Are Teachers Professionals?

There was one comment in that thread the other day that has stuck with me and rankled, because it's a common refrain in Canadian discourse, used to disparage teachers when they're fighting for improvements to the system. The comment was something like, "I don't consider teachers to be well-educated professionals. They study at the least-prestigious faculty at the university, they have unions to do their pay bargaining for them, and their job security depends more on tenure than ability. None of that screams professional to me."

I want to address this point by point. I should note that I am talking about Ontario here. Every province in Canada does things a little differently, but Ontario's system is the one I know from the inside so it's the one I'm qualified to talk about.

First, I think I already disproved her first point, but I'll do it again here for the benefit of those who missed it. There are ten universities in Ontario with faculties of education, plus one private Australian university that has just opened a teachers' college in Burlington. Only two of those universities offer concurrent education programs - that is, only two of them allow you to take your first degree and your education degree at the same time. All the others admit students who already have one university degree under their belts. Even the concurrent ones admit students in their second year of university, not their first, and their admissions requirements are if anything MORE strict than the regular programs because those programs are so much smaller. Most faculties of education won't look at any application with less than a B average in university, but that is deceiving. The University of Toronto accepted only 30% of the applications it received last year, which means that they probably didn't accept anyone with less than an A-. That's right, folks. The majority of people entering a faculty of education in Ontario already have a four-year degree and graduated with honours or close to it.

Now, it's a truism in Ontario that getting out of Teachers' College is a piece of cake - it's getting in that is hard. But that's another story.

Point #2: Teachers have unions to do their bargaining for them. This is true. We even occasionally end up on strike. The real question is, does this make us less professional? For the answer, let's look at a profession that is never called anything else and doesn't come in for a fraction of the disrespect that teachers get: the medical profession.

Doctors in Ontario must belong to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. This body grants them their license to practise, oversees their professional development, deals with complaints, and generally polices the profession from the inside. It also does all the bargaining with the provincial government about how doctors are paid for their services. The College does the bargaining with the Ministry of Health, they hammer out a contract, the contract is voted on by the members (i.e. the doctors) and a deal is reached. Sound familiar? It should. In this respect, the College is acting as a union for its membership. Because of the way health care is run in Ontario, this is the most sensible way to arrange for pay. This is true of any large group of workers: the most logical way to get benefits is to bargain as a group. (Incidentally, the reason doctors don't go on strike has nothing to do with increased professionalism. They are not allowed to - they have been declared an essential service and are therefore denied the right to strike. They used to - there was a doctor's strike in Ontario in the early eighties, which led to the prohibition.)

Most other professions don't do this, it's true. But then, most other professions are not employed almost exclusively by the government. Those that are, in Ontario, use some form of union to bargain with. ONA, the Ontario Nurses' Association, is another example. I submit that unionizing was not unprofessional at all - rather it was the logical next step for bringing our professional concerns to our employer as a group, just as doctors and nurses do. Since it also resulted in better teaching conditions, standardization of the profession across the province, preparation time, and improved professional development for teachers, it has overall been a benefit, not just to the profession but also to the students and taxpayers. Ontario has one of the best-educated and best-trained cadres of teachers in the world, and the credit can go mostly to the union.

LATER: So, Point #3: job security depends more on tenure than on ability. This is partially true. Once you're in, and have been in for a couple of years, it's rather difficult for someone to force you out. But it's not as true as this implies. Advancement is dependent on three things: years of experience, seniority, and education. Years of experience is separate from tenure, because it is transferable. If I were to move to a different school board in Ontario, I would start at the place on the pay scale that reflected my years of experience in my current board, rather than going back to the beginning; however my seniority would be reflective of the fact that I was a new hire to that board, and I would still be on a two-year probation period. I undergo a fairly exhaustive review process every three years, and if serious concerns are raised, there are a variety of steps that can be taken. I have known two teachers to be fired during that initial two-year phase, and one who was fired in her fourth year of teaching, all of them for pretty substantial incompetence, in one case including abuse. But most of the people who find themselves failing a review eventually find another job on their own. Because of the way the placement system is set up in the board, if you don't have good references from a principal, it becomes very difficult to get a good placement, and if you can't get a good placement, the troubles you had in your first, difficult classes are likely to continue to plague you. A few years ago, up to thirty percent of new teachers in Ontario had left the profession within five years; I believe that number has been reduced to below twenty percent. That's still about one in five. People don't stay in teaching for the tenure alone; the job is simply too stressful to continue if you don't love it, and if you're not reasonably competent.

All of which is a long way of saying that, while it is difficult to get fired, it's also rare that people stay where they're not succeeding. More commonly, people who are remembered as "bad" teachers may be in the wrong grade, undergoing significant life stress that is affecting their job performance, or experiencing a personality clash with the student in question (or many of them.) When you see twenty or thirty people day in, day out for ten months, it's not surprising if you don't always get along with all of them. Instead of reaching for the pink slips when that happens, principals try to support the teacher in developing the skills needed to succeed with the class at hand, or find a new situation which will be a better fit. Most other professions have a period of internship after completion of studies, in which to develop their skills before being expected to operate at peak competency. In most jurisdictions, teachers don't have this. They are immediately thrown into a classroom, often one of the more difficult classes that experienced teachers have chosen not to take. They may have a mentor, and they may not, but they're responsible for a full courseload with no ease-in time. Is it any wonder many of them falter?

The third aspect to advancement is education. Teachers' College is also called pre-service education; all faculties of education also offer in-service education, courses about a specific aspect of teaching that are only open to people who hold a bachelor of education degree. These can be for specialty subjects like music, library, or phys. ed; they can be for extra training in literacy or math; they can be certification to teach a different age group or children with exceptionalities; or they can be designed to prepare teachers for administrative positions. Most such courses come in three parts, and all that is needed to teach the subject is part one. Part three is considered a specialty course, and heads of departments are required to have this level in their subject area. Candidates for administrative positions must have five years of classroom experience, at least one specialty, their special education course, and three leadership courses, adding up to the equivalent of two years of full-time university, while working full-time themselves. All of these courses can be put towards a master's degree in education, though they don't have to be. Each additional year's worth of courses leads to an advancement on the pay scale, up to a maximum that is roughly equivalent in number of courses to a four-year degree plus a B.Ed. plus a M.Ed. And all of this only reflects the courses that are taken to place one further on the grid. Teachers are also encouraged to go to workshops offered by their boards of education at regular points during the year, and usually to share that information with their colleagues at staff meetings. Your willingness to go to such things is a part of the evaluation process every three years.

Stop me, please, when I get to the point where most teachers just sit on their laurels and teach the same lessons over and over again. The fact is, teachers are constantly upgrading their skills and constantly being evaluated on their ability to apply the new knowledge.

When Sex Goes to School - review of a review (POAC)

These are my thoughts on a book review of a book entitled, "When Sex Goes to School," by Kristin Luker. The review can be found here.

First, i agree with the idea that differing views on sex education are about worldview first and foremost. However, I disagree with the very stark categorization he makes, and I want to know if this categorization is his or the author's. "“Sexual conservatives,” Luker explains, “ . . . believe that humans are fundamentally capable of the worst, and that it is only the combined power of an internal morality and external constraints that keeps most of us on the straight-and-narrow most of the time.” And this, she shows, is why we argue for “firm structures” and the teaching of moral boundaries. On the other hand, she says, “sexual liberals see a world in which the only way a diverse and heterogeneous group of people can be trusted to make good moral decisions is to ensure that all of them have the maximum amount of information possible.” So sexual liberals fight to give children as much sexual information as possible as early as possible, thinking “that if their children are given education and information, they will grow up to be morally good adults.”"

Now, sexual conservatives do, in fact, believe what he says they do. But he paints with a broad brush when he implies that all people who believe that way will choose to keep their children in ignorance of sexual realities as a way of putting external constraints on their behaviour. There are plenty of people who believe that sex is best kept for marriage, who still want their children to be thoroughly educated about it, because ignorance doesn't work very well as external constraints go. It is too easy to circumvent, or worse, partially circumvent. As the old saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I can't think of any area where that is more true than in sexual education.

By the same token, the brush for sexual liberals is too broad. Most of the liberals I know don't fight to give sexual information before puberty (though some do, and I always wonder why. Statistically, very, very few kids need that information before the age of eleven or twelve, which is, not coincidentally, the age when most school districts begin sex ed. I understand the idea of a gradual flowering of interest in one's own sexuality, and giving information that is timely to that interest - but as much as possible, as soon as possible?) So "as early as possible" is an exaggeration. It's also an exaggeration to say that giving their children all possible information will be enough to have them make good choices for themselves. There are certainly some people who feel that any sexual inhibition is a bad thing, but most try to teach their children responsibility along with their education.

The reviewer has painted two camps that are diametrically opposed, while ignoring the substantial middle ground between the two viewpoints - a middle ground that acknowledges the importance of accurate, timely information, while teaching responsibility and morality.

I'm now interested in reading the book. I want to know if this comes from the author or from the reviewer.