One student to one teacher - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

The Ontario government said last week it is going to reduce the amount of education Ontario teachers are required to have to get their qualifications.

 

Beginning in 2027, students are required to get one year (three semesters) of training after receiving their university education. Unfortunately my granddaughter, who begins her teacher qualifications in September, will miss out by one year on the reduced requirements.

 

How the world of education has changed in my long life. When I was young, two neighbourhood girls were allowed to teach right out of high school, in local one-room schools, as there was a shortage of teachers. If they wanted to continue teaching after that, as one did, they had to go on to teacher’s college for one year.

 

When I was in high school, two people who had been in Grade 13 when I was in Grade 9 became my teachers by the time I was in Grade 13 (we still had Grade 13 way back then). They got their degree and then went back to school in the summer to get teacher training.

 

Sometimes it seems the requirement for teachers changes according to the demand. Back when I was going to school, I was on the leading edge of the baby boom and suddenly teachers were in high demand and class sizes were larger. When schools were centralized from the old one-room school houses, class sizes changed.

 

Somewhere along the way we had so many people wanting to be teachers that regulations were changed and people had to have two years of teacher’s college. My granddaughter  wants to be a Kindergarten teacher. Does she really need six years of post-secondary training to do that? Will her students get that much better an education than the students of those people who began teaching right out of high school?

 

Things have changed in how schools are governed, too. We went from having a school board for each one-room school to having consolidated boards of education when centralized schools like Hullett Central and North Woods Elementary School were built, to county school boards where each county had just one school board and then to two-county boards. These days, Paul Calandra, Ontario’s Minister of Education, has suspended many boards of education and appointed provincial superintendents to run the schools.

 

At every step, education has become more distanced from the local community. I remember when the provincial government told the communities of Belgrave, Blyth, Brussels and Turnberry that it had given the local school board enough money to build a new school in Wingham which would take students out of their local communities.

 

In the days of the one-room school house, when every community had a local board of education, we had a very direct sense of ownership and responsibility. We didn’t have enough resources, so the provincial government helped out. Now, the provincial government calls all the shots and we have no say as to whether our local trustees control our schools or not.

 

I have one daughter who recently retired from a position in teaching. What she has had to live with is changing attitudes among parents of her students. When I went to school my parents, and other parents, held teachers in high respect and, rather than criticize even bad teachers openly, they kept quiet. Today, parents openly criticize even good teachers and stand up for students they think are being unjustly treated.

 

I have another daughter who was on her way to a doctorate when she quit school and now home-schools her two daughters so that they have no contact with the school system, or have to live with the sometimes vicious treatment some students receive from other students.

 

In the long run, education is a one-on-one business: one teacher to one student. Some students will flourish and some will flounder. I remember a student when I went to school who failed several grades. He later went on to found an unlicensed radio station, so obviously he had some talents unrecognized by the system.

 

In contrast, in today’s system, I know of one student who has a learning disability, who is about to graduate from high school, though he could never pass some of the subjects he took. Despite the change in approaches over the years, in the long run, he and the student who started  a radio station are similar.

 

Neither of my parents finished high school. Their three children all received post-secondary education. Their children often went even further.

 

Given that we generally have such higher levels of education these days, obviously we’ve been doing something right. At the same time, in the long run, it comes down to each of us, despite the system. It will be easier to become a teacher but despite the method it will still be one student learning from one teacher.