids we refer
to as overcorrected, overdirected, and overpunished. Anyone who works with kids
who are behaviorally challenging knows these kids: They've habituated to
punishment."
"We know if we keep doing what isn't working for those
kids, we lose them… Anyone who works with kids who are behaviorally challenging
knows these kids: They've habituated to punishment."
Under Greene's philosophy, you'd no more punish a child for
yelling out in class or jumping out of his seat repeatedly than you would if he
bombed a spelling test. You'd talk with the kid to figure out the reasons for
the outburst (was he worried he would forget what he wanted to say?), then
brainstorm alternative strategies for the next time he felt that way. The goal
is to get to the root of the problem, not to discipline a kid for the way his
brain is wired.
"This approach really captures a couple of the main
themes that are appearing in the literature with increasing frequency,"
says Russell Skiba [9], a psychology professor and director of the Equity
Project at Indiana University. He explains that focusing on problem solving
instead of punishment is now seen as key to successful discipline.
If Greene's approach is correct, then the educators who
continue to argue over the appropriate balance of incentives and consequences
may be debating the wrong thing entirely. After all, what good does it do to
punish a child who literally hasn't yet acquired the brain functions required
to control his behavior?
School District 73 brings mindfulness
to schools
Students in Kamloops are learning something new this year
called "Mindfulness."
CBC News Posted: Oct 08, 2015 8:37 AM PT Last Updated: Oct
08, 2015 8:37 AM PT
Last week on Daybreak, we spoke to a Kamloops mom and early
childhood educator about anxiety. Lorisa Zazulak told us about the challenges
in getting support for her daughter. School District 73 has a program to bring
mindfulness into schools in Kamloops. Shelley Joyce was joined in studio by two
counsellors from School District 73. Angela Lawrence is a drug and alcohol
counsellor and Tyler Van Beers is an elementary school counsellor.
To hear the audio, click the link: School District 73 brings
mindfulness to schools
Teachers in Crisis: A Crisis in
Teaching?
14 January 201572
Author: frostededucation
Tags: accountability effective teaching school culture
teacher education teacher engagement
Blog categories: Viewpoint
Whenever I meet folks for the first time and they ask me
what I do for a living, I always respond "I'm a school teacher". Then
I either get one of two responses. Response a) sounds something like
"Nice! Summers off. Steady pay. Good pension." while response b) is
often more along the lines of "Wow! I do not know how you put up with
those little (insert expletive of your choice here) all day. I couldn't do
it."
Regardless of which comment I am facing, my response is
usually pretty much the same for either. For a), I nod and smile and reply with
"Yup! Best job in the world". For b), I nod and smile and reply with "Bah!
Best job in the world."
Now, the mimicry here is not only because I truly believe
teaching is the best job in the world, but rather because it is the best way to
attend to the penchant people have for oversimplifying what I do. Yes, I do
have summers off, steady pay and a fair pension, but even taken together, those
three things are not what keeps me in teaching. They may, at one point, have
drawn me into the profession, but they are miles away from representing the
best of what I get out of it. Similarly,
the kids can sometimes be a challenge, pushing buttons that I didn't even know
I had, but unless you have gotten into the wrong career, the kids should never
drive you out. They can anger you, yes, frustrate you, certainly, and sometimes
make choices or suffer fates that can devastate you in a way few outside the
profession can comprehend. The kids,
however, are not what makes teaching so difficult. What often makes teaching so
difficult, in the name of oversimplification, is all the other
"stuff" that is associated with the job.
And, according to a variety of sources, this
"stuff" is starting to take its toll.
In November of 2014, a British educational organization
called The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) released results of
a survey which indicated that country is having a hard time finding teachers to
fill positions. According to one BBC report, despite offering top B. Ed
graduates bursaries of £25,000 (about $45,000 Canadian), teacher trainee
programs have fallen some 6,000 teachers short of targets over the past three
years. In some subjects, such as physics, recruitment targets were 67% below
expectations.
Another report, carried by TES magazine, looked further into
the survey results and found that a full two-thirds of head masters had been
unable to recruit enough math teachers, and half reported not being able to
fill science and even English positions, an area in which a lack of graduates
has not traditionally been an issue. One expert predicted that, if this trend
continues, many students will start courses in September of 2015 with an
untrained teacher at the front of the room, or perhaps no teacher at all.
When asked to explain this sudden lack of interest in
teaching, headmasters were quick to point out that increased workload, high
pressure accountability, and "teacher bashing", (read
"stuff") were exacerbating the problem. Add to that an increase in
population in students and an improving economy where more careers are vying
for university graduates, and you have a recipe for what some consider a
potential educational "catastrophe". The issue caused British Prime
Minister David Cameron to launch a £67 million campaign partially dedicated to
encouraging university graduates to enter into the teaching profession.
Alarm bells have not just been isolated to the UK. In July
of 2014, a group called the Alliance for Excellent Education released a report
on teacher attrition in the US which determined that in that country, "Roughly half a million
U.S. teachers either move or leave the profession each year", citing lack
of support and poor working conditions as contributing factors. In December of
2014, an article appeared on Forbes.com, fittingly entitled "It's The
Constant Criticism That's Putting Teachers off Teaching", which referred
to the ASCL survey, and offered similar reasons for the high attrition rates.
This trend is starting to have a huge impact on the already beleaguered
American education system. In Arizona, for instance, there were over 500 vacant
teaching positions still unfilled in September of 2014.
It is not only drawing teachers into the profession that is
proving challenging, but keeping them as well. In 2013, a magazine called The
Epoch Times carried a story in which McGill associate professor Jon G. Bradley
came out in public with some fairly staggering statistics around Canadian
teacher attrition rates. Speaking to The Montreal Gazette on the issue, Bradley
estimated that nearly half of all new teachers are leaving the profession in
this country within the first five years. According the Bradley, similar
results are coming out of the US and Australia. University of Ottawa professor
Joel Westheimer, also speaking to the Gazette, summed up the issue rather
nicely when he said "Any other profession that had that kind of turnover
would look at working conditions...and other things surrounding the teaching
environment." Westheimer also asked what a corporation like Microsoft
would do if they were facing a recruitment shortage and high turnover rates in
programmers, and speculated that they would look to improve working conditions,
not test the programmers.
Westheimer is not far off the mark in his analysis. Large
companies like Microsoft and Facebook are indeed facing an impending shortage
of programmers and have responded very aggressively by developing something
called The Hour of Code. An international initiative by major players in the
communications world, The Hour of Code tries to interest students in
programming as a viable career option by engaging them in fun, free coding
exercises. The initiative also comes complete with promotional videos that show
how good the working conditions are for programmers in some companies. Shots of
open-space offices where folks zip around on skateboards and Segways abound, as
do testimonials from fulfilled-by-their-career programmers.
Ironically, the Hour of Code is aimed at schools and
designed to be delivered by teachers.
Teaching has never been an easy profession. Over the past
ten years or so of my career, it has certainly gotten progressively harder for
me. Like so many in my profession, I blame myself for that. I never feel like I
am doing enough for the kids in my classroom.
And, as I have commented many times, there seems to be no shortage of
folks happy to tell me that I am right in that view. But even as some
jurisdictions across the country and, indeed, around the world struggle with
the issue of recruiting and retaining teachers, others seem content to ignore
it. Content to continue to criticize and berate the system based on test
scores, to dismiss concerns around working conditions as idle, unionist
whining, and to remain somehow convinced that attacking teachers will improve
education for students.
However, a word of caution.
Teaching is one of the few professions to which almost
everyone has extensive exposure throughout their lives. As such, it is one of
the few professions that kids get to see in action everyday. I think that it is
this exposure and the impressions that are formed in the classroom that get
young people thinking about teaching as a viable career option.
One wonders, however, what sort of impression about the joys
of teaching the overburdened and undervalued educators of today are making on
the graduates of tomorrow.
I love what I do. I love it despite the fact that it is
something at which I will never be good enough. I also have little doubt that
I, at least, will remain in the profession for the remainder of my career.
However, if we continue to demand more and more from our teachers in the name
of accountability and offer them less and less in the name of restraint, we run
the risk of making the profession less and less attractive to the next
generation.
A generation who may decide that summers off, a steady pay
and a fair pension are not nearly enough to warrant putting up with all the
other "stuff".
Mental illness, behavioural issues
worry teachers, school counsellors
School counsellors say there's not enough of them to meet
needs
By Jane Adey, CBC News Posted: Feb 15, 2015 7:29 AM NT Last
Updated: Feb 15, 2015 10:12 AM NT
Counsellors and teachers are worried there isn't enough
support in schools for students dealing with mental health and behavioural
issues. (Marcelo del Pozo/Reuters)
Students, stress and mental health 4:56
Behavioural issues and mental health of students 8:17
Jane Adey
CBC News
Adey is a journalist known throughout Newfoundland and
Labrador for her work on Land & Sea, and for her current assignment to
Radio One's On the Go
Principal on child stress: 'There's no sense of balance in
their lives'
You might think some of the biggest concerns among teachers
in this province would have to do with academic performance of students or
maybe class size. Think again.
In a recent survey conducted by the Canadian Teachers
Federation, teachers indicate their top three concerns have more to do with
students' mental health and social well being. Jim Dinn is president of the
Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers Association.
Principal on child stress: 'There's no sense of balance in
their lives'
"The top issue by far had to do with child and youth
mental health, followed closely by child and youth poverty and then safe and
caring schools." Dinn said he repeatedly hears from schools in this
province that behavioural issues are causing constant interruptions in
classrooms.
"I would hear a lot of stories about violent students,
students not being able to control themselves, to self regulate and
surprisingly a lot of those issues I found at the primary and elementary level.
In some cases, we've had stories of teachers being bitten, being punched. I've
seen the bruises so it's a concern, definitely a concern that's being expressed
by teachers," Dinn told CBC Radio's On the Go.
This is no surprise to Angie Wilmott, president of the
Newfoundland and Labrador School Counsellors and Psychologists Association. She
says there just aren't enough counsellors in schools to help students.
Angie Wilmott student psychologists
Angie Wilmott, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador
School Counsellors and Psychologists Association, says there aren't enough
counsellors in schools to help students. (Submitted photo)
"We've got very competent, caring professionals who are
all saying the same thing, they can see the needs, they feel they have a lot to
give. Unfortunately, there is a limit of time and when you spread yourself so
thin from child to child, and youth to youth, family to family, when you spread
yourself so thin, you become very ineffective and that's very frustrating for
these people. I'm seeing very frustrated counsellors and psychologists,"
said Wilmott.
According to Wilmott there's an increase in cases of autism,
ADD and substance abuse among students and their families. Wilmott is
particularly concerned about another behaviour that she says has spread
"like wildfire" among youth.
"One of the things we are seeing across the province is
a significant increase in self harm. We're seeing many more students cutting as
an outlet to deal with stress which is something obviously we certainly do not
want them to do, it's a highly addictive practice and certainly not a positive
way of dealing with the stress in your life," she said.
Wilmott said the current ratio of counsellors to students is
1:500. After almost 20 years in the school system, Wilmott, who is also an
educational psychologist, says change in student behaviour and mental health
has been dramatic. Her group would like to see a ratio of 1:250 to reflect the
increasing complex workloads.
"In a day to day job, it is exhausting our caregivers
and that makes it difficult to be effective, if you're tired and dragged out
because you've been focusing on so many crises day after day, it makes it very
hard for you to be a good role model of what a healthy person is," said
Wilmott.
With tightening budgets in government, Wilmott said she's
not optimistic there will be more school counsellor positions created. She's
calling on parents to do their best to try and prevent anxiety and stress among
school-aged children and youth.
"I'm constantly preaching to families about having
control over the technology, not allowing kids to go to bed with their cell
phones, to be on the video games late at night, to be watching Netflix late at
night — because you know, these things are stimulating the brain, reducing the
natural ability to go to sleep — and kids are coming to school already
physically stressed," said Wilmott.
"If people were getting good sleep, and eating well and
getting exercise, I think it would reduce the number of cases that are
currently coming to school counsellors, family doctors and psychiatrists. You
know we're not living a healthy lifestyle."
In a recent survey of school counsellors in the province,
Wilmott said 91 per cent of her
membership indicated there were mental health issues that they felt they could
prevent.
Wilmott said counsellors just need more time to strengthen
troubled kids.
"We're there at key phases of development and we have
an understanding of how we can support and empower kids. It's very
disheartening when you know you have the skills, and if you just had the time
maybe you could have prevented many of these crises from happening," she
said.
http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/archbishops-policy-on-transgender-children-sparks-debate
Edmonton's Catholic school board in
disarray over transgender policy
ALEXANDRA ZABJEK, EDMONTON JOURNAL
Published on: October 1, 2015 | Last Updated: October 2,
2015 9:04 PM MDT
Edmonton Catholic school board trustee Patricia Grell, who
has been at the forefront of the transgender debate in schools, says she
"had to search my conscience and decide which master I’m going to follow,
and it’s the kids." SHAUGHN BUTTS / EDMONTON JOURNAL
A policy for the inclusion of transgender students in the
Edmonton Catholic School District could become a visible power struggle between
Catholic officials and locally elected trustees, says a trustee at the centre
of a dispute that threatens to implode the board.
To the ire of Edmonton Catholic school board chairwoman
Debbie Engel, trustee Patricia Grell on Thursday publicized a document written
by a group of Catholic superintendents designed to guide school boards in their
treatment of transgender students.
While Engel insisted there is “absolutely no pressure” to
adopt the superintendents’ guidelines, Grell said she is caught in a “Catch-22”
between accepting the document, endorsed by Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith,
and her conscience. Engel said the document was not meant for publication, but
as a resource document for Catholic school boards in Alberta.
The latest dispute did nothing to smooth tensions on a board
that at a September meeting saw trustees scream, shout and cry over the issue.
Following that much-publicized meeting, Education Minister David Eggen said he
was reviewing legislation that would give him the power to dissolve the board.
He met with six board members almost two weeks later. Engel
said everyone agreed the school board would table an inclusion policy for
transgender students modelled after the policy at Edmonton Public Schools.
“When we were in the meeting with the minister, we agreed we
would speak with one voice on the position that we would take the (Edmonton
public) policy, with some Catholic wording, to our next meeting and have it
pass first reading. Then consult with our community. One trustee leaked this,”
said Engel, clearly angered.
The document drafted by the Council of Catholic School
Superintendents of Alberta states that, “humans are ‘obliged to regard (their
bodies) as good and to hold (them) in honour since God has created
(them)….Therefore, to attempt ‘gender transitioning’ is contrary to the
teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The document suggests students need support and guidance
with respect to gender identity and adds: “Any educator approached with a
request for accommodation must respond with sensitivity, respect, mercy, and
compassion.”
It also calls for gender neutral bathrooms in all schools,
while leaving individual principals to make decision on issues such as a
student’s participation in intramural sports, some gender-exclusive courses,
and overnight field trips.
Engel insisted the document was “in no way binding.” She
said it wasn’t the archbishop’s policy and said she has “never worked with an
archbishop who wasn’t willing to sit down and appreciate that we’re publicly
funded and the circumstances we’re in.”
Grell was part of a board committee that drafted a policy on
transgender students that stated they should be able to use the physical
facilities with which the identify, such as washrooms, change rooms, and locker
rooms. The policy was on the table for discussion at the September meeting, but
never voted on.
Grell insisted she is in the awkward position of trying to
serve “two masters,” the archbishop and taxpayers, through the minister of
education.
“I’ve had to search my conscience and decide which master
I’m going to follow, and it’s the kids. I’ve chosen the kids and it puts me out
of communion with the local ecclesial authority. But the ecclesial authority
doesn’t have a high suicide rate, these kids do,” Grell said.
“There’s nothing against church teaching to say we shouldn’t
welcome these kids. Church teachings does say we’re supposed to care for our
most vulnerable … We have to respect (people’s) conscience. They’re making the
decision that’s best for them ….No one can interfere spiritually with another
person … be it teachers who are using contraception and going to communion, we
have to respect that’s their decision.”
The debate over inclusion policies for transgender students
in the Edmonton Catholic School District — and other districts in the province
— has led some to call for a provincewide approach to the issue.
“It ensures that no matter where a kid goes to school in the
province, they’ll get the same level of support. It’s not going to be
questioned if I cross the street from the public school to the Catholic
school,” Kristopher Wells, a professor in the faculty of education and director
with the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University
of Alberta, said last week.
Azabjek@edmontonjournal.com
Twitter.com/a_zabjek
Edmonton police department's victim
services unit helps lives shattered
by crime
OTIENA ELLWAND, EDMONTON JOURNAL
Published on: September 30, 2015 | Last Updated: September
30, 2015 5:13 PM MDT
Sandra Arbeau is the divisional co-ordinator for the
Edmonton police department's southeast division victim services unit. JOHN
LUCAS / EDMONTON JOURNAL
The Edmonton police department’s victim services unit helps
thousands of people each year whose lives have been shattered by crime or
traumatic event.
That could range from homicide, to a sudden death, a sexual
assault, even the theft of a sentimental object.
The unit is mainly staffed by volunteer advocates. Some have
been in the position for decades.
Sandra Arbeau started as an advocate in 2003, now she’s the
co-ordinator of the city’s southeast division victim services unit. She
oversees 25 advocates out of 128 working across the city 24 hours a day, seven
days a week. Some of the advocates have been victims, others are seniors,
teachers, students, and stay-at-home mothers. What they all have in common is
compassion, commitment and a strong desire to help others, she said.
“There is so much hardship in life and to be able to help
someone through a terrible time is very rewarding. If I can do one little thing
that makes a little bit of difference, then it is all worth it,” Arbeau said.
Advocates provide emotional support to victims and help them
get connected to agencies in the community. But often, their task is simply
reminding victims to look after their health.
On one occasion, Arbeau was called to the home of an elderly
man whose partner had died in her sleep. “We were there for probably a couple
hours because he had to show us his garden. He was talking about her, and it
was just him spending time reminiscing about her. That was part of his grieving
process,” Arbeau said. “He was just so lonely… He just didn’t have anybody.”
In 2014, the advocates helped more than 8,500 people,
responded to 152 crisis calls, and volunteered more than 21,000 hours.
One of the people they helped this year was Edna Howard, the
mother of 29-year-old Claudia Mary Iron-Howard, who was murdered in central
Edmonton in June. Howard speaks highly of the support and quick response she
received from police and her advocate.
“If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know how people in my
situation would be able to navigate their way through this,” Howard said. “They
gave me all the information; they gave me resources.”
This week, the victim services unit is hosting its
first-ever conference for police agencies and the public to learn how to better
support families of people who have gone missing or have been murdered, with a
particular focus on aboriginal families.
The three-day conference covers an array of topics,
including building positive relationships with indigenous communities and
self-care for frontline workers.
The parents of Brian Ilesic, an armoured car guard shot dead
by Travis Baumgartner at the University of Alberta’s HUB Mall in 2012, will be
at the conference to talk about the impact on their lives.
Arbeau assisted the Ilesic family and the other families
affected by the shooting through the court process, acting as the liaison
between the eight advocates assigned to the case and the Crown prosecutor’s
office. She won an award for her work with them.
“I always put myself in their shoes. ‘What if I was in their
position? What would I want, how would I want to be talked to or handled, what
would I need?'” Arbeau said. “I was just doing what needed to be done.”
oellwand@edmontonjournal.com
twitter.com/otiena
No spectators in Edmonton's fight to
end poverty: Editorial
EDMONTON JOURNAL EDITORIAL BOARD
Published on: September 30, 2015 | Last Updated: September
30, 2015 6:00 AM MDT
The number of people helped by the Edmonton Food Bank has
risen sharply since 2013. BRUCE EDWARDS / EDMONTON JOURNAL
Damning statistics on poverty give Canada a shameful black
eye: 19 per cent of children, nearly one in five, live in poverty. An estimated
40 per cent of indigenous children live in poverty. It should be the biggest
issue of this federal election campaign. It is not.
Edmonton’s Food Bank released figures last week showing the
number of people served monthly rose to 15,580 this year, up from 13,687 per
month in 2013. The 14-per-cent increase is much higher than the city’s
population growth. While the city’s aboriginal population is about five per
cent of the total, it makes up 34 per cent of food bank users. Equally
disturbing, 40 per cent of food bank users are children; 66 per cent are women.
Many rely on less than $25,000 annually to house and feed their children.
Survey results released in July, when no one was paying much
attention, revealed many Edmonton teachers and school staff are handing out
emergency food regularly to hungry students, food from their own lunches. Said
Mark Ramsankar, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association: “I think we
need to address the root issue, which is child poverty in Alberta.”
Mayor Don Iveson and city council last week embraced a
report with 28 recommendations from End Poverty Edmonton, a task force of 18
community leaders Iveson called together to end poverty in a generation. It’s a
huge challenge, with local stats showing 100,000 Edmontonians living below the
poverty line, of whom about 30 per cent are children.
Heading the task force, Anglican Bishop Jane Alexander
observes, “Poverty puts bonds around people and it’s our collective ability to
release them.”
The Edmonton Community Foundation is to be congratulated for
leading the way by offering $1 million in matching grants for anti-poverty
initiatives and at least $10 million toward programs in such areas as social
housing.
September was a tough month for Edmonton Catholic trustees,
chastised for mishandling the issue of transgender students — a hot-button
topic that stirred widespread outrage. Child poverty warrants that same kind of
intense concern from all of us. This isn’t a problem we can off-load, either to
provincial social services or a federal department that deals with aboriginal
matters. All Canadians bear the burden of ending poverty in our country,
especially when it affects so many children.
In poverty, there are no colours; only indignity and pain. A
local Anglican priest, who ministers to destitute inner-city residents, says
poverty has become a new ethnicity because there’s little difference between a
poor aboriginal, a poor white person and a poor African immigrant. Rev. Travis
Enright issued a call for faith communities to work together and resume the
important role they played five or six decades ago, before government agencies
took over, to restore hope and humanity to Edmonton’s poorest people.
Too often the city’s suburbanites try to keep poverty at a
distance, as though it’s contagious. But there is no poverty-free bubble. By
virtue of our shared humanity, we are touched by the lives of fellow Edmonton
residents who fail to thrive in the local economy. The mayor’s task force has
produced concrete and practical proposals that should prod all Edmonton’s
caring citizens to do their part.
Governments can do much to lift families out of the cycle of
poverty. The current federal election campaign is an opportunity to ask
candidates about their plans to create a better future for people living below
the poverty line.
Our poverty rate is shameful. Among 34 developed countries,
Canada sits in 24th place. If that isn’t an issue with the people who want our
vote, let’s make it one with just under three weeks left in a long campaign.
Editorials are the consensus opinion of the Journal’s
editorial board, comprising Margo Goodhand, Kathy Kerr, Karen Booth, Dan
Barnes, Brent Wittmeier, Julia LeConte, Janet Vlieg and David Evans.
