School sucks

>> Fed up with the public education system, a young teacher nears the breaking point

by TEACHER X

As a high school teacher, I can't help but laugh out loud when I see parodies of the education system on television shows like South Park or The Simpsons. As pathetically incompetent as the antics of Mr. Garrison or Principal Skinner may seem, a bigger joke is the one in real life--the public education system in which I teach.

Now, if you were like me, you dreaded every minute of your high school daze. So you'd certainly have no reason to give a damn about what's going on within the school system right now. "Teachers!? What are they complaining about?! I sure wouldn't mind quitting at 3 p.m. every day and getting eight weeks of vacation a year! Fire 'em all!"

And that would be your prerogative. But the most important thing armchair commentators have to understand is that the fundamental battle being fought by the teachers is not just about money, but also the need to reconstruct the entire education system.

Now, everybody would like to feel that their job is important on some level. I mean, you have to have some reason to drag your ass out of bed every morning. As insane as it may seem, I think that being a teacher is a pretty important job. Which is why it makes me so mad to see how poorly the government is treating its future.



System all skewed up

The biggest reason I went into teaching was for the same reason that just might see me leave: a system so fucked up that young teachers so desperate to make a difference are forced to teach subjects in which they have absolutely no training, for the sole reason that there's nobody else to do it.

A system so skewed that it offers an extensive number of subjects with absolutely no curriculum--no guideline whatsoever from the government of what it expects students to learn from the course. Leaving it to the teacher to develop the program and evaluate the students out of thin air. A system and government so unbelievably ineffective that it sees a garbage inspector earning higher annual wages than a public teacher with five years experience.

Right now, public school teachers are "working to rule," which means we fulfill only the teaching duties of our contract: no extra-curricular activities, no sports teams or clubs, no field trips or dances, no extra help at recess, lunch or after school. The Minister of Education says that we exaggerate our hours, that we work less than other public servants, that we are, in effect, part-time workers. They don't acknowledge any of those extra-curricular activities as part of the actual teacher workload. Thus we've chosen not to do them as a pressure tactic--in the hopes of avoiding a future strike.

Sure, we'd like more money for what we do. Who wouldn't, in a field where someone with 15 years experience hasn't had a pay raise in close to 12 years? But I can't stress enough the fact that not one single teacher is in it solely for the money. Plain and simple, we love working with kids, and it hurts us just as much as the students when we have to withhold our extra-curricular activities.

Why? Because the relationship you develop with a student grows stronger and much more personal in an after-school environment. There's no classroom pressure or discipline, and for the most part it's an activity the teachers and students enjoy--otherwise they just wouldn't do it. Particularly when you're a young teacher, it's those extra curricular activities that keep you from quitting after the initial shell-shock of your first few months on the job. For an experienced teacher, it helps you to keep from burning out. My classes may be hell, but the enjoyment I get from staying after school makes it worthwhile.

I find it amazing how much ignorance and lack of support there is for the teachers in this province, whether it's the boneheaded letters from irate readers to the Gazette or students who are totally oblivious to the fact that they're risking their lives blocking traffic on busy metropolitan bridges without knowing why.

Let's face it, any impressionable high school kid who hears that three-quarters of the student population is heading for the exits after homeroom doesn't really care why they're cutting school, but rather, for how long? Don't get me wrong, we teachers appreciate the sentiment, but when we see our students on TV thinking they're going to come out on the winning end of a battle with a QPP billy stick, we have to realize how uneducated they really are.

Waiting for the shaft

Now, a lot of you may be thinking, "Hey, I went to public school and I didn't turn out all that bad." But what you may fail to grasp is just how much better our public education could be if the government got its priorities straight. You wouldn't see English majors teaching math, or Physical-Education grads teaching five subjects other than their major. If I had kids in the public system, I'd be worried as hell and do everything in my power to get them into a private school.

The mood in the staff room at my school is pretty quiet these days. The teachers close to retirement are tired and somewhat skeptical, sure that once again the government will give them the shaft, after legislating whatever the hell they want. They've done it before, they'll do it again. Some teachers have said that if that indeed becomes the scenario, they'd be very unlikely to resume extra-curricular activities as if nothing's happened, especially if they're still not acknowledged for the efforts.

Besides, all of us are kind of getting used to the down time. For the first time in years, teachers actually have time outside of school. Whereas before it was team games, club meetings or practices until 5 p.m. four days a week, along with nightly corrections and lesson plans on the weekends. Believe it or not, the true job of a teacher simply doesn't stop when the final bell rings.

It's important for teachers to feel that the public supports our cause, but ultimately we know--as the nurses found out--that it doesn't mean dick. We'd like to think we make a difference in some of these kids' lives, and there's no better feeling than sharing in a student's success first-hand. But unfortunately, these successes are few and far between--a sad measure of the state of the education system here in Quebec.

Mirror education correspondent Teacher X is in his fourth year at a Montreal-area public high school.