By Sandra Fransen
Teacher testing is about political punishment of Ontario’s teachers – not about better education.
That’s how three teachers from Elgin Street Public School at a round-table discussion in late-October feel about the Harris government’s latest education initiative.
“This is a political agenda,” says Patricia Day, 59. “This has nothing to do with improving the quality of education. Nothing.”
Day, now at Elgin Street Public School, has taught for 39 years. She says teachers “just happen to be the political pawns.
“Unfortunately, there are children who are going to suffer because of that agenda,” predicts Day. “And that’s where our anger comes up and our frustration.”
Tara Sheridan, 33, who also teaches at Elgin Street, agrees. “We work hard, we love it, there are lots of rewards but we’re just tired of being denigrated.
“Saying our standards aren’t high enough, we’re not teaching the kids right, we’re not doing this right, we’re not working hard enough, we need to take more courses. It’s enough. It’s just enough.”
Kate Johnston, 27, a high-school teacher at Lisgar Collegiate with 11 weeks of teaching under her belt also thinks “teachers are an easy target.
“Everybody has, at some point, interacted with a teacher who they didn’t necessarily think knew what they were talking about.
“And I think everybody wonders how qualified teachers are. It’s something everybody can have an opinion on, so it makes it a very good political tool, I guess,” says Johnston in a separate interview.
Then there’s the notion that teachers who get summers off have it pretty easy.
“Teachers have always been resented because of July and August,” says Kathy Giles, 42, a special education teacher at Elgin Street. “And Harris played on that. This is about gaining political points.”
Sheridan adds: “Teachers are envied, and so there are some people who like to teacher bash.”
Many teachers oppose teacher testing but support continued voluntary professional development.
“I don’t mind working hard, and I don’t mind taking courses,” says Giles. “But I don’t want to be told which ones I need. There are ways that we could become a lot better, but most of it is from observing others teach.”
These teachers say they already spend a lot of their own time and money upgrading.
“They’re punishing, or making everybody feel belittled for maybe a very small percentage” of teachers that aren’t upgrading their skills, says Day. “If there’s a percentage like that, deal with them appropriately, individually, but don’t do it across the board.”
Adds Giles: “A good teacher needs to have a certain kind of passion and you can’t teach passion, and you can’t measure passion with a paper-and-pencil.”
Johnston says “I can’t see that one sort of standardized test is going to tell you anything about how you’re going to perform in the classroom and interact with students.”
Day says teachers have to have thick skin. “You’ve got to keep on the good things. You close your door to your classroom, and you really enjoy your kids, and you say ‘forget everybody else’ and just enjoy what you do.
“Just say ‘Harris can do whatever he wants’ and you do what you know works well for you and works best for your kids.”