By Season Osborne
Dr. Constance McLeese is used to kids asking, “What’s up doc?” But she doesn’t carry a medical bag. Her backpack is filled with homework. McLeese is a teacher at Lisgar Collegiate.
McLeese, 46, sits at the table, back straight, both hands around her coffee cup. Her blond, bobbed hair is tucked behind her ears. She speaks quietly and directly, giving the impression of being in control – an essential quality for a high school teacher.
She started teaching in 1981 at Montreal elementary schools and community colleges, and has been at Lisgar for four years. With four university degrees, including a PhD in theology, McLeese is more than qualified to teach comparative world religions and philosophy to grade 11, 12 and OAC (previously grade 13). But the government wants her to take more courses and be re-certified every five years.
Her “gut response” to mandatory teacher testing is “it’s personal.
“The government has created a negative discourse about teachers.” Teachers are an easy target, she says. “Everyone has had teachers, and everyone has had a bad teacher.” She says the public feels they can tell teachers how to improve because they’ve had first-hand experience of how a teacher works. “No one tells engineers how to do their job better.”
McLeese says people only see what goes on in the classroom. They don’t see the work teachers do outside of class: hours of preparation and marking, and voluntary extracurricular activities. McLeese directs Lisgar’s musical and runs several different clubs during lunch hour.
Taking courses is “not a new initiative, but the government is acting like it is.” She says teachers are always taking courses that support what they teach, and to keep updated. Typically, these courses are several weeks long, and McLeese wonders how they’ll compare with the new mandatory five-hour courses. She says teachers haven’t been let in on “the nitty-gritty of how the teacher testing program will work.”
Teachers already undergo extensive performance appraisal, she says. Every three years, principals evaluate teachers. The principal observes their classes, writes in-depth reports and makes suggestions. McLeese also feels the tests she gives students are a type of informal teacher evaluation. If students score poorly, it’s evident in the test results, and “in essence, it’s an indication of how well you’re teaching and what you need to work on.”
McLeese says the teachers she works with are well educated and dedicated. “There seems to be a lack of understanding, on the part of the government, that they are dealing with really qualified people.”
McLeese has received the letter telling her she’s part of the first cohort to take re-certification courses. She calls this “a stress-inducing” way to get teachers to do what they are already doing.
She will take a university course next summer, as she always does. But she’ll follow her union’s recommendation not to forward her marks to the Ontario College of Teachers, and hope the program “goes the way of the dodo.”