What is University For - Part 1

In case you've missed it, many students on university campuses have been protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

The police have been heavy-handed -- or outright violent -- with some of the students. Yet one prof wrote about his primary concerns in the NY Times: that the constant noise disrupts his class and the protests are upsetting for Jewish students.

Strike While the Fire's Hot

Happy Labour Day!

I'm sitting at a comfortable distance from Ontario school contract negotiations this time out, and I don't know all the ins and outs of the various union positions, but even if I were in the building, I think I'd still lean towards turning down the arbitration option in contract negotiations.

I just don't trust Lecce. 

He's slimy, but he's also a smooth talker. I'm not sure who the arbitrator would end up being, and of course they'd be a professional with a reputation at risk if they can't clearly defend the decision they make, but way too much rides on whether they can see through his persona. This government is so overtly corrupt that we also have to ensure the arbitrator has the integrity to refuse a barrel of money or gifted cottage or any other form of bribery. Even the best of us might bend if the offer is right. I don't trust anything about this government. The Mr. X scandal might reduce the likelihood of further shenanigans - right? - because they'll be so scrutinized. Or will it just be a further distraction?

OSSTF is recommending members to vote in favour of arbitration. If the majority of the 60,000 members vote in favour, then, if they can't settle contracts by October 27, it goes to an outside arbitrator to make a final decision, and it's done. If members vote down the arbitration option, however, then next up is a strike vote for OSSTF to assess their position when continuing negotiations. 

I completely understand the desire for a done deal. It's been a year without a contract. Strikes are horrible and disruptive for everyone. They don't just affect teachers and students, but all their families as well. But that's what makes them an incredibly powerful tool. It's only under the potential collective action of all workers joining forces to refuse an unfair contract that workers can ever ensure they're not being exploited. 

On McQuaig's Sport and Prey

Linda McQuaig's newest book, The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich are Stealing Canada's Public Wealth, is a fast read full of local history and written as history should be written, as colourful stories about fascinating people! But, in order to try to remember any of it, I've whittled it down to the bare bones here. She comes down hard on Trudeau, both of them, and for good reason, but takes a generally non-partisan role in exploring the good and bad players in our history.

Her concern throughout: "We've failed to appreciate our heritage as a nation that has embraced public enterprise to great effect" (6). Then she traces our gradual acceptance, at a huge cost to our country, of the neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization, and union busting through the history of specific industries affecting Canada today: the banking system, tar sands, railways, 407, hydro, and medicines.

More Ford Cuts: Ban Cell Phones, but Mandate Online Courses

From iPolitics:

"On top of the change to class sizes, the government is also mandating that all high school students take four of their 30 credits online. This requirement will take effect in the 2020-21 school year. These e-learning classes will average 35 students per class, according to the government." 

This is huge!! I don't understand why this wasn't part of the original statement in the CBC's articles yesterday or in OSSTF's statement! Online courses have notoriously high failure rates (50% according to one study, but 90% including all the people who drop the course) except for the ones that grossly lower curricular standards by, for instance, having students read just a few pages of a book instead of an entire book in a university-level senior course!!

A New York Times article, from just over a year ago, outlined how online courses harm students:

"In high schools and colleges, there is mounting evidence that the growth of online education is hurting a critical group: the less proficient students who are precisely those most in need of skilled classroom teachers. . . . After all, taking a class without a teacher requires high levels of self-motivation, self-regulation and organization. Yet in high schools across the country, students who are struggling in traditional classrooms are increasingly steered into online courses. . . . In reality, students who complete these courses tend to do quite poorly on subsequent tests of academic knowledge. This suggests that these online recovery courses often give students an easy passing grade without teaching them very much. Consider a study conducted in the Chicago high schools. Students who had failed algebra were randomly assigned either to online or to face-to-face recovery courses. The results were clear: Students in the online algebra courses learned much less than those who worked with a teacher in a classroom. . . . Even though the courses are seemingly identical, the students who enroll online do substantially worse. The effects are lasting, with online students more likely to drop out of college altogether."

On Petty, Self-Serving Teachers Taking Sick Days

A timely local article (timely for what I'm going through) in the Record, discusses the horrors of teachers who are allowed to have paid sick days - or that's how it's being read by a vocal group of commenters. The facebook rants following it are so routine that the insults are having less effect, which is dangerous. Sure it sounds good on the surface - just let the dirt roll off your back. Yup, we're all lazy sods who barely work six hours a day with tons of breaks and holidays - because prepping and marking and helping kids outside the classroom don't count as work. Sure. Whatever. But without any retaliation, the loudest haters in the public will allow the sick pay created by unions to erode completely.

We've all seen the shift away from the glory days of unions; the singsong "look for the union label" days are far behind us due to the neo-liberal double-barrel of deregulation and privatization. But, in the U.S. at least, there's a clear correlation between union membership and a strong economy. When the economy was at its best, a third of the country belonged to a union. When strong, supported unions dissolve, the economy tanks. Taking care of people actually has a positive effect on businesses. Isn't that just obvious?

I will never understand this race to the bottom born from people who insist nobody should have paid sick days or benefits or regulations around breaks or a limit to hours worked or job protection after a maternity leave or safety regulations or just generally reasonable standards. Decades ago, groups of people gathered together to fight for better working conditions. Their resolute unity worked brilliantly to pressure employers to ensure people have the basics covered. People solidified to demand a healthier, safer, more secure life for all citizens. And people are upset about that now because...???

The Record article is actually about the fact that, since reducing sick days to 11 days per year, teachers are calling in sick more often. Some people think teachers are following the use 'em or lose 'em mentality. The Record takes a surprising pro-teacher stance with the words of WRDSB trustee, John Hendry, who thinks that it's possible teachers are taking more sick days due to increased stress.

In contrast, back in March, CBC reported the same data with a different slant: Sandals says "teachers are taking more sick days because they lost the right to bank them" and the article later refers to sick days as "an expensive luxury." Similarly, in an article about this also last March in the Globe & Mail (apparently the Record was really behind on this one), "Labour lawyer Howard Levitt said...'this plan obviously dramatically exceeds what employees in any private sector employer that I have ever heard of receives, I never cease to be amazed at the exorbitant giveaways at all levels of the public service.'"

I don't know Levitt's scope, but when I worked in insurance, my benefits were at least as good. But that was long ago. They might have eroded significantly by now.

Then Luisa D'Amato weighed in on this to counter Hendry's position. According to D'Amato, it's unlikely teacher stress has changed: "there aren't signs it has become more challenging lately." She jumped on the "use it or lose it" bandwagon and shamed the "petty, self-serving" teachers for doing something so harmful to their dear students as to take time away from the classroom.


ABOUT THOSE STATS

First of all, let's look at the numbers. Well, let's try at least. It's really hard to find any. The data were compiled "by the School Boards' Co-operative, a nonprofit agency created by school boards for actuarial analysis." I couldn't get access to any useful information on their site, but I did find an interesting comment on the company from a disgruntled employee:

"Elitist organization, ultra conservative, introverted work force who were very self-serving, immature and impersonal. Surface deep organization composed of purists aimed at hiring for Caucasians only. Pompous top management who run this not for profit organization as an unspoken dictatorship but who were none-the-less easily manipulated by underlings who knowingly steered the CEO & COO. Some staff members betrayed confidences by passing on confidential materials and reports to management - totally unethical behaviour encouraged, condoned and accepted by upper management."

I found that as I was scouring for stats showing absenteeism rates prior to 2011, in order to see a longer view of the changes in absenteeism, but none were to be found. Apparently Ontario doesn't keep those kinds of records. So we don't really see how the rates have fluctuated within a longer context. Be aware we're drawing a lot of conclusions on a very short timeframe.


ABOUT THAT STRESS

If it is the case that absenteeism has dramatically increased, and D'Amato's pretty sure nothing's changed that could account for increased stress, then apparently she hasn't heard of AER. After the new rules were implemented, so many colleagues had problems that I made a FAQs page that I wasn't allowed to distribute at school, so I put it here. It's the most positive view of AER I could possibly take. These policies have changed the classroom dramatically. There is no question in my mind that they have added to teacher stress levels. No. Question.

Five years ago, if students didn't have work in on time, we'd take off 10% a day for a week, then give the assignment a zero. No questions asked, no badgering, and no phone calls home for senior grades. The only time I ever called home for a grade 12 student was the very rare occasion when someone failed one of my courses. Students handed things in or accepted the consequences.

Now zeros and late marks are verboten. And students are pushing the boundaries like crazy. Just this semester I've had to deal with students who refused to write a test after reading the questions because they hadn't yet gotten notes for a day they missed two weeks ago - because they know I can't give them a zero for refusing to write it. And I've had several cases of people going out of town for the weekend, not having wifi, so not finishing work assigned a week earlier - and knowing I can't give them a zero if they don't hand in anything. These are grade 12 students about to go to university. It's considered my responsibility to call home every time a student doesn't hand something in, which could be 20 kids in a class for a minor assignment. And it's my responsibility to beg them to please, please get the work in - please, maybe tomorrow?!?

I have my own system that's pretty firm, and it has saved my sanity, but I've found myself slipping this year from sheer exhaustion. Others are scrambling after the kids in a downward spiral. The new policy places unreasonable pressure on teachers, and the lack of pressure on students to get work in on time isn't doing them any favours.

We're told to work smarter, not harder, and it makes me want to impale someone with my metre stick every time I hear that. Marking isn't an issue; it's the same as ever. Chasing is the new issue. It takes up far too much of my time that could be spent marking in a timely fashion or creating innovative lesson plans or helping the students who actually want to do the work. So, yes, there ARE signs it has become more challenging lately, thank-you very much!


ON THE 'USE IT OR LOSE IT' PERCEPTION

When I worked in insurance, we got two sick days a month, and many of us used them liberally. We called them "mental health days" and spent time relaxing and rewinding whenever we felt like we needed it. We definitely subscribed to the use it or lose it mentality. At the time, I was young and healthy, and we worked in little teams so everyone's workload was covered by everyone else.

But I find it hard to believe so many teachers are doing that because it's a whole other ball game calling in sick as a teacher. It involves writing a script of your entire day, word for word lessons, explanations of all the students' quirks, clarification of how to use the equipment in the room, etc. It's far more work than just going in. The day I smashed my head on the sidewalk and was taken to the hospital where a doctor told me I had a concussion and should sit in a dark room for the next week, I went to work rather than prep classes for a supply teacher. It's that much effort. Admin told me to go home, and they called in a supply, but I went to class and taught the lesson with a supply teacher reading a paper in the back of the room.

Furthermore, I wonder how many times teachers are calling in sick but actually going to work. The policy is that we can take off a minimum of half a day at a time. That means if I book a ten minute appointment in my lunch, and it's possible it'll run into my prep period, then I have to take off half a day. But then I don't want to spend the effort getting a supply, so I tell admin I plan to show up for the class, and the supply is used elsewhere, or banked, or something. I'm not even sure. And, from one cancer surgery to the next, I've had a ton of brief appointments just a few minutes' walk from work, that I've always scheduled so as not to miss any classes, but I've had to take half a day off work every time even though I didn't miss teaching any classes. I wonder how much money it would save to allow teachers to book appointments during their lunch hour and cover them for a few minutes if it runs into their prep period. Or maybe, God forbid, let teachers use their prep period as they deem most useful to them, like professionals, rather than mandate they sit in their rooms just in case there's an on-call for them.

Finally, it should be made clear that supply teachers aren't mandated to prep lessons or evaluate anything. They're the puppets of the absent teachers. If I'm away, I'm still in charge, creating word-for-word lesson plans and marking everything from home when doctors have told me I need complete bedrest. Taking a day off work never means a day of rest and relaxation. It means being up late at night prepping, then putting out fires on e-mail all day, then cleaning it all up the next day back. This perception that teachers are petty and self-serving, and taking sick days just because they'll lose them otherwise, is just lunacy.

More Doctors and Nurses, Less Waiting

I went to the CCAC yesterday after my surgery on Tuesday - the Community Care Access Centre - an agency I only heard about when they had a local whistleblowing scandal a couple years ago questioning the decision to reduce case managers instead of front line therapists, and then more recently, when they spent money to send employees to a conference, which turned out to be largely funded by donors. It's a very necessary agency that cares for people after surgery among many other things, and it's a concern if funding is mismanaged.

It's also a concern if funding is reduced.

It's a complicated system to an outsider. After my surgery, I felt fine and declined homecare, but changed my mind once the drugs wore off, and it took many phone calls to relay that decision because homecare is under a different umbrella than the regular CCAC on-site work staff. This article says the system in Ontario is, "plagued by inconsistent standards of care, byzantine processes and a troubling lack of transparency for both patients and family caregivers." And apparently they're all going to be shut down soon anyway to be replaced by LHINs: Local Health Integration Networks.

Whatever they're called or do, I haven't really followed it all, but they are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

Or something is necessary.  I don't really care how they operate so long as they exist - so long as something's in place when you leave the hospital. It would be kinda nice if it was your own surgeon who could answer questions, but their costs are too high and their time too valuable. Or something like that.

I got my drainage tubes out this morning. When we got there, the cab driver questioned my intentions: "Carpenters?! Is this a union office? Are you part of a union??" No, silly, Care Partners. Well, yes, actually, but that's a longer story, and what's it to you, bub!?

Anyway.

The CCAC nurse warned me that I might faint because the drain was "right up in there." I didn't, but it was significantly worse than with my mastectomy. The armpit has a bevy of nerve endings. My surgeon was right: boobs are just blobs of fat - easy peasy. Lymph nodes are much more integrated and involved in things. The nurse had concerns. I was reporting more pain that I should have at this stage, but maybe I'm just sensitive. But the blood in the drain was more thick and dark than is typical, so she expected a clot, but couldn't find one, and I had way too much bruising way too far from the site, and it shouldn't be swollen right down to my wrist! She removed the tube anyway (thank God), but told me to see my doctor immediately.

Before I left, I asked her about aftercare. Shouldn't I be doing exercises of some sort? I had a booklet to take home after my mastectomy. She thought the surgeon should have given me something, but the day surgery staff was pretty sure CCAC should have something for me. There are too many cooks stirring this soup!! Thank god for Google (and here too). We're on our own, here, kids.

I called my surgeon, but he, as with most of the doctors I try to see, lives behind a protective wall of receptionists or assistants or a "care team" of some sort. They told me I don't see him for that kind of thing, and that I couldn't see him anyway because he's not in on Fridays. It's my family doctor from here on in. So I called her, but she also doesn't see patients on Fridays. Okey dokey. I know her well enough to know that she wouldn't know what to do with my engorged black and blue arm anyway. So, her receptionist suggested emerg was my best option. Middle of the afternoon, how bad could it be, right??

I went to work in the afternoon because I'm out of fully paid sick days from my surgery in the fall - yes, I've got a strong union, but the public perception of being allowed to carry over sick days was deadly to that clause of our contract. God forbid we piss off the public. That fear also ensures every PD day is spent in useless meetings rather than being allowed time to prep classes and mark work in a timely fashion. That part of our job is to be done on weekends and evenings. But I digress.

Okay, one more thing. When I had surgery last semester, I went part time for a week. I had all my classes in the morning and my prep in the afternoon. So I taught A, B, C, 3/3 of my courses, then went home to fall into a mild coma. That counted as half time because I was only in the building for half the day. This time, new semester, I have two classes in the morning, and one in the afternoon. I decided I'd come for the afternoons and teach that one class and stay for my prep. But that doesn't count as a half day. This time it counts as 1/3 day because I'm only teaching one out of three classes. Hmmm.  Doesn't that seem a little fishy to count by day portion or number of class, whichever is less? . . .  Whatevs.

So I went to the hospital right after my class instead of staying for my prep period, because I'm going to do all my marking at home anyway. I half expect to be docked 1/6th pay for publicly acknowledging leaving early - that's fair, teach one of three classes for 1/6 of your pay. And I'll be spending my weekend prepping for the supply teacher and marking even though I'm on sick leave because supply teachers aren't mandated to mark or prep anything. IF I PUNCHED A CLOCK.... Blarg!!

So I got to the hospital at 1:40. It was packed. I finally met with the triage nurse at 3:00. He said I should be seen within an hour because the section I needed to go to was moving pretty quickly. I asked about my meds, which I was scheduled to take at 3:30. A different nurse insisted that the hospital needed to dispense all that rather than my kids coming to deliver them. After an hour of figuring that out, and being given only an Advil because they can't actually dispense Tylenol 3s or any of the other nerve repair drugs and aromatase inhibitors I'm on despite insisting they must be the only dispensing physicians while I'm in their care, I called my daughter to bring me my plethora of pills.

At 6:00, I won the lottery and got called on to move TO A BED, which was very exciting. I thought it meant I'd be seeing a doctor!! But hold yer horses. All in good time. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 11 in the morning  - I was terrified to leave the waiting room in case I missed my turn, and the water from the sinks in the hospital tasted horrible. I work right next door and drink the tap water there all the time. I'm not sure what makes the difference, but I tried to force down a few sips out of the tap while I waited. At 7:30 the doctor came to check me out. He said I have a hematoma, blood collecting under the skin, which was causing the extra special pain this time round. This called for an ultrasound to check for clots in the veins which could cause all sorts of problems. His turn was over for now, and he left.

At 8:40, I saw the ultrasound technician in a dark and creepy part of the hospital. We were the only ones there. After tracing all my veins with her gooey magic wand, she told me someone would come to take me back up, and I was left all alone in a hospital gown, open at the back, and my jeans. A thin coating of goo remained down my left side despite attempts at cleaning it all off. It's tenacious stuff. While I waited, I tried to wipe a bit more with a kleenex, and it was quickly saturated with thick, dark red globs. The sticky dampness I felt was pretty much all blood. My escort arrived and told me a nurse would redress that wound. Back in my curtained room, I scrubbed the blood from my jeans with the paper towel eroding as I rubbed, leaving traces behind in a bigger mess.

A nurse came and cleaned me up. She tried valiantly to find a pamphlet of exercises for me, but had no luck. The day surgery staff was long gone. She told me to call my surgeon on Monday, even though that first week after surgery is most important for aftercare, and I already know the surgeon doesn't take my calls. But don't worry - Google's got my back.

While I waited for the results of the ultrasound, I read every word of every poster in the room. One in particular warned people that they might get a call asking them about their experiences. They want to know what would make the emerge experience better. I'll tell you. It's one thing. There is one answer to that question: We need more doctors and nurses available. Just MORE. That's it. It's not complicated and doesn't require a survey. We need more money to pay for more staff so we have shorter wait times. No matter how it's organized and where little bits of money are misspent or where there's an overlap of services or cracks between them, those are all important issues and all, but nothing will get better until we have more staff to be able to take on more patients. But not just in emerge. We need more staff everywhere. It took me months to get in to each surgeon to find out I should have had surgery months ago. Take money from education if you need to. Cut my salary in half if that's the only place we can find a buck. I mean God forbid we raise the marginal tax rate or anything. I don't even care right now. I just want the Ontario health care system to be swimming in cash, at least enough for some quality water fountains so we're not so monopolized by Timmys to quench our thirst. This level of care is ridiculous. I feel like I live in the states!

Anyway, at 9:50, the doctor came back with the results. No clots in the veins! Hurray! I just have that hematoma that needs regular surveillance. Come back if it doubles in size or the swelling gets significantly worse (what does significantly look like??), or if it gets hot or I get a fever. All that jazz.

My incredible, beautiful, precious children had dinner ready for me when I walked in the door, eleven hours after leaving for a half day at work - ahem, a one third day at work. It's questionable for me to be back at work at all. I was advised to take two weeks off; I should be spending my days resting. I decided I could manage one class that's presenting seminars to me. But I should have been resting those other nine hours today instead of sitting upright in a hard chair lacking arm supports, in a crowded, noisy room full of contagious germs, with no access to food or water or necessary meds, and no accurate timeline of events - not even a reasonable guess - on offer.

My kids took pics of the hematoma so we could document any changes. You don't want to see that. [ETA - it's here, for the morbidly curious.]

Okay, it's amazing that I had access to an ultrasound tech immediately (relatively immediately). And of course there were a few patients screaming and growling in the triage area and an old guy too drunk to understand why his police escort wouldn't let him have a cigarette. We need more money in mental health services and addiction treatment. Absolutely. And whenever I felt impatient, I watched the number of people there with little ones. Sitting for hours in pain is nothing compared to sitting for hours with a child in pain. They should always get bumped to to the front of the line.

No. Scratch that. There shouldn't BE a flippin' line!

Requiem for the American Dream

This is Chomsky's last long-form documentary. It came out in January, but I hadn't heard about it until recently. I paraphrased/transcribed the 72 minute video liberally with links to further readings below.

It's about the American Dream: the idea that you can be born poor but work hard enough for a home and car and good schools - that's all collapsed. We profess to like the values of democracy, so public opinion should have an influence on policy and the government should carry out actions determined by the population, but the privileged sector doesn't like democracy. We have extreme inequality with a super wealthy group in the top 1/10th of the top one percent. It's unjust in itself, but it's got a corrosive effect on democracy.

The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of power, especially as costs of elections skyrocket forcing politicians into the pockets of corporations. This translates into legislation that increases the concentration of wealth through fiscal policy (taxes, deregulation, rules of corporate governance) designed to increase the concentration of wealth and power in a vicious cycle of progress.

On Unions and Boycotts

The elementary schools in our board have decided to boycott the local paper because one columnist has been known to take a decidedly negative view of teachers. So a local MPP, Michael Harris, petitioned Sandals, the Education Minister, to... I'm not really sure what he wants her to do. But he wrote her a letter telling on the teachers.

First of all, I'm not in favour of the boycott. I think there are many forms of media, even other local papers, to be use in the classroom, and the kids won't suffer from the boycott. That's not the problem. I don't agree with refusing to listen to dissenting opinions, poorly argued or otherwise, nor do I agree with modelling that behaviour to students. I've exchanged words with this columnist before, and it was certainly in bad taste for her to call teachers "boneheads" who were "using kids as human shields" when we stopped running extra-curriculars to protest a government-imposed contract with clauses that allowed alterations to be made without further negotiations - basically dismantling workers' rights entirely. And it didn't help her cause when that "human shields" line was still hanging in the air a few weeks later during the Sandy Hook shooting. But I'll still read her column - even if only to get my blood pumping in the morning.

If we're going to collectively boycott something in our schools, we should make it something that causes longterm harm to our kids, like cigarettes or bottled water or the mountains of Tim's cups in the trash or single-sided handouts from the board office.

Secondly, what the hell? Is Harris hoping Sandals will tell teachers what they're allowed to read in the classroom? The boycott isn't going to prevent students from learning about local issues. There are few news stories in The Record that can't be found in The Star a day earlier, and kids can read about LRT-induced road closures online. But I'm curious what legislation he's hoping could be imposed to prevent acts from offending him in future.

What's really bugging me, however, is Harris's suggestion that it was inappropriate for the "union to direct its members" thusly. The union doesn't dictate what members do; the union is made up of the members. Decisions are a matter of majority rule after significant discussion among representatives from each school. OSSTF decided against supporting the boycott after a lengthy discussion and a vote by representatives from each school in the region. The union runs in a similar manner to parliament except that union reps have no reason to ignore their constituents in favour of party politics. Reps don't get extra pay to attend meetings, nor are we basking in glory for our efforts. We're voted in but often by acclamation such are the perks.

Suggesting that the union directs members to strike or work-to-rule or boycott is similar to suggesting that our government dictatorially directs the people towards actions beyond their will, but even less the case. For serious issues, like strike votes, members are offered as much information as they can manage, their questions answered in as much depth as possible, and then they vote without any effort to sway them to one side or another. It's an automatic referendum. For smaller issues, the reps vote as a typical MP might vote in the House. If we don't like the decisions the government makes, we can vote them out. And if a member doesn't like the way the union votes on a decision, change is as simple as offering to replace one of your school's reps. Come on down!

Finally, a word on bias. One letter to the editor suggests, "we are all biased in what we think." I've seen bias used in this context increasingly, but there's a difference between an opinion and a biased opinion. A biased opinion is conceived before or outside of facts; it's a prejudiced idea. It presents an argument that leaves out important information, skews details, uses loaded terms, and/or misrepresents idea. We can have a strong opinion for or against something without being biased, without being led by emotionally-driven appeals instead of facts and data. Bias isn't necessarily the case as long as we keep thinking.