You might be an idiot if you think this is all about wages …
Parents living in Ontario, whether your kids are in the Catholic, French or Public school boards, your kids have been affected to some degree by the ongoing strike action between teachers, support workers and the lovely Ford government – specifically Lecce- as he continues to negotiate (or not) with teachers over their renewal of contracts.
For those of you not living in Ontario- Ontario Public board students have been spending days at home off and on since mid December as the Canadian government continues to negotiate with teachers and their unions about their contracts. Unfortunately there’s a whole lot of misunderstanding about why teachers & their support workers have been striking and whether or not all this strike action is helping or hurting the children more. The number of articles I have seen floating around social media lamenting about how teachers are doing this all for a 2% raise and how harmful it is to the students who are missing time from their studies is so sad and disappointing. How disconnected from the truth we as Canadians have become and how lazy we have been about doing our own research and forming our own opinions that we mindlessly share articles highlighting only a small fraction (arguably the SMALLEST fraction) of what teachers are actually protesting about.
I get it, alright. For parents who are working this means the inconvenience of scrambling to find last minute childcare for our children who are too young to be home alone, if you are extra unlucky and do not have extended family members at home or retired parents this means paying out of pocket for daycare or day camp or some other form of childcare. For the unluckiest of us, that have little support or are in areas where high quality childcare is scarce this can also mean missing work, lost wages, adjusting your budget accordingly, extra stress – the effects continue rippling.
I’m generally a pessimist when it comes to believing that my words will sway people to change their political beliefs but considering that no one reads my blog anyhow (why are you here anyways?) and the fact that I care about my children and your children too, I’m going to go ahead and outline some of the real concerns teachers are fighting for and why you should care about these causes too. After all, whether you believe it or not- they will impact your child just as much as they impact mine.
Firstly- smaller class sizes. My daughters Kindergarten class has 30 kids in it. There are 3.5 Kindergarten classes in her school with approximately 30 kids in each class. Each class has two adults, the teacher and the early childhood educator. As someone who has worked in schools let me inform you of a little known fact – kindergarten is a literal shitshow. When September rolls around there are approximately thirty 4&5 year olds in their squeaky clean new school year shoes and their cute little “first day of school” outfits that excited to be little fish in a very big pond for the first time ever. Some of these kids have never done daycare before, some of these kids have parents who are still learning English, some of these kids have anxiety, some of these kids will later be diagnosed with ADHD, some of these kids already know how to read, some of them have severe peanut allergies, some of them are going through problematic issues at home — but ALL of them have unique personalities and needs— none of which their teachers are going to know in advance. There is a whole lot of adjustment happening for the children as they get used to the structure and routine of school, and a whole lot of adjustment for the teachers as they learn about each child’s unique needs and try to maintain control of the inevitable chaos that comes with putting thirty young children into one classroom for the very first time ever. The teacher is primarily focused on leading the class and the early childhood educator is helping guide the children that need extra guidance and extra support. In a class of thirty children, as someone who has worked in classroom settings I can promise you there is more than one child whose going to be needing extra support and ESPECIALLY this is the case in Kindergarten settings.
Perhaps you are thinking to yourself “Well my little Jaxon is a complete ANGEL and doesn’t ever need extra support and therefore will be completely unaffected by the larger class sizes!!”
Well first off. Shut the fuck up, Susan.
Secondly, I am a parent of a child who does need extra support and whether you choose to believe that this is all a product of my own parenting failures or not, the fact remains that if my child is having a meltdown in the middle of circle time, my child is going to be using up whatever little extra support is available, and your sweet little Jaxon is not going to be able to focus because of the disruptions and distractions. The teacher in the room will be doing every single thing she can to keep the remaining children’s attention but it won’t be enough.
Thirdly, Shut the Fuck Up, Susan.
Class sizes matter. Teachers and their support staff are being spread thin and it’s going to affect the kids who need extra support that is not available. It’s going to affect the gifted kids who need to be challenged but can’t get the one on one support they need to do so. It’s going to affect all the children in the middle of this range who don’t get a chance to speak or express their ideas or opportunities for creative freedom because the teachers simply cannot be in two places at one time. It will affect them all.
Another main issue the teachers are striking over is that the government wants to reduce support staff in the classroom. Support staff being EAs, CYWs, DSWs, etc. So in my daughters class they have one floating EA between all 3.5 Kindergarten classes and she also assists with some of the older kids. My daughter specifically uses this support somewhat regularly it seems. I don’t know what this means for other classrooms but I can promise you my daughter is not the only kid in her class that needs a little extra support throughout a normal day and my experience working in school settings is that most other classrooms are the same. This means we are lucky if we have one or two extra support staff available for say 200 or more kids. This issue piggy backs on the point about class sizes being too large and teachers and support staff being stretched too thin. Just because your child is not directly needing this service, does not mean for one second that your child is not benefiting from having extra support in the room.
Full Day JK & SK is currently not guaranteed past the 2021 school year. This means that after next year Full Day Kindergarten May be reduced back down to half days or every other day patterns in the past. To be honest, as an Early Childhood Educator I think half days are better than every other days specifically for kids who need extra support because many kids thrive on routine. Especially for Kindergarten kids who are struggling to adjust, every other day is going to make that adjustment harder. That being said that impact is not really going to be the number one concern for most families of JK & SK kids that are going from full time to part time. It’s going to be the thousands of dollars each year that is now going to the cost of daycare because as we all know, daycare is not free. Guess what is though – Full Day Kindergarten. Just saying.
So this directly applies to older children and not so much the younger kids but another big cost saving idea the government wants to implement is e-learning. My feelings are somewhat mixed on this because while on the surface some aspects of it do not seem terrible, I do have questions about how this would be implemented. Like what about kids who cannot afford laptops or do not have access to computers? How will this change affect them? How about kids with extra support needs that do not thrive in an independent learning environment? How long before the government decides that this could be implemented in grade 7 and 8 classrooms? Are our children going to be missing out on hands on learning opportunities, different teaching styles and social benefits of being in an actual classroom with actual teachers who care about them?
But what about all the time they are missing?! How will my child’s precious education ever recover?
Pfft. Let’s be real here for two seconds. This is not the first little bit of school your child has missed. Sick days, PA Days, holidays, Christmas break, March break, that two trip to Disney you scheduled in the middle of November? Where was all this faux concern about missing school then? I promise your child will be fine and in the same boat as the rest of their peers because everyone is off at once.
I almost forgot that point up above I made about the smallest fraction of what the teachers are fighting for (yet somehow the most blown out of proportion point I’ve seen) and that is heaven forbid, a 2% increase to their wages that essentially covers the increasing cost of living that Canadians everywhere are feeling every single year. Honestly, why is this unreasonable? Who doesn’t want a 2% wage increase every few years? Would you personally turn down a 2% salary increase if the opportunity to negotiate it came up in your workplace? I mean it’s not unreasonable and I don’t know why we are acting like it is especially with all the stressors teachers deal with on a regular basis. By stressors I mean YOUR KIDS, Karen. Don’t be coy, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Not to mention the fact that schools are so underfunded that many teachers are spending their salaries on classroom supplies for their students.
My last point on the whole 2% raise thing is going to be this- guess who is not being paid their salary for the days that they are striking? Oh right, it’s the TEACHERS. They have already lost more in wages than they would gain in the 2% salary increase. Perhaps maybe, it’s not just about the money after all.
Please bring your teachers a hot coffee to the picket lines! It’s hella cold out there.
Coffee & Chaos 