Rules, Morality, and the Place You Call Home

“How do you know the difference between right and wrong?” A question that comes up from time to time in the classroom.

Some kids will tell you they know the difference because they know they will get punished if they do the wrong thing. Some will say they know something is wrong because it’s against the law or against the rules. 

Others say they know the difference because that’s what the Bible or the Quran or the Talmud or Buddha teaches. They might say it’s what their parents taught them or it comes from some fundamental principles that guide them. Others might refer to the little voice inside their head that makes them feel guilty or ashamed- similar to Abraham Lincoln’s statement, “When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.”

For kids with less sophisticated thinking, we must push a little harder for them to understand not just the social contract, but the difference between morality and legislation. Something isn’t wrong because it’s against the law. It’s wrong because it goes against the moral fabric of society. Right and wrong speak to the choices we make that demonstrate respect for each other so we can live well together. Without those morals, right and wrong are just a matter of what we can get away with.

When I was a naïve university student, one of my profs assigned a paper on discipline in the classroom. In my innocence, I expounded at length on how I, as a teacher, would encourage students to internalize the rules so discipline would not be needed. Students would understand what was right and wrong and act accordingly. Although my prof liked the paper, in the real world of the classroom it did not take me too long to figure out how ignorant I was. Even for those who have a strong moral code, the temptation offered by doing the wrong thing is hard to resist. A laugh from your buddy or the promise of a high mark can make a lot of kids ignore both the rules and their principles.

“I did not break any rules,” says Jason Kenney of his expense claims for “primary” residency in his mother’s basement in her assisted living facility which reportedly does not accept sublets. A basement he visited four times in a given year.

Probably not Jason's wallpaper,, but then again.

“The primary residence is occupied by the Member more often than the other residence,” the guidelines say. “The primary residence is where the Member most frequently resides on weekends and holidays.”

Mr. Kenney apparently did not consider the reasons behind the rules governing residency-rules that were created to allow elected officials -both federally and provincially-to retain a home in their riding while living where the legislature sits without undue hardship. These rules were designed on the principle of fairness. If your home is in your riding in Neerlandia or Stettler but you need to spend a large portion of your time on government business in Ottawa or Edmonton, is it fair to pay accommodations costs in both communities when your counterpart who lives near the legislature only needs one home?

My own MLA and my MP retain primary residences in their home communities. Their homes, where their families live and to which they return whenever possible.

Mr. Kenney said in his statement, “I was afforded the same living allowance that all MPs get for accommodation in Ottawa. All was in line with House of Commons policy, and my principal residence remained in Calgary throughout.”  Like a kid who says "everyone is doing it" as an excuse for misbehaving.

“I owe them everything,” says Mr. Kenney of his parents. Sure. Millions of Canadians would agree. Many of us would love the chance to spend time with our parents if only we could. And plenty of us have lived in our parents’ basement, myself included. All three of my adult kids have furnished rooms in my house, filled with their stuff. They are welcome to return any day. But that's not their home. That's not where they have chosen to make a life. But all of that is beside the point. The point is, most of us don’t use our relationship with our parents to make money off the taxpayer.

“Following my father’s passing, my mother moved into a detached bungalow unit that is part of a retirement community,” Mr. Kenney has said. “Not wanting to leave my widowed mother entirely alone, I also rented the finished basement of the bungalow so that I could assist her and provide company while in Calgary.”

I don't question his love for his mom or his desire to spend time with her. Paying her rent is something he could certainly afford to do as a senior cabinet minister who earned over three million dollars while in office. I also understand that as a senior cabinet minister there were many demands on his time that might preclude visits "home". But claiming a room in this seldom-visited basement in retirement community as his “home” seems like a stretch.

I won't deny there are many definitions of "home".  A traditional bungalow you share with your family, a little apartment you share with a pet, a fancy condo you barely see due to the demands of your job, a  house on a reserve without access to clean drinking water-all of these can be "homes." Places you sleep in, places where you hang your clothes and keep your mementos and your family photos. Not places you visit a few times a year.

The irony is not lost on me that Mr. Kenney and his former comrade Derek Fildebrandt were both former directors of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the euphemistically named organization to which few taxpayers belong. Two men who made careers out of complaining about  abuse of taxpayers' dollars and then, once they were elected to office, turned around and abused those same dollars themselves.  But at least when Mr. Fildebrandt was caught out regarding the fact he rented out his taxpayer funded accommodations as an AirBNB, he owned up to his error. 

Thinking you didn't do anything wrong because you didn't break the rules is the kind of immature thinking I can accept from a high school student. Saying "everyone else is doing it" or using other excuses is also something I have come to expect from kids. But I don't accept it from an adult who aspires to lead. A man who may soon be making the rules.

I don't think Kenney's "rental" of his mom's basement is a scandal. I don't think it has anything to do with whether he is really an Albertan. I don't care if he lives with his mom on his off days, but he shouldn't be disingenuous about it. That's not his primary residence. That's not where his life is.  When a man who chooses to ignore right and wrong in favour of his own self-interest, that concerns me.

Probably not Jason Kenney's kitchen.

Cheating Students

I came across this website called "Course Hero" awhile ago.  While it reports itself as a "tutoring" site, it's really a place where you can buy essays and pay people to answer your math questions.  You can sell your work too, or sell the work of others as one of my teaching colleagues discovered upon finding his entire set of lesson plans. 

Cheating kids. Looking for answers.

We hear about them all the time. We hear about how lazy they are. How they're raised by parents who give them everything and ask for nothing in return.

Yes, I have had students who cheat. There are many ways to cheat these days. That doesn't make it right. I have taught far more who don't cheat and would never consider it. 

But so much rides on "success". Being a student today is a whole lot different than it was when I was a kid.

In his March 18 2016 Walrus article, Pass.Fail, University of PEI Religious Studies professor Ron Srigley discusses students at one of Canada's modern universities. He describes them as "...mostly bored youth who find themselves doing something they neither value nor desire...shrewd managers of their own careers, forced to compromise what is best in themselves—their honesty or character—in order to “make it” in the world we’ve created for them."

I wonder how true that is and why we have a system that asks students to make such compromises.

I started my post secondary education 40 years ago. You needed a 65% average to get into an arts programme. Tuition was $525 a year. I rented a three bedroom house - walking distance from campus- for $415 a month. When I graduated with a four year degree and middling marks, I was offered jobs at places where I hadn't even applied.

Today the mean admission grade for an arts degree is 82%. Government funding for post secondary education has dropped from 84% in 1982 to just over 50% today- resulting in tuition that has increased tenfold since my day while minimum wage has just tripled. It's impossible to find an apartment to rent that doesn't require a full year lease. In my daughter's geophysics graduating class, two people got jobs. She worked her tail off to be one of them.

I loved university life. I made many friends. I joined cool organizations. I had a lot of laughs. When my own kids were ready to start university, I was excited at what it would offer them. They loved learning. They were bright and hopeful and full of potential. Their reality turned out to be something quite different. 

Social life on campus has changed drastically since my time and the time of their grandparents. Nana wistfully asks, "Are you going to Sadie Hawkins?  Have you joined the womens' association?"  "Oh Nana," my kids think.  "It's not like that any more." I ask about residence socials and events. My husband asks about the university bar. "Oh Mom and Dad," they say. "It's not like that any more." With residence government, social events, dances and alcohol all but banned on campus, the sense of university as a community no longer exists. University is a factory to churn out grads, not a fellowship of human beings. 

Students sit in classes of 500 where professors cannot hear students speak. Office hours are so limited there are lineups down the hall so kids can ask the questions they could not ask in the lecture. In fact, between 1990 and 2006, the pupil:instructor ratio has increased by 40%. Full time professors are increasingly replaced by sessional instructors, perhaps resulting in the unacceptable way some behave, such as announcing the name of a failing student in front of an entire class or refusing help in humiliating ways. You're not a person, you're a number and a grade. 

University of Alberta CSIS lecture hall

It's all about where you will fall on the bell curve and what your GPA is. Kids compete for grades. Programmes do not provide a balance so students do not learn about anything outside their immediate area. An engineer just learns about engineering. And so on. My kids studied night and day to keep their GPA up. Because if you aren't succeeding, you just get told to leave.

My two oldest will tell you that they spent the last years of their initial degrees recovering from their first year which they spent in student dorms where the furniture hadn't been replaced since I lived there in the 1970s (deferred maintenance at Canadian universities now stands at 5 billion dollars), where students no longer socialize over dinner but instead pay for meal cards so they can buy overpriced and non-nutritious food. Where students suffering from GI infections were told to go to their rooms and not come out until they were better, where fruit-fly and cockroach infestations were not uncommon, where garbage piled up, where broken bathroom stalls were never fixed. When they moved into rental houses with people they didn't know, it was a relief.

Over the past 10 years, a good $500,000 has been spent on the education of my three children. They lived in crappy shared houses. They ate chickpeas and Subway and cookies from mom. They did not own vehicles. They did not expect to live a luxurious lifestyle. University was a choice and now all three hold good jobs because of their education. But they did not choose the unconscionable treatment they received.

When my eldest was finishing up her first degree, she was asked if she would give back to her alma mater. This was her response

This is not an institution that cares about my education. This is an institution that treats me as a means to an end. If they think they can get something from me, they’ll pry it from me. Are you a great student?’ Here’s some money – keep coming to school here and make sure you do something that will allow us to mention your name in one of our glossy brochures.’ Are you not a great student? ‘Let’s make this whole process of education harder on you by putting you in debt.'

At Canadian universities, more than half of all students report feeling of hopelessness and despair, while 8.5 % have suicidal thoughts. Universities don't like to talk about how many suicides take place on their campuses. There were three reported suicides on the U of A in 2015- how many go unreported, we will never know. The response of the institution is more mental health support and even then, students report a six week waiting period to get an assessment. But mental health issues are caused, at least in part, by a broken system. Treatment is a stopgap, not a solution. We can treat the symptoms but until we address the root cause of the disease, the poor mental health of our students will continue. 

What are our schools, both secondary and post-secondary, FOR?  'The uplifting of the whole people'? as Henry Marshall Tory wrote. Or to produce cogs in the wheels of our economic machine?

"Whatsoever things are true" Motto of the University of Alberta

I understand that today's kids are competing for fewer and fewer jobs. 
They are growing up in a world of unprecedented inequality.
A world where there are clear winners and losers. 
And no one wants to be a loser. But...

"You said this was going to be the time of my life," a friend's kid said. "You lied."

That is not how it should be. As a teacher and a parent, I have to ask. Who is being cheated?

This is how I will socially engineer your child

First. 

I will make you give your child to me when he is young. When his bones are soft and his heart is open and his thoughts are pure.

Second.

I will seat your child sit with other children. Some of these children will be rich. Some will be poor. They will be of all colours and religions. Some will have had every privilege. Some will have struggled to survive every day of their lives. But in my room, no one will be superior to another. And although I cannot make them care about each other, they will.

Third.

I will let your children tell their stories. And I will listen to every one. Every story will matter. The stories of those who have lived on this land for tens of thousands of years. The stories of those who arrived yesterday with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The story of each child- a thread in the tapestry that is Canada. They will discover that when all those diverse threads are woven together, Canada will be strong and they will be strong.

Fourth.

Your children will play. They will play with paper and paint and numbers and music and words and colours and things that grow. Together, we will explore the universe with all its wonders and injustices. Your children will play with others. They will play with ideas. They will explore the thoughts of others and their own notions of who they are and what they value and how they should act because of their beliefs.  They will play with ideas about where they will go and who they will become.

Fifth.

In my classroom, your child will dream. She will dream of a world where she is strong and hopeful and resilient and she has a place. She will dream of the world she wants, the world she will help create and change. I will help her make those dreams come true, with your help.

This is how I will socially engineer your child.

Monochronic Teaching in a Polychronic World

I wrote this article in 2007. Is it still true today?

One day my daughter came home from school and watched me at work.

“Why do you always have so many windows open?” she asked.

She wasn’t talking about the glass ones, although she does complain about those being open too. She was talking about my computer. I was marking an online quiz; I had my marks programme open so I could submit a grade; I was using Wikipedia to research a question the assignment had stimulated; my web mail was open so I could hear that tell-tale “ding” of a new message, and I was in the chatroom providing homework help. From my early days as a teacher librarian, through my time as a stay home mom, I’ve been a multi-tasker, usually with a bunch of projects on the go all at once. Some people call this a “polychronic” personality.

Like personalities, cultures are also considered “polychronic” or “monochronic.” People in polychronic cultures think of time as cyclical. They work in a non-linear way with many things happening all at once. They can change plans at a moment’s notice. Time is subordinate to interpersonal relationships. That’s different from a “monochronic” culture that is time-driven, linear and orderly; where lateness and interruptions are not tolerated, and one task is always completed before the next is begun.

Most of today’s schools and classrooms are monochronic. Students must be on time, hand in their work on a prescribed day, and write their exams on a set date. For classroom teachers, classes begin and end at the same time, supervision begins and ends at the same time and the meetings begin but rarely end at the same time. And of course, attendance and marks and professional growth plans must be submitted according to a school, district or government mandated timeline. But our students are living in an increasingly polychronic world. While class is in session, they may be on MSN or YouTube or MySpace or Nexopia or even E-bay. One hand is on their cellphone, waiting for a text message and the other is on their ipod. (Remember, I said I wrote this in 2007! Nexopia! ha!)

Many teachers are not comfortable in this polychronic culture. If students are connected to the globalizing world via technology, are they connected to the classroom? If the world shines brighter to them through the window of the internet, then does the glow of a lesson appear a little dull? If they aren’t listening to teacher’s voice, whose message is being heard? It’s tempting to ban our students’ access to technology by forbidding laptops or web surfing; to ban cellphones and ipods. It’s tempting to shut our students off from their contact with the larger world. It’s tempting to try to force them to live in our monochronic world.

But a culture is not right or wrong. It’s not good or bad in and of itself. As any Canadian knows, even those who believe in pluralism to their core, when cultures come into contact, both challenges and opportunities arise. When monochronic meets polychronic, we can practice cultural imperialism, with the dominant subjugating the minority or we can promote reasonable accommodation to allow each other to flourish.

As our students walk through life with their virtual windows open, they are connected to each other and to the larger world, regardless of time and space. It’s through those windows that they see and are seen. If we close those windows, are we hiding them from the light of day? What could we see if we opened those windows ourselves?

When love is not enough

Many years ago my mother had a baby, and that baby was me. My mother loved me with her whole heart.

Then she had a miscarriage.

She and my dad were older. They wanted more children but they were afraid they wouldn't have any.

So they applied to adopt. The social worker asked them if they cared what race the baby was. They hadn't even thought about race. "No," they immediately said. "Why would race matter? We will love this child no matter what."

Not long after my mother had her second child, a charming and smart little Okanagan boy who she loved with all her heart.

Then my mom gave birth to their third child, a boy. And she loved him with her whole heart.

Then came my baby sister, from Tsawout First Nation, a girl who was lively and generous of spirit and my mom loved my sister as much as any mother loved a child.

But the town we lived in was racist in ways we white people didn't even see. While one teacher put my brother on an accelerated math programme until she ran out of worksheets, the next told my mom she was letting him-with his reported IQ of 140- run the projector-because he wasn't clever enough to do math. Another claimed my brother had no friends. Yet after school and weekends and holidays our house was full of little boys- boys he played hockey with and went to cub scouts with and wrestled on the Sunday School floor with. He took a stick to the face in a hockey game when he was a teenager and waited for hours in emergency until his white parents showed up. He argued with a teacher who told him he wasn't an Indian. 

My mother raged and ranted. 

My sister's first teacher insisted she was hyperactive and should be sedated. Other teachers had low expectations of her- she was only a native after all. She was bullied and called a squaw. She was told what saints her parents were for adopting an Indian. Many called them her "foster parents".

Again my mother raged in ways that only a mother can rage. How did people not see the brilliance of her children? How did people not recognize their gifts? 

And time went on and things did not go so well for my brother and sister. Still my mother loved them with her whole heart. She loved them when she told them they were adopted. She loved them when she explained their birth mothers loved them but they were young and couldn't care for them and so they had given them, in love, to a home that could provide them with the things they could not. She loved them when she told them they were of indigenous descent and that was something to be proud of. She loved them when each of them told her, in turn, that they were going to meet their birth mothers. She loved them when each of them moved away to live in the communities that were theirs by birth. She loved them when she met their birth mothers. She never feared they would love her less- only that the families they found would not embrace them.

But ...one day she said to me, "Your dad and I love your brother and sister. When we adopted them, we knew we would love them. And we do. We thought love would be enough to make up for any hardships they had in their early days. We thought love would counteract any problems they might face. But now I see, love is not enough." 

My mother knew, despite the deep and abiding love she had for her children, love was not enough.
Love was not enough to battle racism.
Love was not enough to help them deal with the dichotomy of being First Nations kids raised in a white home.
Love was not enough to make up for years of institutionalized discrimination.
No matter how much she loved them, love was not enough to make up for them being taken from their communities.

My sister says "Love was enough, I was able to come home from the racism and know that I belonged and that I was loved because I was ME." But my mom didn't see it that way.

That is why I am passionate about education for reconciliation. For my brother and sister.  For all the kids who were made to feel small because of the colour of their skin. For all those who felt invisible because their history was not acknowledged. For those who were not allowed to tell their own stories without fear of humiliation. For every kid who grew up believing they were worth less than another. And for my mother. For mistakes that cannot be undone. For unintended consequences. For all those who lived with the guilt of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. 

Back to School

So.

You're in the first staff meeting and there's this old teacher, y'all know that guy.

The guy with the cardigan and the coffee mug he's been drinking out of for 20 years, and he's like, "Nope, we did that back in '74 and it didn't work."

The guy that's all, "Been there, done that." The guy that's so old his cliches make you roll your eyes.

And you're thinking, like, "Old man. Wake up and smell the coffee.Things ain't like the way they used to be."

And he's like, "Sorry honey, but I bin around the block a time or two. I was young like you once, I tried a bunch of new ideas, some of them worked, most of them didn't."

And you're still like. "Yeah but I'm new and my ideas are awesome and no old geezer is gonna tell me what's what."

And he's like, "Take my advice, I am older and wiser. Go down that road and you're gonna regret it."

And you're like, "Old man, give it up, your days are numbered and I'm the future."

So you go ahead and try your funky new ideas and damned if the old man wasn't right and the new ways didn't exactly work but dammit you're not admitting to nothing, cause, you know, you're proud  and you worked hard and maybe you just didn't implement it right or maybe if the goddamned old man would have helped you out just a little, you could have made it work. 

And then...

And then...

You're in the first staff meeting of the year and there's these new teachers, y'all know the ones.

The ones that are cute and fun and have trendy outfits, and they're like, "Let's try this, it would be so fun and cool!"

And you put down your coffee mug and say "This ain't my first rodeo." or "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."

And in the middle of wondering why no one listens to you and why don't they value your institutional memory and how is it you just know that when you say you tried that already and it didn't work, they're just gonna go and do it anyway? And then you think back to that very first staff meeting and you think maybe just maybe years ago you should have listened to the wisdom of your elders instead of doing it your own way. But you know you never would have and they won't either and the wheels keep on being re-invented and it was ever thus and would you really want it any other way? 

The Land that Sustains Us

Social Studies Lessons for Kenney Part 3

Shortly after my husband and I married, we backpacked throughout Southeast Asia. I relished seeing the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon and the Golden Temple in Bangkok. I loved travelling by boat over the Chao Phraya and seeing the Irrawaddy flow through the rice paddiies of Burma, as it was called back them. I was careful not to touch the monks in their saffron robes. 

Pagan, Burma

Part of my excitement stemmed from the teaching of my grade eight teacher Ydella Dulcetta. Daughter of an Australian who came to Canada to teach school, Ydella loved the classics and bitterly complained that her parents had forbidden her from studying in Rome. Her revenge was to learn and teach Latin and marry Joe, an Italian she had met on vacation. Her teaching style was based on rote learning and personal stories. She told stories about the characters from history and about her own life. At the beginning of every class a student would give a 10 question quiz on the course content. Whoever had the highest mark created the quiz for the next day. Today I can recite the names of the largest 5 islands of Indonesia in order of size and the religions, capital cities and principal rivers and chief exports of SE Asia. And I know more about the Dulcetta's home life than I probably have a right to.

On the Chao Phraya

In grade 9 Wayne Mould was my Social Studies teacher. We spent weeks designing the ultimate city. I loved his class. I felt deeply connected to the lands we studied.

Long before I was born, departments of education in much of Canada decided that Social Studies should be an interdisciplinary subject encompassing history, geography, law, politics, economics and the social sciences. Geography, sadly, has taken a back seat in our issues-focused Social Studies culture. It's unfortunate because I think everything begins with the land. The land sustains us. The land provides us with an economic base. The land shapes culture and interactions. 

Today, we think about "the land" especially in regard to our relationship to it. How closely are we tied to a particular piece of land? How do we treat it? Is it possible to "own" it? Why do treaties about the land matter? Who decides what activities should occur on it? Who cleans it up? What happens to all of humanity if it is damaged? We talk about it as something of particular significance to our First Nations brothers and sisters, but really, it is a tangible living thing that impacts us all. No matter what kind of "relationship" we have with the land, without it, we are nothing.

Near Fawcett, Alberta

When my daughter was in kindergarten, she came home crying one day. "What's the matter, Missy?"  I asked.  "Mademoiselle Cantin says we are killing the earth. And I love the earth!" A case of overkill for my over-sensitive daughter. But a lesson that cannot be taught often enough. 

Everything starts with the land. 

The Quality of Your Life

Social Studies Lessons for Kenney 4

What makes your life a good one? 

Back in the day, the majority of Canadians might have agreed that a good life was one with a well paying job for dad, a mom that stayed home and cleaned and cooked and raised the 2.5 kids in a 3 bedroom house, safety, freedom and three weeks holiday in the camper.

Me and my mom, Trail B.C.

Nowadays, now that we understand more about what people value, our ideas are different. Maybe it means mom working outside the home, or two moms, or a single dad, or a single person living happily alone, or a family with ten kids. Maybe it means living out of your van, as a musician I know does quite happily. Or living off the grid, in a colony, on the rez, or in a downtown apartment or surviving off the land. Maybe it means living in the frozen north or on a beach. 

Fort Resolution, 1988.

Maybe it means having lots of money. Maybe it doesn't.

For my neighbours, driving a quad through the waterways is something they love. Every time I see them, that makes me angry. I feel like saying "Get off your butt and walk somewhere, you lazy bastard! Quit destroying the natural environment!" Meanwhile they are probably thinking "What the hell is the matter with you? You live in the bush and you don't own an off-road vehicle?"  

Likewise I see huge families and I think "Why are you overpopulating the planet?" When the whole idea of overpopulation was something my family thought about long and hard before deciding on having a third child.  To the absurd point I asked my childless cousin if she would give me her "quota" of kids so we could have another child. And yet I know for these families having numerous kids is something they value deeply. Perhaps they don't feel the need to provide for their education or have a house large enough so each kids has his/her own room. I know many of them feel sorry for those of us with small families. They cannot understand why anyone would make that choice.

Cemetery, Sarajevo

Sometimes the thing that makes my life good interferes with someone else.What principles do we use to determine where we legislate to achieve the common good? A simple vote? A referendum? Majority rules? Charter rights? "Inherent" rights? 

The more connected we are in our globalizing world, the more these questions matter. We cannot go back to the past , much as people like Donald Trump and Brexit voters and Marie Le Pen would like. The good old days weren't that great for everyone. 

Now we understand what "quality of life" means, we have to navigate into tomorrow's complicated world and its unknowable future. And that means recognizing that we are all unique, yet connected. That means trying to understand other people's views. Otherwise we will allow for the tyranny of the majority, the oppression of minority viewpoints and a world in which some people's way of life intervenes with the rights of others.

Inequality in Mumbai's slums

Agents of Change

Social Studies Lessons for Kenney Part 1

Whether it's teaching 5 year olds to be kind to one another or encouraging junior high kids to raise funds for charity or reminding 18 year olds to vote according to their principles, for decades Alberta’s teachers have encouraged kids to be actively involved as citizens in a democratic society. Any education system in a democratic nation promotes the idea that we need informed, thoughtful, active and contributing members in our society. 

If you don't want to take my word for it, take a look at the evidence which is found in Alberta’s Social Studies curriculum over the past 6 decades.

In 1947, the Department of Education in Alberta wrote “Society wants and needs good citizens.  It is the business of the Social Studies courses to help produce these good citizens, well-adjusted socially and well equipped mentally, citizens capable of thinking intelligently and determined to do their part in bringing about social progress.”

Following on the heels of World War II, Albertans knew firsthand what dictatorships and propaganda looked like, fully aware that “This is an age of propaganda fraught with pitfalls for the unwary, the ignorant, the unthinking and the mentally unawakened.” The Department of Education in a province governed by Social Credit Premier Ernest Manning was determined that schools would train critical thinkers who were equipped to separate fact from fiction and make decisions based on evidence, not emotions. Students who were committed to “social betterment”. Students who had “an appreciation of the worth and dignity of the individual and a desire to preserve the rights of minority groups and maintain justice for all.”

In 1970, under soon-to-be-defeated Social Credit leader Harry Strom, a new curriculum was unveiled “…with optimism about the nature of man and the efficacy of democratic ideals, the new social studies involves free and open inquiry into individual and social values that will serve the humanistic goals of education by offering students experience in living and not just preparation for living…students will deal not only with the “what is” but also with the “what ought to be” and will have the opportunity to make this world a more desirable place in which to live.”

By 1978, with Progressive Conservative Peter Lougheed as premier, the curriculum called for the development of students who are “sensitive to their human and natural environment, with intellectual independence, moral maturity, effective participants in community affairs” which by 1985 evolved to preparing “students for responsible participation in a changing world.” By 1990, under Progressive Conservative Premier Don Getty  the ultimate aim of education was “to develop the ability of the individual so that he might fulfill personal aspirations while making a positive contribution to society…including justice, fair play and fundamental rights, responsibilities and freedoms.”

Our current program of studies, implemented in 2005 under Progressive Conservative premier Ralph Klein reads “Social Studies develops the key values and attitudes, knowledge and understanding, and skills and processes necessary for students to become active and responsible citizens, engaged in the democratic process and aware of their capacity to affect change in their communities, societies and world.”

Yet today members of the opposition deride the current NDP government for suggesting that students should be "agents of change." Why? For the last 60 years, no matter what the ideology of the day, our education system has tried to teach kids to seek a better way forward-not just for themselves but also for society. Whether we call it “social betterment”, “progress”, ”the opportunity to make the world more desirable,” “making a positive contribution”, or “the capacity to affect change”, successive generations of educators in our province have advocated for students to work towards creating a better world for all. Recognizing that the status quo isn't good enough, and understanding that "To know and not to act is not to know," they encourage their students to play a part in making a better, fairer and more just world.

Education should give children knowledge about the world. It should help them think critically and creatively. It should give them confidence to follow their dreams. It should help break the cycle of poverty. It should show them the world for what it is, including the marvels that are worth preserving and the injustices they need to do something about while providing them with the abilities and skills to act.

I think of the hundreds of kids I have worked with over the years. Kids who are compassionate, decent human beings - great parents and active community volunteers. Scientists and sales people. Professionals and artists and journalists. Conservatives and Liberals and New Democrats and those with no political affiliation. Kids who are now adults who are making changes every day in their families, their communities, their workplaces and on the global stage.

As a parent and a teacher, I want my children to be empowered in their own lives and as global citizens, with the skills, attitudes and knowledge that will help them create a positive future for themselves and the planet. I want them to keep reaching and striving to make changes in their world. What that change looks like is up to them.

University of Alberta Curriculum Guides

How Can We Live Well Together

What is the nature of Social Studies?

I have found myself asking that question over and over again as a Social Studies teacher.

What is it we want students to KNOW?
Who is it we want them to BE?
How do we want them to LIVE?

If we could distill the key idea of what we want from a Social Studies education, is there one sentence that encapsulates it all?

What resonates for me? 

Social Studies is learning how we live well together.

If we could break that down further, would it cover everything the future citizens of our planet need to know? 

Who am "I"? 

• "I" am an individual, with unique characteristics and identity and beliefs and values and skills. But "I" am not alone. "I" am also a part of "we".

Who are "we"? 

• "We" are families and communities and cultural groups and ethnicities living on farms and in the country and in small towns and cities and nations and refugee camps. "We" are all citizens of this planet.

What does it mean to live well?

• Living well is quality of life and physical health and mental health and spiritual health and standard of living and a sense of purpose and good relationships and stewardship for the land that sustains us.

What does it mean to live well together? 

• The "social" part of Social Studies is the hard part. Over the course of history, people have come up with many different ways of living and organizing ourselves socially, politically, and economically. What have societies done in the past that allowed them to live well together?  What have they done that achieved the opposite? What can we learn from the stories of the past that can help us move forward, past egregious errors and injustices, into a brighter tomorrow? For our global society to evolve, it must be fueled by people with creativity, hopefulness, innovation, critical thought, open-mindedness and empathy.

How do we live well together?
Sadly, sometimes, we just don't.

Following Brexit and the election of Trump and the rise of Le Pen, it seems that the lesson some people have learned is simply that we cannot live well together.  

As a Canadian, I think that is wrong. 
We can live well together. 
We do live well together. 

Jason Kenney accuses teachers and the education system of "social engineering". But really, isn't that what our education system is supposed to do?  Engineer the world we want?  And that is the world we want. A world where we can ALL live well together. 

Ladies Entrance

Yours truly, grade 2

Canalta Elementary School. That's where I started school. A low-slung brick building at the edge of town where girls and boys had separate entrances via separate but identical boot-rooms. That's just the way it was and no one thought anything of it. 

Everybody wore boots to school through the eight months of winter and the muddy spring that followed. You took your boots off at the door and put them in your cubby and went to the classroom where you hung your coat on a hook at the back. 

One time my new white overshoes were stolen and a pair of old boots with holes were left in their place. I was traumatized.  It was the first time I ever felt I had been wronged. I refused to wear the old boots and my mom walked over to the school to get me. She told me someone poor had taken my boots. I didn't know what being poor meant. My mom said I shouldn't be mad because that little girl's parents couldn't afford new boots. I knew who had taken my boots. I didn't think she was poor. But I know she wore the same dress on picture day every year and her mom was a secretary. That seemed exotic to me.  None of the other moms I knew worked outside the home. Including my mom with her two university degrees.

Grade Two. I  was shy. I was a dreamer. Mrs. Teeple was our teacher. She was five feet tall and very stout. Kids sang songs about her. I laughed at the songs. I knew they were mean. I liked Mrs. Teeple and her big heart but I wanted to fit in. She grouped for instruction. She doled out rewards and punishments. She slammed the long ruler down on Joey Alsop's desk when he wasn't paying attention. I stopped dreaming and started paying attention. I didn't want that ruler to smash onto my desk. There were 42 kids in Mrs. Teeple's class. 

Recess was wild. Boys chased girls. Girls chased boys. We defended the 'hill'- a mound of dirt in the playground. On snowy spring days we were warned there were to be NO SNOWBALL FIGHTS.  

Melting snow resulted in a massive free-for-all on the playground, especially on the hill. 'No snowball fights' was really more of a suggestion than a rule. The real rule was 'no iceballs'. One day Brent Rose got hit in the face with an iceball by Donnie Smith. There was blood.  Donnie was a little shit who I never forgave for calling me 'Hartfart'-a play on my surname. 

We lined up to enter the school. We knew there would be trouble. Mrs.Teeple stood at the far side of the boys' boot room. She looked grim.

"Line up. Single File. Now bend over."  

Every boy got a single smack across the behind with the pointer. Laurie Kidd cried. The girls took off their boots and and quietly went to the classroom. Some smirked and laughed because Laurie Kidd was being a baby. I felt bad for the boys who hadn't been throwing iceballs. It didn't seem right they were getting hit. I didn't know if I should feel relieved for not getting smacked or guilty because I should have been smacked. But I was a girl. Girls didn't get smacked. That's just the way it was.


* **

The other day my husband and I had lunch with my mother-in-law at the renovated Alberta Hotel. We talked about the past of that historic building. "Can you imagine," Louise said over her glass of wine. "Once there was a time there was a separate entrance for 'ladies and escorts' at every tavern?" 

Windsor Hotel, Dawson Creek.
Ladies entrance on the right

In Dawson Creek, the Windsor Hotel and the Dawson Creek Hotel both had separate entrance-ways, one for men, one for Ladies and Escorts. That confused me. What were "escorts?" What if you didn't have a male friend? Did you have to stay home? My mom's expression when we passed the bar entrance told me it didn't matter that she couldn't go in. Ladies like my mom and Mrs.Teeple did not go to the bar.

A lot has changed since my days at Canalta. Kids don't get smacked by teachers. 42 kids in a grade two classroom is unheard of. Rewards and punishments are dished out regardless of gender. Boys and girls and men and women enter and leave by the same door in schools and bars and virtually everywhere. 

Even bathrooms.  

HUMAN DIGNITY EXPIRES

(The Pedagogue?)

Within the icy clinic of his mind a tiny spark endures,
Encompassed by a wall of puerile trash.
He sees a child-and to his clinic comes a view envisioned by the wall.
The wall:So thickly cluttered with the garbage
Of a thousand empty verbal cans that jangle in his brain.
And round this pile the vile stench of jargon permeates and cloys.
The spark flickers, but still breathes.
The wall responds-and from this mess erupts the plaintive babble:
Evaluate, structure, socialize, ready, organize, label-and pass on.
The precious spark glows wanly in the gloom.
Louder now the cacophony of verbalism in his sterile world
Drowns out the faint sound of the pure breath of air.
He sees another child.-The spark quickens to evoke the paralyzing evolution of a thought.
But through the clanging fetid hole no fruit is born.
Once more the wall responds and does its hollow job.
The label pinned-the spark goes out.
The garbage heap will rot for years to come
And to this steaming pile will children come to learn.

Written by my father George Hartford in 1956 when he attended a post-secondary course on special education in Syracuse New York.  My dad hated educational jargon throughout his 38 year long career as high school math and physics teacher, special ed teacher, school and central office administrator.