Opinion: Teaching is not just about reading and writing
By Shelley Robinson, Calgary Herald
Teachers cannot really talk about being on strike on social media given their union and professional guidelines, but as a retired Alberta teacher, I can.
I remember being on strike in Alberta (AI only researches the history of Alberta teachers’ strikes superficially, but my memory is reliable). The most notable strikes happened in my first year of teaching in 1988, and then again in 2002. There were other work-to-rule job actions along the way.
What I remember most is that none of us wanted to strike because it meant losing pay and falling behind in our classroom responsibilities with our students, but we did it because life in schools had become unmanageable.
Teachers are logical people, and we often work for free because we love our students. Therefore, when we actually strike, things have hit a tipping point. It took me six years to recoup my pay losses from the first strike I was part of in 1988, and another few years after the one in 2002.
What I did gain soon after the 2002 strike were better classroom sizes and employee benefits. Any actual financial gain benefited the teachers who came after me.
There was a time when I taught 54 band students all on my own; 45 English students (12 of them without desks) with new students rotating through my classroom six to seven times a day. And we never had enough textbooks for everyone in one classroom at any given time.
Janitors were allocated seven minutes a day of cleaning in each classroom after all of these bodies came and went. My students and I were constantly sick from the viruses shared in these close quarters, but I kept working because substitute teachers were hard to find.
What many people do not know is that teachers work a 10-month contract and are paid out over 12 months. It creates the illusion of teachers getting long summer breaks when, in fact, we do not. I also worked voluntarily in August, prepping my classroom and preparing my unit plans like so many other teachers do while off contract. Teachers actually only get three weeks of paid holidays for Christmas and spring.
In the summer, teachers are technically off contract. Teaching contracts are automatically renewed each year for those with tenure and negotiated for those who do not. Job insecurity has been a constant plight for many of my colleagues.
What I see has changed for the teachers (and that I had a taste of in my later career as a teacher and then administrator) is that there are more responsibilities. Where I used to be able to focus on curriculum lesson plans and assessment, teachers’ roles have now morphed into those of coach, social worker, counsellor and babysitter, and many other duties.
I stepped back from the profession that I loved after 29 years because my body told me to do so. I was tired and had developed medical issues from the demands of my profession as a teacher-administrator.
Teachers in Alberta work hard. They work “in loco parentis,” which is “in the place of the parent,” with dozens to hundreds of children a day. As a secondary teacher with rotating classes — often six to seven classes a day — I could sometimes see up to 200 students a day. The pace was relentless.
What I will say, having taught in British Columbia for the latter part of my career, is that the Alberta Teachers’ Association is a class act comparatively.
The ATA has acted on my behalf over the years in very professional ways, and even granted me scholarships when I chose to go back to school.
In the end, the ATA membership as a whole has something valuable to say about the schools, and I hope the general public listens and supports these people who will educate the next generation of our society — hopefully sooner than later.
