The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Although I live in Atlantic Canada, the future of teaching in the Maritimes is similar to that in the rest of Canada.

Teachers, like most people, have been affected by the worldwide economic downturn. Many teachers reaching retirement age have been hit hard by the recession and are remaining in schools past the time when they had hoped to retire, to ensure that they receive a better pension. As well, many retired teachers are returning to school as substitute teachers to supplement their pensions.

What does this mean for future teachers and the future of teaching? While it means we’re retaining experienced teachers, some have acknowledged that they’d rather not be teaching. I wonder what effect this has on teaching and students.

More teachers staying longer in the profession, either full-time or as substitute teachers, means that some beginning teachers are denied opportunities to teach full-time. And without at least some teaching experience on their resumes, new teachers may find it difficult to obtain full-time positions when jobs eventually become available.

A slowdown in teacher turnover could result in schools not hiring new staff who have fresh ideas and strategies based on recent education research. Professional development, then, becomes important for keeping our teaching up to date and innovative. However, many school boards are facing funding shortfalls, and one area hardest hit across Canada is professional development.

How do we ensure that teachers are supported, that new jobs will exist for recent graduates, and that retirement is not out of reach for those who meet the criteria to retire? How do we ensure that school jurisdictions, ministries of education and the public maintain a focus on learning? Not only are budget cuts made at the school level but the federal government has pulled all funding from the Canadian Council on Learning, one of the few national bodies that linked provincial thinking about education. Although education falls under provincial governance, without some elements of national collaboration, public focus and input will diminish. The federal government’s funding cut speaks volumes about the importance the Conservative government places on education.

As the dean of a faculty of education, I know that the concerns discussed in this article confront the people I work with on a daily basis. We do our best to collaborate with New Brunswick’s provincial union/association, the province’s ministry of education, school jurisdictions and other faculties of education to ensure that teachers (preservice and practising) are supported in protecting their profession and the value of a strong public education system. Although similar concerns exist across these institutions and organizations, very different approaches often result because of philosophical differences and varied beliefs about budgetary planning. Teachers’ associations face enormous challenges in promoting the professionalism required to ensure that teaching is respected and that teachers’ knowledge and skills are used appropriately for the future of public education.

Provincial departments of education are encouraging set text-based programs across curricula. In my opinion, such programs diminish teachers’ ability to apply the knowledge they have about their students in order to create imaginative activities to help students decipher and analyze the daily deluge of information.

Provincial curricula are not meant to be set in stone but, rather, are to serve as guidelines and frameworks for classroom practice. But larger classes and fewer finances often result in teachers bowing to the pressure to use rigid programs to meet curricular standards. Often these programs are chosen with little input from teachers. Teachers are the recipients (or targets) of change implementation but are not often provided with avenues for initiating the way in which change occurs. The pressure to use set programs is greater for beginning teachers, who are often expected to use the programs despite having been encouraged to use different strategies in their teacher education classrooms. Rigid programs lack the flexibility to allow the kind of learning that graduates of our schools need.

Emery Hyslop-Margison, a colleague of mine at the University of New Brunswick, suggests that public education systems could be obsolete in a few decades or so. The amount of Web-based information and the instructional formats and possibilities outside the parameters of traditional schooling are already significant and growing rapidly. Larry Summers, past president of Harvard, has suggested that the Ivy League university will focus almost entirely on “self-directed learning” within two decades. Hyslop-Margison wonders about the future role of public education and schools and who will fill the teacher’s role if this trend continues.

One important area that can’t be replicated outside traditional parameters of public education and teaching is fostering intellectual and character virtues. Intellectual virtues give students the dispositional qualities they require for sound judgment. Character virtues promote honesty, respect and impartiality in our professional relationships and prepare students for their democratic citizenship responsibilities. All these are best developed in a social learning setting where personal interactions and challenges are faced together with classmates and teachers. Many Canadian university education programs help new teachers develop the attitudes, philosophies and strategies that will help them forge intellectual and character virtues in students. For example, our faculty of education is always creating experiences for our preservice teachers to help them draw on their own professionalism and character virtues.

So, are we graduating too many new teachers?

Perhaps we are, but our program has reduced the number of students we admit and we’re helping graduates find jobs across Canada and internationally. Teachers will always perform an essential and indispensable social function. We need to ensure that we have the teaching force our youth deserve when teaching positions open up. Adequate public funding and resources must remain a priority, but a focus on an education system that develops intellectual and character virtues is the responsibility of universities, politicians, teachers’ associations and the public. We need to stand up for the public education system our children deserve.

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Ann Sherman is a professor and the dean of education at the University of New Brunswick.