The value of volunteering

We live in a society that worships the young but youth itself isn't all that it's cracked up to be. There are some real benefits to ageing.

I've been around long enough to have lived various lives but no, I don't mean as the reincarnation of Elizabeth I or Marie Antoinette.  Rather I'm talking about are the ones actually lived.  These aren't quite the developmental stages of psychologist Erik Erikson but more the distinct phases of parental life itself: before babies, living with young children, school-aged children, the teenage years, and the empty nest.  Each period is unique and different but I can easily retrieve them. Experience in living means very little comes as a complete surprise, which is rather reassuring.

And by the way, another benefit of age is having had a lifetime to hear some interesting people. Erik Erikson was a marvellous speaker and a character.  I wish he was here.  It would have been great fun to have had a conversation with him about the distinct phases of the adult generative stage.

Unlike what advertisers would have us believe, my older friends don't seem all that concerned about their financial futures.  Perhaps they are fortunate but generally they seem more concerned about what to do with the rest of their lives.  The answer for many is to volunteer as it is for many of our young people too.  

A 2010 survey conducted by Volunteer Canada found that, 

"a force of 13.3 million Canadians over the age of 15 participated in volunteering, an increase of more than 800,000 since 2007. These Canadians contributed 2.1 billion total volunteer hours ... young Canadians consistently volunteer more than any other age group. Canadians aged 15 to 24 have a volunteer rate of 58 per cent."

Why do so many people volunteer?  Both Erikson and Daniel Pink might agree that it gives us a sense of purpose ... or a sense of integrity, intrinsic motivation and meaning.   In other words, many people, including many younger people, figure out that meaning in life is created from within.  It's not what you get that counts; rather it's what you put into it.

Pink talks about a study measuring the quality of non-commissioned works of art vs commissioned works (Drive, pp 44 and 45).  The results indicate that the non-commissioned works are generally of higher quality.  This seems to happen because we have an inclination to place higher value on intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards.

Let's get back to the situation with our teachers.  Do we want teachers interacting with children in extra-curricular activities because they want to do it or because they have to do it? I've given this some thought and have taken a 180-degree turn on the issue.  I would rather have teachers engaged in extra-curricular activities as volunteers because it is a better experience for our children.

Canadians value volunteerism.  Teachers are role models for children and I want our young people to learn about and value volunteerism too.  Given where we're at today with some teachers returning to extra-curricular activities while many are not, I would say that finding a solution is the responsibility of the originators of this problem.

Premier Wynne is well-meaning but it's no longer sufficient for the government to simply give lip-service to the concept of fair negotiations.  I believe the government understands this too and knows that to solve the problem, it must act both quickly and in good faith.



The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only.

Complex problems and GERM theory

Oh, I've got it bad.  An urgent need to cry out or pen a bad post.  And a longing to hear his voice or at least purchase his book.  He has a lovely, self-deprecating sense of humour and he seems very courageous to be taking on the American establishment. And did I tell you he has a cute way with words and a lovely accent?  It must be love!

Let me step back.  After 18 years hanging around schools and educational conferences, I've seen many pretty boys with all the latest fads come and go.  These consultants make a good living off the education industry and some even strike it rich.

Some of us call it the flavour-of-the-month.  Why is it that education is so rife with consultants?

Until now, I had thought about this problem with a psychological framework in mind.  Allow me to explain.  Educating a child is neither a purely artistic nor a wholly scientific endeavour.  There is a chart on page 9 of the book Getting to Maybe by Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman and Michael Quinn Patton that defines the concept of a complex problem nicely by juxtaposing it to definitions of simple and complicated problems.

The problem of baking a cake is simple, well sort of.  Without any special training, many people can follow a good recipe et voilà, a nice cake is the result.  It's straightforward and fairly simple ... except if the kids are jumping around the kitchen or the oven temperature is off but those are different issues.

Then there are complicated problems like getting a man to the moon. With these types of complicated problems, expertise and rigourous protocols are needed but a solution can usually be found with sufficient time and resources.  Which brings me to that old feminist query -- if we can put one man on the moon, why can't we put them all there?  But I digress.

Then there are problems that are complex like raising a child or harder still, educating children.  With this type of problem, the solution changes from child to child.  Even with one child only, what works one day may not work the next.  Science sometimes gives us answers but often it doesn't and an innate art of understanding children can frequently produce a better outcome ... underlining once again the importance of good teachers.

The point is that complex problems do not have straightforward answers and often there are no answers of any kind.  Hence the need for pedagogical consultants.  Someone, usually a man, who comes in, holds your hand, and suggests something new that looks plausible or at least possible for some children. Best yet with a consultant on hand, if there isn't a resolution to your problem, there's someone else to blame.

Few educators, truthfully few people, can accept that the best that can be done when facing a complex problem is to manage the situation to allow a solution to evolve over the fullness of time.  You know, like raising a teenager.  The solution can emerge naturally.

This approach to problem solving takes patience, something we're not particularly good at.  Okay, I'll admit it --  something I'm not good at.  But the object of my devotion seems to have it.  Oh and did I say that he's not macho and seems to have no desire to be number one?

This lovely man, who dares to voice the truth, talks about a GERM that is infecting western educational jurisdictions: the mania for continuous educational reform.  It's carried by politicians anxious to be number one ... but I'll let him tell his own story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgS--9Zg_0&feature=youtu.be.  

So can anyone tell me where I can find Dr. Pasi Sahlberg's book?

There I go with another posting.  I really have to take a break now to do some other work. But sometime soon, I'd like to explore an issue raised by Dr. Sahlberg -- the difference between accountability and responsibility.

Finland, a way forward

Finland is considered to have the best educational system in the world and it has not had labour unrest with its teachers in 30 years, according to Dr. Pasi Sahlberg, a renowned educator who has written a book about the Finnish school system.  In a recent radio interview (http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/shows/2013/02/17/finnish-schools/),  a comment made by Dr. Sahlberg caught my attention:

"You will not find in any of the high performers (school jurisdictions) that there is a confrontation between teachers and the government. ... It indicates that things will not get better  (for student achievement) this way because a fight against teachers is never a good idea ... at least if the international evidence is concerned." 

In other words, the research shows that in jurisdictions where there is teacher labour unrest, students will lose.

At one time, Dalton McGuinty and his government seemed to understand this in their own way but instead of encouraging teachers with good education and respect as they do in Finland, the McGuinty government's tack increased teacher compensation while devaluing their work.  Curriculum became arduous and prescriptive while instructional methods became standardized.  At a Toronto education conference in September 2010 attended by senior Ministry of Education officials and the premier himself, I heard remarks that left me with the impression that Ontario's educational gains were somewhat disappointing for the government. If you're interested in reading more on this topic, see my opinion piece in The Ottawa Citizen, http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/oped/McGuinty+micromanaging+larger+education+issue/7728905/story.html.  

Still little stays constant in politics for long.  Most politicians seem to have thick skins and perhaps this is a necessity in the world of dog-eat-dog politics.  I have watched some good politicians consumed by the political process.  But the thick skin with an ego to boot can become a fatal flaw if a politician begins to believe the rhetoric of his staff, consultants and party functionaries and I suspect this is at the root of the observation by various writers over the centuries that 'power corrupts.'  It's not unusual for politicians to begin to believe they have the answers and they end up conflating the party's or government's well-being with the well-being of the citizenry.

I believe this is what happened in the lead-up to the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election.  With the passage of Bill 115, a majority of government members showed themselves willing to scapegoat teachers in return for majority government.  Here is what Premier Kathleen Wynne said in an interview with the Toronto Star editorial board on January 15: 

"Those of us who argued that collective agreements should be negotiated, and that that was possible given our relationship, never dreamt that we would need to use legislation. But when some of the tacticians saw that maybe this could be something that could be used in a byelection, for example, it spiraled into a worse conflict. It was a tactic that didn’t and couldn’t work. It ran counter to our brand and it can’t happen again."

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2013/01/15/ontario_liberal_leadership_candidate_kathleen_wynne_i_want_to_be_the_social_justice_premier.html 

While Premier Wynne may want to ensure that it can't happen again, the others around her who dreamt up Bill 115 are most assuredly less convinced.  To guarantee that teacher unrest in our schools ends and real negotiations become a reality once again, these others need to be convinced too and will only be convinced when it becomes obvious that there is no other way forward.

There are only two outcomes possible at this time: either the restoration of teachers' labour rights or a decade lost to labour unrest in our schools.  Premier Wynne has acknowledged the government's mistakes and that is a good first step.  Now the Premier needs to make the case for the restoration of labour rights to her colleagues if she hopes to save her government and restore the Liberal Party brand.  To do this, Premier Wynne is going to need our insistence and the persistence of strong teachers' unions.


Thank you for staying with me on this rather long journey.  Let me emphasize that the views expressed in this blog are my personal views only.  

This has been a very gratifying experience and I am flabbergasted that there are almost 10,000 pageviews.  I am now going to take a few days off.  It turns out that it's a lot of work to write a blog!  If you have an idea for a topic, please send me your thoughts in the comments box below.

Have courage,
Pam

From community to union

Dear parents, if you're still with me, let's talk about unions for a moment.  There was a time, and I think many of us still recognize that it still exists in many places, when people who did physical work were treated very harshly. We have heard about the coal miners of Appalachia or Nova Scotia who died over a number of days in mine cave-ins or died over a number of years from lung disease.  And we still hear about children locked in third-world factories who work long hours in unsafe working conditions.  

We mostly acknowledge that at one time, teachers were paid little and could be dismissed at the whim of a town politician or simply for marrying.  Happily in Ontario those days are gone.  But are they really gone if our teachers can lose the right to negotiate their employment contracts almost overnight? 

Many American states had good public schools but today there are more private or voucher schools south-of-the-border.  We know that teachers there are often paid little and are still at the mercy of local politics or politicians.  In these places, teachers often have to find part-time work to make ends meet. 

Ontario teachers would agree they are well-paid.  This was the reason that public school teachers were willing to accept a wage freeze from the beginning of negotiations.  The problem all along has been about the right to fair negotiations.  Most teachers know that without a union and without rights guaranteed by legislation, they are only a few steps removed from the conditions that exist in many American states.

Do you remember, from my February 15th post, our B.C. grandmother trying to save the old-growth forest?  Teacher unions are looking at the current situation where they've lost the right to fair negotiations and, like our grandmother, they're asking themselves how do we get the other side back to real negotiations?  How do we ensure the government wants to be at the table?

Compared to you or me, a union is a large and powerful entity.  Yes, it does have good resources at its disposal but still they're no match for government resources.  For negotiations to be successful, both sides have to want something and both sides have to be perceived by the other side as equal in power.  In other words, neither side should be at such a disadvantage that the other can simply take what it wants.

Now if you're negotiating against a government who has with the stroke of a pen taken away your legal right to negotiate, what remains to try and re-establish real negotiations?  Sadly the answer is that the only real option left for teachers, in order to come to the table with a semblance of power, is to withhold voluntary extra-curricular activities. As with the B.C. example in an earlier post, the alternative to real negotiations is twelve years of teacher unrest.

It feels like we're all caught between a rock and a hard place, and I know it's particularly hard if your child is at the end of high school, but to me the answer is obvious.  If I were a parent with children still in school, I would rather they lose one year of extra-curricular activities than have a generation of students face years of teacher unhappiness both inside and outside of the classroom. Teachers want to return to extra-curricular activities under the right circumstances but unfortunately at this moment, the extra-curricular card is the only one teachers still hold.

The rallying cry in union movements has always been "solidarity forever."  There is a reason for that cry; without alignment among members, a union comes to the table with a much weakened hand. When teachers accept positions in public schools, they do so knowing there is a union in place and that they are expected to be members.  They understand that union membership comes with expectations around behaviour.  If a teacher is truly against union membership, she can choose not to work in a public school.  In fact it is often easier to find a teaching job in a non-unionized private school.

All this to say that one can't have it both ways.  If you've chosen to be a member of a union or really to be a part of any organization, you have chosen to accept certain standards of behaviour.  When you are part of a union, you support your union and in return, you have better working conditions.  It's how we humans function and survive.  It's how we create a society where competing interests come together to create a fair shake for everyone.  It's isn't always an easy path, but it is a necessary one. 

The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only.  Tomorrow ... a look at the politics of education today.

Teachers are amazing

When my sons were little, I joined the board of their daycare centre.  My boys are now 21 and 22 years of age and I haven't looked back.  Over the years, I've had the privilege of working with wonderful parents from so many backgrounds, all of us sharing the love we have for our children.  And I have met some absolutely marvelous, caring and thoughtful teachers too.

Here's a shout out for the incredible teachers of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.  Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the PD day event for our elementary teachers organized by their union, OCETF.  Teachers were not paid to attend this day of workshops and yet they filled a large conference centre.  It looked like two thousand teachers attended, maybe more.  The Chair of our board, Jennifer McKenzie, was very warmly welcomed as was I.  I can't tell you how much your kind words meant to me.

We parents sometimes look at teachers through the eyes of a child; through ourselves as children, and often we place teachers on pedestals.  It's not fair.  They're simply human after all and being human, some of them are bound to fall down. That's the way it is with us humans -- no one is perfect especially over a lifetime. 

Let me tell you a story about M. Brisebois (not his real name).  M. Brisebois was my son's grade 4 teacher.  On the first day of school, my son came home with a note from M. Brisebois that said your child will not have any homework this year.  This was a rather gutsy move given that the school was located in a middle-class neighbourhood and, I thought, let's see how this plays out.

True enough, my son did not have any assigned homework.  For the first week of school, he spent his time fashioning a papier-mâché creature. I asked him, "What's this?"  He replied, "It's my Nee-a-muh." (French translation of human spelled backwards).

M. Niamuh turned out to be a cool red extraterrestrial who sat on my son's desk at school.  It was my son's job to teach M. Niamuh about the earth, much like an extended year-long version of Jane Wagner's play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.  While my son did not have assigned homework that year, he certainly did do school work at home. Every night he was busy with research or some project so that M. Niamuh could learn about the world we live in. Every night there was work done, hours of work done, all without my prompting or help, which was good given that my own French hadn't progressed much beyond rolling my R's incorrectly. Well, I thought to myself, how is this for no homework?!

You see, M. Brisebois understood something 12 years ago that we are only really talking about today; that the way to a child's heart is through creativity. My son worked so hard that year and loved every minute of it.  He has had other amazing teachers over the years too but M. Brisebois was the one who was there at the right time to turn my son's academic life around.  

The next year, a friend came to me and told me her child was in M. Brisebois' class and hadn't I said that he was a great teacher?  Well he wasn't that great as far as she was concerned.  Let me explain that during the intervening summer, M. Brisebois had had some truly sad family circumstances befall him.  I had heard about the situation and thought it amazing that this dear man was at school at all.

Teachers are human and they go through life's trials and tribulations.  Sometimes they're at the top of their game; sometimes not.  But I want the best teachers for our children and recognize that within most teachers, there is a gift for great teaching if it's given an opportunity to flourish.  As your trustee, I can't affect the lives of teachers outside the classroom but I can try to ensure that their lives in the classroom are conducive to allow them to become the best teachers they can be.

The first summer I was a trustee, I plodded through a book entitled something like 10,000 Meta-studies in Education.  I can't find it on my bookshelf any longer but let me save you the trouble of reading it.  10,000 Meta-studies looked at how children learn and most of the studies cited reached the same conclusion -- children learn because of a caring teacher.  

Our children are not little widgets on an assembly line nor are they empty vessels to be filled with meaningless facts. Rather they are human beings, yes little humans, but still human beings. They respond to others as we all do. Somebody likes us: we like them in return.   Somebody smiles and we smile back.  Somebody believes in us and we begin to act like we believe in ourselves too.  We work harder to ensure the belief is well-founded.

Most of the studies cited in 10,000 came to the radical conclusion that it was the teacher who made the difference in learning.  If a teacher truly believes more homework is better, the students in her class will do better with more homework.  If a teacher believes less homework is better, then the students do better with less homework.  And if the teacher believes she can do math, then by-golly those kids can learn math too.  It's about the human relationship.

While I can't do anything about the outside-the-classroom part of our teachers' lives, I most certainly can do something about the part in the classroom.  I want our teachers to be treated with understanding because then they will give understanding to the little ones under their care allowing them to flourish.  I want teachers to be given autonomy to teach to their strengths and creativity because then they will see the creativity and strengths in our children and bring out the best in them.  And I want our teachers to be treated with respect because then they will treat their students with respect and our children will grow into assured and able adults. 

I want the best for our children and believe they need our teachers to become the best teachers they can be.  How respectful are we as a society to our teachers when we take away their basic rights under the law?  And now that it's been done, how do we restore their rights to fairly negotiate a real agreement?

Many years ago, my high school physics teacher gave me some encouragement.  I wasn't his star pupil.  The physics didn't stick rather what did were two things he said.  He said that someday I would do something. In retrospect, I realize this could be said with some certainty given that eventually most of us do something.  Still coming from my teacher, the words were high praise to me.  

The other thing was that I was a smart and should go on to university.  I was a girl without family connections or means and was the first in my family to go onto university.  It wasn't easy and over the years, I held onto his words for strength.

Eight years ago, I looked up my physics teacher.  It took awhile as he too had moved over the years but as luck would have it, he had moved to Ottawa.  His words had stayed with me all those years and my life was utterly changed for the better because of those simple words of encouragement.  I was thankful to be able to thank him.  Then some time later when I was running for school trustee, a donation arrived from my teacher.  He had given me a boost at a time in my life when I was young and very much needed the support. And then here he was again giving me encouragement after all these years.  


The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only. Tomorrow ... what is community.

I like to think it was a grandmother ...

I like to think it was a grandmother who came up with the idea, a grandmother like Betty Krawczyk who was fed up with standing on B.C. logging roads, tired of being splattered with mud, and sick of local jail cells. The real-life Betty is an eighty-three year old great-grandmother and is in the picture below.  She is with Harriet Nahanee, a native elder who was sick, arrested at a protest, and then died shortly after in jail.  As The Tyee put it: "We idolize Mahatma Ghandi and jail Betty Krawczyk and Harriet Nahanee. Some democracy." (http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/03/05/Eagleridge/)


Harriet Nahanee and Betty Krawczyk arrested, 25 May 2006. Photo: Christopher Grabowski.

My story begins before Betty's time at Eagleridge Bluffs.  It's not historically accurate but it's my story.  To paraphrase Roch Carrier who once said in response to a child's question at Hopewell Avenue Public School,  "If you're going to tell a story, make it a good one; make it about that big fish that got away."

Let's give our heroine a practical, old-fashioned name.  I picture Granny Ruth surrounded by the ruts of large logging trucks deep in the old-growth forest of the west coast.  It's the forest of Emily Carr paintings with darkness and reverence.  When her eureka moment comes, there is Ruth, covered in mud and standing in a dark, cold B.C. rain.  And she says to herself, "There has to be a better way."

Because Ruth has lived long, she has watched life long and she's figured out a thing or two.  She perceives that change is often about a few people coming together who see a wrong.  Ruth knows they often face great odds against greater obstacles.  She understands that to get the logging companies to negotiate, they have to want to be at the table; they have to want something from the negotiations.  And Ruth appreciates that it's about more than simply being right, it's about tipping the balance of power.

Ruth and a few friends talk about this and they know they don't have the resources to fight the companies in court and they realize they'll need many people to help them make their point to the logging companies.  After much discussion, they come up with a plan to stop the logging companies from cutting down the old growth forest.

Ruth heads for Europe, to the place where products of B.C. logging companies are sold, to help organize a boycott.  She and her friends talk about old growth forest and they talk about the trees with reverence.  They talk to the Europeans about ethical forestry practices and they ask them to stop buying products made with B.C. wood and timber. European consumers listen and large numbers support the boycott.  Lo and behold, Ruth and her friends are at the table successfully negotiating agreements to preserve large reserves of B.C. old-growth forest.

Of course, this is just a story.  I have no way of knowing how the boycott came about but I do remember snippets of the news from that time.  I'll come back to this story later.  In real life, it didn't happen this way and it doesn't always end with success but this time, it did.  By 2008, according to Joe Foy of the Watershed Sentinel (http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/heroes-who-faught-bc-forest-protection), besides Gwaii Haanas National Park and the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park of Betty Krawczyk, there were 10 new provincial parks and 70 new conservancies in British Columbia.  Not bad for a grandmother with a good idea and a few friends!


The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only.  Tomorrow -- Let's talk about good teachers and why fair negotiations are important.

Real negotiations or simply talks

I know you're not here for the scintillating writing but a few of you do seem interested, like 6000?!?  I'll try to make it interesting but let me warn you that some of this can be a little dry.

Yesterday, a parent said to me, "I get it.  It's about freely entering into a contract."  Yes, that's the idea. Contracts are agreements that are entered into freely.  So the concept of an imposed contract, an agreement imposed by a third party, is a bit of an oxymoron.  I'm no lawyer, not even close, but to impose an agreement is generally outside the law except in the case of a designated essential service.  In other cases, employees have a right to negotiate.

If teachers had been deemed an essential service, that is "necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public" (http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/TBM_11B/esao-esea-eng.asp), there would have been certain processes, such as arbitration, that would have come into play to try to ensure fairness in the negotiation process.  I'm not saying that arbitration is always fair or even often fair, but it's a process to try and provide some fairness or perhaps, as some of you are no doubt thinking, for the appearance of fairness.  Yet Ontario teachers were not deemed to be an essential service but still a contract was imposed. 

How can that be?  Weren't you as school boards negotiating for months? 

Well the answer is yes and no.  Yes, there was the appearance of negotiations.  And yes, school board representatives as employers were in rooms with union representatives for many days.  We tried our best and we did negotiate some relatively minor mostly local issues during that period.  But no, not really, as we had been specifically told in advance what the substantial terms of the agreement had to be.

Still we tried.  Meeting after meeting for days, we met with OSSTF (our educational staff and secondary teacher union) and ETFO (elementary teacher union) representatives.  They were at the table with us over many long meetings.

Now the question I have is this: how does one truly negotiate when the terms are spelled out in advance and when there is very little room for give-and-take, very little wiggle room?  To confirm what the unions have said all along, this wasn't about wages.  They came in willing to accept a 0% increase.  

From my perspective, and I want to emphasize that this is my opinion only, the government wanted a number of other things as well.  The first was to clear long-term liabilities off its books.  The sick leave provisions were an issue because with new government accounting methods, accrued sick leave shows up as a liability not just on the books of school boards but also on the books of the Government of Ontario. 

Okay, so here's a shout-out for the Ministry folks currently rolling their eyes.  I know this oversimplifies it a tad but this is a blog.

I believe the government's second goal of these, ummm, let's call them talks, was a standardized collective agreement for teachers and educational staff.  One standardized agreement allows for easier provincial bargaining.  For example when bargaining with doctors, I believe the government only has to deal with one organization and only with one agreement too (though there may be sub-agreements for different medical specialities).  No doubt one or a few standard collective agreements are much easier to negotiate and administer than dozens of local agreements with differing terms formerly in place between school boards and unions. I believe the government wanted this to happen without appearing that it had imposed a standardized agreement.

In a nutshell, this is how we got here today.  There were talks so tightly controlled from the start that they could hardly be characterized as negotiations.  Still they were called just that and in early January, the Minister imposed a contract saying that there had been fair negotiations.  From where I stand, there were never real and substantial negotiations; that is the honest give-and-take that makes for a fair agreement.  



Thank you to everyone who sent me their good wishes.  I want to particularly thank my trustee colleagues but I do have a question for you that was asked of me.  No need to get back to me on this; it's just an interesting question.  Has your board discussed contributing to or do you know if your board will be contributing to the costs surrounding the OLRB hearing?  I didn't know the answer to this one when it was asked of me.  But OLRB participation is a governance question so perhaps it's something to ask about.

The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only. Coming up next -- those wily grandmothers of the Pacific Rim ... and what they can teach us about negotiations.

Extra-curricular Activities

Thank you to parents who have taken the time to talk to me about extra-curricular activities.  I have heard various perspectives on the current situation and appreciate that regardless of perspective, your love for your children, their teachers and schools shines through.  I want to tell you too that I recognize the importance extra-curriculars play in student motivation and development. 

I have followed the recent proceedings of the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) on extra-curricular activities closely.  I will note that the issue was discussed in a recent provincial meeting where many public school boards had at least one trustee present.  

Rather than trying to explain this complicated issue verbally, I thought I would set out my reasoning in writing with the caveat that given the complexity of the situation, it is possible that my views might change somewhat as the situation develops or if new information comes to light.  Still at this time, I don’t expect further developments.

I could cite many sources on the issue but to keep this fairly straight-forward, allow me to say that I believe a legal approach to solving this issue or an application to the OLRB is both wrong and wrong-headed.  It is wrong because it is built on accepting the validity of contracts imposed by a highly questionable mechanism, Bill 115, which served to deny constitutional rights to teachers and educational staff.  I have little doubt that on this question, the Supreme Court will ultimately find in the teachers’ favour.  Even after its repeal, in my view Bill 115 with its imposed contracts continues to be a real liability to labour peace in schools.

Here is what Michael Lynx, a professor of law at the University of Western Ontario, had to say about a similar case that was heard by the Supreme Court: 

Collective bargaining is an associational right under the Charter. … International human rights and labour law protects collective bargaining as part of freedom of association. The Court placed considerable weight on international conventions and instruments Canada has signed, which expansively protect freedom of association and collective bargaining. (http://www.cautbulletin.ca/en_article.asp?articleid=324).

Actions that flow from contracts imposed by Bill 115, such as a legal action or an OLRB application, are likely to be similarly flawed and any gain likely built on shifting sands.  In my view, this makes any such action questionable and any decision rendered ultimately becomes vulnerable to a future ruling by the Supreme Court or by the OLRB.

Twelve years ago, a contract was imposed on B.C. teachers in a similar situation.  The consequence of this has been 12 years of labour strife in the British Columbia's educational sector.  I do not want to see this happen in Ontario. 

In fact, the question on the nature of the extra-curricular activities was specifically addressed by the British Columbia Labour Relations Board in June 2012:

I find that the Union has not declared or authorized an unlawful strike by directing its members to refrain from participating in activities which occur outside of class time/instructional hours and are truly voluntary and extra-curricular.  These include coaching, instructing or supervising student performances, sports teams, clubs or field trips, or attending graduation or awards ceremonies, where those activities are not related to a course or undertaken for marks. (http://www.lrb.bc.ca/decisions/63467%20Bottom%20Line.pdf).

The final bill for costs incurred in taking a legal action or making an application to the OLRB is considerable too.  When I reflect on the many needs of our students that remain unmet due to past financial constraints, I would find it difficult to justify this expense.  And it could well become a Pyrrhic victory if it leaves a bad taste in teachers’ mouths.  I do not want to see any extra-curricular activities lost in the long run due to poor staff morale.

To try to restore extra-curricular activities through a legal route will only serve to make a bad situation worse and this is certainly not in the best interest of students.  Currently, there are talks underway between the newly-formed provincial government and the teachers’ unions and I believe this is the best hope for a resolution to labour unrest and for the restoration of extra-curricular activities. 

OCDSB schools and programmes are among the world’s best.  You have been very patient during this difficult time and I hope you will be patient a little longer so as to give these talks an opportunity to succeed.  

The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only.

Why now?

Well whoever you may be, you've created a monster. ;-)  There were over 3000 views of yesterday's blog. Thank you. This social media thing is incredible.  Overnight I feel like I'm running a small town newspaper except that some of my readers are in the U.S. and one is even in Germany.  This certainly beats the telephone trees of my youth (one person phones 10, who phones 10 more ... ) !  But allow me to answer a question asked yesterday -- why are you speaking up now?

American philosopher George Santayana said it best: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"  We are at a critical juncture in Ontario and have a choice at this one moment to either find a real agreement between teachers and the government or travel down the B.C. road of labour unrest for years to come.

In British Columbia, the teachers, school boards and government have been engaged in a convoluted tango at various dance halls for 12 years.  Sometimes this tango takes on litigation moves and ends up in the B.C. Supreme Court, twice now in fact.  Sometimes it prefers a more tribunal setting and goes to the B.C. Labour Relations Board.  But unlike most dances, this one is no fun for anyone involved and harms students, teachers, educational staff, parents, school communities, the union and the government.  No fun for anyone except lawyers.

Liberal Premier Christy Clarke has belatedly reached a similar conclusion and offered a plan going forward that includes negotiations and the reinstatement of labour rights.  Though some commentators doubt the Clarke plan, still it's interesting to note how an election in the offing tends to sharpen the political mind.  Far better still, the B.C. Public School Employers' Association and the B.C. Teachers' Federation have recently reached an agreement on a new negotiations framework that will be used in teacher contract talks starting next month.

B.C.'s problems were not solved in the courts or at tribunals in over 12 years.  We in Ontario have a historic opportunity now and can learn from B.C.'s mistakes.  The government, the initiator of our current problems, can decide that *real* negotiations are needed to solve the current impasse.  If the government is genuine, then unions should be at the table to make peace.  And school boards?  Well we should act as employers at negotiations as called for by the Education Act.

I don't know how you're feeling but I'm too old to tango for 12 years.  Even if the current contracts are not ripped up and even with its difficulties, it's time to get back to negotiations.


The views expressed in this blog are my personal views only. Later ... if we haven't had real negotiations over the past year, what the *?&%  have you been doing?