State of the Canadian teaching profession

At what moment did the profession of teaching die?

Was it when professional development days became happy adjuncts to every long weekend?

Could it have been during the long quasi-strikes when teachers drew their pay while refusing to mark tests, help with homework or participate in extra curricular activities?

Maybe the moment came when teachers began to take time off to compensate for time spent in parent/teacher meetings.

Perhaps the bridge from a respected profession to goondom was crossed when teachers happily stuffed pro-union notes into the backpacks of seven year olds or lectured their classes on just how mean Mike Harris was.

It might have occurred when thousands of teachers gathered to publicly burn the minister of education in effigy.

Some might point to the resistance to student testing and the happy acceptance of social promotion. Or the complete rejection of any meaningful measurement of teacher competence and performance.

The exact moment the teaching profession died is hard to pinpoint but one thing is certain; teachers can no longer claim to be professionals.

That sad fact was underscored this past week when the Sun reported high school teachers in Toronto would be offered the opportunity (read ordered) to take two days from their students (while still collecting full pay) to learn how to defeat Tim Hudak.

This announcement came hard on the heels of the recent news that teachers will be pouring millions of dollars through their unions into attack ads aimed at Hudak.

Apparently the same teachers who claim to be teaching critical thinking to their students are unable to demonstrate any kind of thinking when it comes to their unions. Teachers follow every union dictate without a second thought.

Consider this latest attack on Hudak. Doug Jolliffe, the proud president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) District 12, says Hudak represents “the northern version of the Tea Party.” The OSSTF is apparently activating its membership for yet another selfless fight for public education. Really?

I guess teachers have not had the opportunity to read Hudak’s policy platform, Changebook. For their benefit here are the education promises Hudak has made; $2 billion more for K-12 education, full-day kindergarten for all schools, more discretion for teachers in the classroom, more technology available for teaching.

It isn’t Hudak’s education policy the union bosses are worried about. It’s his labour policy.

Changebook proposes giving union members “more flexibility and a greater voice.” Hudak is in favour of a secret ballot in certification votes. Worst yet he wants to “introduce paycheque protection so union members are not forced to pay fees towards political causes they don’t support.”

This is bad news for the folks who live well on teachers’ dues.

None of this has anything to do with students or parents or learning or teaching. It has everything to do with fat-cat union bosses and the sheep that follow them.

What follows is for the sheep.

Politicians work hard to criticize the unions, not the teachers. It is a dubious distinction.

Teachers seem to take some comfort in this deception. It isn’t me they say — it’s the union. But the hard fact is teacher unions speak for teachers and when those unions practice various forms of thuggery it is the profession of teaching that suffers.

So here is my advice for Ontario teachers: Think for yourselves.

In the end it is only teachers who can restore pride and honour to the profession of teaching. And that isn’t going to happen as long as teachers act like sheep.