Ontario Adult Education Information Network

If we don’t fight Harris’s anti-education legacy at all, then we are just accepting it. I don’t think it will happen all at once, but there must be evidence of progress being made. I wish to offer some moral motivators to bolster our case.

The thing about us that makes adult credit teachers different from the non-OCT accredited literacy and ESL instructors we discussed earlier is that our students go to colleges and universities. In a relatively short time, they participate in the economy and get skilled jobs and contribute to society thus growing our economy; and you don’t have to wait 12-16 years to see it happen. I have taught former drug dealers science, and they have gone on to Waterloo. I have taught former gang members calculus, and they are now pursuing undergrad degrees at U of T. This is a normal occurence. Sometimes they need guidance; sometimes they need discipline; but we give them every chance to turn things around. And when they turn things around, it gives you faith in people.

From my vantage point, I do not see the Harris legacy as anything else other than an expression of hostility against any program that smacks of social uplift. In my view we were defunded precisely because our program worked, gave results that were tangible in the short term and touched the lives of those we served. The defunding in my view was an attempt to create the false impression of a failed program, so that it could be privatised.

Even in comparison with our defunded, “failed” model (setting aside any older model that might invite the danger of success), the “Empire” model we talked about was a worse failure in every regard, beyond imagining (I’ll spare you the sordid tale here). Thankfully, those days are gone, and we have an administration that can be bothered to tour the school, enforce the smoking ban, enforce the rules, and even visit the second floor once in a while. These all sound stupidly trite, but they are big changes, believe me.

Isn’t our work, even if it were fully funded, still cheaper than the prison system or welfare system many of these students would have ended up in? And I not only touched their lives, but I have given hope indirectly to their spouses and children, and helped them to break the cycle of poverty and dependency in a way that no other social program can match. Adult credit education is a better bang for your tax dollar than the welfare system, or EI, soup kitchens, the prison system, homeless shelters, hostels, detox centers, all combined. It defies rational thought that our work is subject to defunding.

Any argument that teachers here really want a job in the regular system only holds water if the only motivator for teaching that you can think of is extrinsic. Yes, if I concentrate on an obsession with money and job security, then the argument holds sway (not really, but that is what I am given to think). All I have to do now is convince my future employer that my motivations are *not* extrinsic, and if I am convincing enough I can get a permanent job. The only model of human behaviour that justifies this, is a model that believes that teachers are all greedy and in it for the money.

However, if thoughts creep in regarding intrinsic motivators, then I invite the danger of thinking my job is worthwhile, that I can look with pride at myself in the mirror in the morning before work, that I make a contribution to literally hundreds of adult learners and their families each year. Memories begin to creep in of all of the adult learners that went out of their way to thank me for lessons well-taught, and even brought me gifts at the end of the semester, after report cards. If I allow my thoughts to tread on these dangerous grounds, then I am in danger of thinking that my credit is at least of equal value to that of a regular secondary teacher, if not more.

That’s where it gets messy, and then out of that thinking I start talking about unfair salary and working conditions, a possible point of contention for future bargaining.

These are different paradigms. And like paradigms, they are as incommensurable as English is to Chinese. It is hard to mix the paradigm of self-interest with the paradigm of other-centeredness. The existing system denies me of a career choice and forces me to choose based exclusively on financial reasons (since adult ed is not regarded in the present system as any choice at all). If I really was self-interested, why would I waste my time teaching, preparing and correcting at all? There are so many well-paying jobs out there that reward greed, and give me spare time to practice golf besides, or whatever the heck it is rich people do in their spare time.

That paying all of us teachers fairly would be easily justified on many levels and would not drive our School Board to the brink of bankruptcy, even remotely. Our demands are just a drop in the bucket. A tiny drop in a vastly huge bucket.

It pays to find out who your chief negotiator is and have a polite exchange with them. I found out who my chief negotiator was, and knowing there was a wage discrepancy between Adult Ed here and the Catholic educators in the same area as ours, I reuqested wage parity with them. She agreed quicker than I thought. So, a 20% wage increase is on the table. Sweet. I will still need to see it on my paycheque in September.

But it pays to just go out there and do things. I advise anyone reading this that if you are in Adult Ed, make sure your own local knows you exist. Speak to people at the OSSTF District level. Find out who represents you if you don’t know. This is where I had to start from. But someone has to get the ball rolling. And if it is you, then so be it. This might even be your first semester teaching. But with your humble and imperfect tools, try to make a difference. The only thing worse than doing something is doing nothing.

At the end of my interview, where I was pretty much hired on the spot, I recalled that I did not see a sign in the front of the school saying what the name of the school was. I asked my interviewer politely what the name of this school was. He paused awkwardly for a moment. He looked up at a sign on the wall across the office from his open door with the logo “LAT Centre”. “This is the L. A. T. Centre”, he said, repeating the sign. I later learned that that was for literacy assessment and training. They were not the same school as us. The place across the office were secretaries for a different school from us, albeit in the same building. I was hired to teach high school credit courses in College and University-track English. If people needed basic literacy, they had to do that before they came to my course, not during or after.

The interviewer did not know the name of this school any more than I did. To this day, I scratch my head as to why the school had no name. Hardly a way to inspire pride in your school, if the administrator can’t even get the name straight. But of course, knowing the admins, this is never something that is slipshod; it was deliberate. Must have been. But what would be the purpose of hiding the name of a school? Can’t fathom it. Except that it is a political embarrassment that needs to be hidden. If people really knew the inequalities that this school is suffering from, they would be up in arms.

The rhetoric of many of the adult ed government documents I have seen, as I have said earlier, seem to address a fantasy world; a kind of reverse strawman. They build an image of adult ed that has little basis in reality and then pat themselves on the back for the achievement of a goal that they didn’t really achieve. At best, I am glad they at least are “speaking the language”. We have yet to see these ethereal notions of adult ed to manifest themselves into concrete reality, however.

There is a great gap between the expansive rhetoric of government press releases and the reality we all face. Rather than an offer of a “hand up” to those willing to better themselves and improve their lives; it seems more as if adult ed is regarded as a “handout” as if we are running a soup kitchen or a hostel.

Students (who are not really students by government policy) are taught by teachers (who are paid as casual labourers — at least in our board — maybe we are not really teachers anymore than they are not really students) who have their hands tied by policies that seek to throw out teaching equipment in favour of packing the classroom as full of students as possible to levels not seen since the baby boom. This policy assumes that our clients are a burden on society by having the audacity to ask the government to offer them courses to earn credits they were not able to earn at an earlier time in their lives. It is the exact opposite of what I see in my class. Humble as my students are, they try really hard in conditions that some compare to the third-world countries they came from. They deserve better.

Lastly, teachers in adult credit courses offer the same credits as teachers in a regular high school. Yet, regardless of the number of courses we teach (I once taught 4 courses in a 3-month semester — 133% of what a regular high school teacher would teach), we are always considered part-time, and temporary. I’ve heard of a basic labour standard that is followed almost everywhere else in the job market: it’s called equal pay for work of equal value. An adult ed credit in English or Social studies is of equal value to a student as one that comes from high school. It gets you into the same universities and colleges, and leads to the same careers. Our pay for the same amount of work can be as low as 50% of that of a regular teacher (”as low as”, because regular teachers are on a salary grid and we are paid hourly with no benefits  or holiday pay).

Letter from the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Education - From Kathleen Wynne. I love press releases. They are expansive, high-minded, and fill you with awe with their depth of understanding of the needs of adult learners and with the demands on educators. For a moment, you are made to feel as if you are part of a functioning network of caring people, who, from the government on down, just want to help all those who want to help themselves.

But only for a moment. The current funding formula for students means that, as my administrators (my bosses) honestly point out — that this is a numbers game, and it is all about cramming as many people into a classroom as the Education Act and Fire Code regulations will allow, so that the board can save money. This is done to the point of throwing out lab benches, storage cabinets, and equipment if more seating can be placed in a classroom. The willingness to throw out teaching equipment (without replacement) on a whim if it will save money shows the real priorities at the Ministry and Board level.

Who recommended that the equipment be thrown out? Would you believe a health and safety inspector from OSSTF? There is no thought given that some of this stuff, such as it is, may be needed for teaching. They could at least replace it. But the purpose is not to replace, it is to overcrowd the class with 35 or more students. They can’t do that if lab benches and bunsen burners are in the way.

We are in a situation where it is likely that we have no representation through our local. That is to say, our dues are likely going directly to Mobile Drive (rather than our local). Mobile Drive is the location of OSSTF head office in North York, to my understanding.

I just love how I have to temper each sentence with “likely”, and “to my understanding”. Yes, my current knowledge of how my money travels within my own local is that wishy-washy. The only thing I can be absolutely sure of beyond any doubt is that every 2 weeks, $24.29 disappears out of my paycheck, marked as “union dues”. I would suppose that it goes to the OSSTF district. But a full-time teacher in my board (in OSSTF circles, the name of this teacher is so feared and hated, such a persona-non-grata, that like Sauron and the Dark Speech of Mordor, his is a name which I shall not utter here) tells me that my dues probably go to Mobile Drive. That’s a strange place for it to go, without going to a local first.

The Nameless One says that we may have no representation in the local at all, and that is why the union dues would go straight to the OSSTF central office. Of course, our voice needs to be heard (as it should be, by law), so if I raise this concern with them, the central office would likely give us a seat on their committee of 30 members or so (thereby silencing us by nearly guaranteeing that we are always out-voted). Another option they would consider is that they would give us back to the local district and subsume us into one of their bargaining units. This would likely have the almost the same effect. We are small in number and are likely to be outnumbered by the incumbent members. The third option which we have to find on our own because no one will ever make us aware of it as an option is to go out and form our own separate bargaining unit. It will annoy the OSSTF for us to do that, but it will probably be more effective, since we would be voting and meeting at the local level.

I remarked to The Nameless One that I find it hard to believe that I would be the only one in Ontario going on this fact-finding mission and finding things out. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if I was, actually. The OSSTF, he says, have been very efficient at silencing opponents, and in keeping certain issues off the bargaining table.

For anyone who hasn’t read the April 14 Toronto Star, there is a drive afoot to unionize 12,000 of Community College teachers. 7000 of those people were part-time. This is now before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. The proposal is to demand full benefits and permanent positions even to part-time employees.

I am glad to see this, since this is a move to try to reverse a lot of the disenfranchisement we have seen among adult educators.

As for adult “credit” teachers (those offering high-school Ontario credits), they are stuck in a bind. They are already dues-paying members of OSSTF or OECTA as they case may be, but their problem is more a combination of Ontario legislation (see my other articles) and the union which represents them. Always a person who gives credit where it is due, I like the admin we have at our school, and I recognise that they are doing as good a job as they can with the resources we have all been given (next to nothing, actually). This may sound like an unusual thing for me to be saying — moi, a union person giving compliments to management. But just think about it. They don’t need to be “mean” to us. The die has been already cast due to the 70% cut in funding.

I have heard students from third-world countries come to our school and say that it compares to a third-world school. Dingy, mouldy, what little equipment we have is aging or malfunctioning. The board responds by throwing out old equipment rather than replacing it. The fact is there is really no formal budget targeted for adult ed; our board just looks to another fuding source to finance it. And of course, that means that that other funding source has to do with less.

This is a good quote, certainly reflects my experience:

From the Ontario Learns document (2005, Ontario Ministry of Education p35-6):

Adult educators as a professional community lack
recognition. There is no systematic professional
development aimed at improving adult education
practice: courses in adult education are not required
in faculties of education, education students are not
encouraged to consider a career track in adult
education, and the Ontario College of Teachers does
not address adult education in its Standards of
Practice for Ontario Teachers.

The adult education stream of non-credit programs
has a different level of pay and benefits and lacks
job security. As well, the level of pay for educators
even of credit courses offered through continuing
education is lower than that offered in regular secondary
school programs. The low pay and the uncertain
employment future mean that educators leave,
and administrators find it hard to recruit new educators
to what is viewed as a “second-class” teaching
environment.

Principals of adult day schools do not receive professional
development targeted to the differences in
offering an educational program geared to adults or
to developing staff in that environment. The shortage
of specialists in adult education — counsellors,
skilled assessors of prior learning, translators, and
interpreters for other languages (either spoken or
signed) are also concerns. Nevertheless, learners
spoke warmly about their educators and instructors,
about those who were patient and respectful, who
showed real love of teaching and went the extra mile
to help learners, sometimes by helping them address
personal problems outside their educational program.
They also spoke of other educators who were
not as good and some who needed to work on their
own language and literacy skills before they could
help other adults learn.

Learners also talked about what they needed as
adults. Some felt that a lot of flexibility was needed
in order to respond to their requirements as adults.
Others felt that there was a need for stricter standards
of participation and achievement to keep learners
on track. Although learners want to be respected
as contributing, capable adults, they recognize that
at times they need feedback to help them keep
focused on their learning goals.

Practitioners spoke about the importance of developing
communities of practice among adult educators,
opportunities to learn from one another, to share
best practices, and to work on continuous improvement.
Sharing the results of research in adult education
is vital to improving practice — practitioners
need opportunities to reflect on practice and on the
results of research so that they can incorporate
improvements into teaching and learning.

I am writing about “credit” teachers in ontario who are in the Adult Education system. We offer high-school credit courses, which ought to be competitive with regular high school.

The building I work at has no shortage of rodents and mould; and in order to maximize the number of seats per class, the administration has resorted to throwing out lab equipment, chemicals, and ripping out lab benches in order to fit more desks. That being said, our building is probably one of the best and largest adult sites in Ontario.

No, there is plenty of room to teach, and there is actually a shortage of adult students from what I remember over the past 5 years. Classrooms are lying empty for some periods. What I think is likely to be happening is that certain periods are being crammed with the most students so that they can pay the fewest teachers. Common sense will tell you that both the teacher and the student lose in this arrangement. A semester starting with 35 students is typical, whereas in all other schools, the government is capping the numbers at 24.

For those who don’t know about our situation, which I think is province-wide,
we are a group of teachers who are not on any career-track job, who are actually paid by the hour and whose job can be terminated at the end of any semester when our contracts end. Yes, we are working in the public system. I have to sign a new contract every three months. There is no paid prep time, and we thus work usually of less than 6 hours per day (that is teaching time), which in the majestic rationale of the employment system, makes us part time workers. For the record, anyone working even 3 periods (4.5 hours class time in our school) really has no life, especially if the teacher’s goal is to provide education of any quality in the 3-month, 80 hour semester we are given.

I am attempting to gather information on the history and current state of adult education in Ontario. If you think you can contribute with either a provincial or local scope, leave a comment and I will see what I can do. For now, let’s avoid speculation and stick to hard, verifiable info. That alone is damning enough.

Ideas for contributions would apply to:

History of adult education in Ontario (since 1980s)

Local stories about the current state of adult ed in Ontario

Provincial stories about the current state of adult ed in Ontario

Newspaper/web references about adult ed in Ontario

Government actions, past (since 1980s) to present:

• Links to key legislation
• Policy document references
  • the idea of “lifelong learning”
  • definition of a “student” in Ontario
• hansard references
• ministry quotes

I am still coming up with some ideas. This blog is entirely a volunteer effort.