In response to personal political views in the classroom - I recently taught the grade 5 Canadian Government unit. I made the difficult and somewhat controversial decision at the beginning of the year to be truthful about how I voted and why, if they asked. My reasoning was that I want them to be politically engaged. Engagement on any level has to be modelled. If their parents vote, they likely will too, but the reverse is also true. I made a point of telling them that they had to make up their own minds, always, and that far more than voting as I did, I wanted them to read everything they could get their hands on before an election and make an informed decision.

Now, of course, with the work-to-rule happening, I simply can't discuss union stuff in the classroom, even if they ask. Two of them have already noticed the shift. The next few months will be very interesting.

The worst part about the strike in 2000 was coming back and having one grade 8 tell me I shouldn't be discussing the strike in class, while two more spouted off about how greedy and self-serving teachers were being and we should all have been fired. I told them if I wasn't allowed to discuss politics, neither were they, so they could either let me reply to their comments or they could stop making them. I ended up sending two kids to the office who refused to stop making the comments. Dealing with their parents was not fun.