Picketing, Privilege and (a Lack of) Productive Conversations

That moment — the one where your head falls onto your pillow and you reach for the light switch, but catch a glimpse of your watch (10:00pm), and you are reminded of a conversation you had earlier in the day with one of your students who was on his way to his full-time job at McDonald’s where he works every day after school from 3–11pm to support his family.

Yes, that one — when you realize that you are going to bed a full hour before that student leaves work. A student who was a counselor before coming to Canada. And while you are cozying up in bed after an evening spent with your family — having dinner, giving baths, reading stories, drinking wine — you remind yourself that this student’s story is shared by most of your class.

It’s a moment that happens frequently in a teacher’s life: you are confronted with your privilege and at the same time in total awe of the strength, courage and perseverance of your students. Your heart aches and your mind boggles and you just have to do more. Because it’s just not fair. And they deserve your all.

And these are the moments that teachers pay attention to. They help us to focus on what is important. They drive us to stay up late to plan lessons, to spend hours on effective feedback, to be available in our classrooms before school, at lunch and after school for extra help, to order extra supplies and build a classroom library because we know that each book we buy *might* just be the difference between a student developing a genuine interest in reading and a student abandoning English, and class, and quite possibly school.

These moments also compel us to pick up signs and protest if there are policies that threaten to jeopardize student success. Because if class size averages continue to grow, and as a result some class sizes rise to 60 students, teachers will be unable to provide the support students need to be successful. If in-class sections are replaced by mandatory online classes, many of our students are less likely to be successful — heck, some of my students are still learning to type. If OSAP funding is slashed in half, and grants are no longer part of the funding model, many students will be unable to attend postsecondary. And, guess which students this will affect the most?

Cuts hurt kids, but especially newcomer kids (and adults) who don’t have the economic or social capital to jump through the golden hoops installed and maintained by the privileged few. If we do not acknowledge who these cuts impact the most, we are not equalizing the playing field, we are widening the gap.

And this is where I would like to offer a teacher’s perspective on recent labour action by Ontario teachers:

We don’t want conflict. And we don’t want to engage in combative partisan finger-pointing rhetoric. We want our students, ALL of our students, to be successful. And we need support to do so. But productive conversations are not happening and labour action seems to be the only way that we are being heard. So we need your help. We need your backing.

And for those readers who are worried about the cost of support, remember that an investment in education is an investment in our economy:

The Conference Board of Canada released a study in 2019 that shows how each dollar spent on public education results in $1.30 in economic benefits for Ontario and that “the inverse holds true for each dollar taken from public education” (McArthur- Gupta). The report also found that investing in public education results in less demand for health care, criminal justice services and social services such as social assistance. High school graduates save the government a boggling $2,767 a year on social services, while high school non-completers cost the provincial government $3,128 each year (McArthur-Gupta).

So there is a strong economic argument for investing in education and supporting this cause…so, will you help us?

Share your concerns with friends, family members, your MPP. Join us to picket outside our schools before and after the bell each day. Talk to your kids about the issues and how they will impact their learning. Or, simply, just have our back.

It’s time for that moment— where, instead of switching the light off, we leave it on — and speak up about what these policies mean for our students. And for our society. And for our economy.