Don’t run against the board

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permissions to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

Little good is accomplished when candidates seeking the office of school trustee attack the board upon which they hope to sit (“running against the board”). It contributes to a loss of public confidence in the school district. If the behaviour persists after the candidate becomes a trustee, such behaviour may lead to the dismissal of the board by the province (or state) and the appointment of official trustees. Where school boards are permitted to borrow, it can lead to bond-rating agencies down-grading the board’s credit rating.

Some candidates have difficulty distinguishing between the demands of politics and the responsibilities of governance. And some who know the differences still choose to ignore them. When that happens, it calls into disrepute the boards to which they aspire.

All who hope to be elected to public office will hold two positions. One is a politician; the other is the office they will occupy if they are elected. The audiences are different. Politicians appeal to those who share the politician’s values or who can be persuaded to share the politician’s values. Office holders have a duty to all citizens. That’s why politicians in democratic countries thank their constituents and pledge to serve everyone, including those who voted for the politician’s opponent.

Many candidates seeking election to school board see themselves as politicians first and, having gained office sometimes find it difficult to make the transition from that position (politician) to one of trustee (governor). Difficult as making and maintaining that transition is, it must be made by those who take the oath of office as trustee. Failing to make the transition engenders trouble for the school districts, the interest of which they pledge to serve.

Those who continue to act primarily as politicians – appealing to and acting on behalf of their perceived constituencies – rather than as governors responsible to all citizens - often fail to consider the best interests of the districts they govern or define the ‘best interests’ of the district as synonymous with the interests of their perceived constituencies.

Serving as a school board trustee isn’t easy. Trustees are typically elected by individuals who are either unfamiliar with governance or indifferent to it, placing their own, immediate interests above those of the citizenry. Trustees are subjected to the inquiries, complaints and demands of parental constituents who are largely concerned about the welfare of their offspring and unconcerned about good governance.

Parents will ask a trustee whether s/he knows what is happening in “my school.” Trustees are reluctant to inform the inquirer that s/he is not the person to whom inquiries about a particular school should be directed for fear of alienating the inquirer. Educating constituents about the responsibilities of trustees and the fact that individual trustees have no authority (decisions are made by the board as a whole) is a related challenge that most trustees are reluctant to face head-on.

There is some irony in the reluctance of school trustees to educate citizens about school board governance and to persuade them that governing in the best interest of the district is ultimately beneficial for everyone. And there is more than a bit of selfishness when they put their own interest above the interest of the district.

This is the last blogpost for the current school year. 

I hope your summer is all you wish it to be. 

See you in September!

What happened to early health screening?

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

When I began kindergarten more than 70 years ago, children were screened annually for impediments to their vision. I recall lining up with my classmates while each student was expected to toe a line and designate with our fingers what symbols were visible to us on the Snellen chart. We would point three fingers at the ceiling to indicate what looked like a W, to the right to indicate an E, or to the left to indicate a symbol that looked like an ꓱ facing the wrong way. Vision screening was universal and conducted annually. As we mastered the alphabet, the symbols on the chart were replaced by letters.    

The test was administered by the nurse who worked in the school and to whom we would be sent if we were injured or ill (or feigned a stomach-ache to be able to go home and watch the World Series). The nurse would attend to our wounds, make us comfortable, or arrange for us to be picked up by a caregiver… or returned to class if she detected our deception. She also ensured that our immunizations were current and, during the polio epidemic, helped administer the vaccine.  

Over time, school nurses diminished in number. Instead of a fulltime nurse in schools, nurses became itinerant, serving several schools in a week. In many – perhaps most - places, there are no longer school nurses. Some of the functions performed by the school nurse became the responsibility of school administrative assistants. Administrative assistants collect proof of immunization, care for minor wounds, arrange for caregivers to pick up children who are ill, and less subtly detect test avoidance.  

According to data from the 2016 census, approximately 13.5% of Canadian children exhibited at least one activity limitation. They had difficulty seeing (2.6%); hearing (0.9%); learning, remembering, or concentrating (7.9%); with mobility, flexibility, or dexterity (0.9%); or manifested emotional, psychological, mental health problems (4.0%); or long-term health problems (4.0%).  

Some children had multiple activity limitations. Three quarters (75.8%) of children for whom mobility, flexibility, or dexterity was difficult and 70.7% of children with emotional, psychological, or mental health conditions had multiple limitations. Fewer (40.7%) of the children who had difficulty seeing and about half (52.1%) of children who had difficulty learning, remembering, or concentrating had multiple limitations.  

It is true that many children with activity limitations will have them detected outside of school. Some children with limitations will not.  

Our recognition of limitations has evolved from ones that are primarily physical to ones that include factors or obstacles in the social and educational environment that should be overcome to ensure the full benefit of schooling. The work underway in many places to eliminate racism and discrimination in the school environment is one example. Anti-bullying strategies are another.  

Universal, annual, health screening is gone, but the need for screening remains because access to a regular family physician in Canada is declining. The decline is greatest among families most in need.  

Identifying and eliminating or mitigating activity limitations are important to ensure that students benefit from their school experience. So, too, is screening children each year for potential reading limitations - arguably the greatest obstacle to school success. Addressing limitations early in a child’s school career should reduce the burden that the limitations impose upon the child, parents, teachers, and school system.

Colonization of the mind

 

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

 I received an email about using the term settler institutions in my blogs. The writer asked how that term applied. The question indicated to me that the term and what colonization means in the context of education are not universally understood.  

In my reply I mentioned that, although they have changed since their introduction, almost all institutions that we have are the products of colonization, the name we give to the use of state power to take control of a geographic region and the people who inhabit that region.  

Prior to colonization, the Indigenous people who lived on the land we now occupy had their own languages, culture, and institutions. Those institutions were forcibly replaced by institutions that Europeans brought with them when they established dominion over the land they had forcibly occupied. The European settlers assumed the right of ownership, absolute use of the land and control of its inhabitants.  

By imposing their language, culture, and institutions upon Indigenous inhabitants, settler societies impose ways of knowing and thinking on them. The effect of such actions is a reshaping of thinking of the original inhabitants and their successors. If the process of replacing Indigenous ways of knowing and thinking with those of the settler societies occurs, it is no longer necessary to forcibly impose control; people will do that on their own.  

This is exactly what forcible removal of the original inhabitants from their land, removal of children from their parents, and institutionalizing the children and imposing settler languages and cultures sought to do. I would, were I Indigenous, think twice about sending my children or grandchildren to schools established by settlers. I would also want control of the education of my children or grandchildren to be vested in a government for and operated by my people. I would want schools in which my language and culture were taught and where my ways of knowing and thinking were the foundation of the curriculum.  

To many people public schooling appears to be a generous gift. It is not. I am not referring here to the fact that public schools are paid from tax dollars. I say that public schooling is not an open-handed gift because there is more than an exchange of tax dollars. Whether they are conscious of it or not, when someone sends their offspring to school, they are allowing the school to transform how those offspring will think and what they will know.  

Our settler society is coming to terms with the damage inflicted upon Indigenous people in the past and the present. Gradual changes are occurring to make settler institutions less hostile and more welcoming environments for Indigenous children and youth. Provision is being made for the teaching of some Indigenous languages and incorporating ways of knowing and thinking that are more common among Indigenous people.  

Those changes will gradually alter colonial institutions, making them less colonial. But they will not eliminate the fact that schools are colonial institutions. They have been created and are operated by the dominant society.  

While the colonial nature of schools in Canada is being softened, Canada continues to practice a form of colonialism elsewhere in the world. Canada is not forcibly imposing a way of life on those in other countries. The process is more subtle. Many jurisdictions in Canada operate or license the operation of schools in other countries. Those schools often adhere to Canadian curricula and employ Canadian teachers.  

Students who attend those schools do so at the behest of their parents. But make no mistake, whether they or their parents are conscious of it, the minds of those students are being colonized.

Restorative practice in education

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]  

Those who regularly read this blog will know that I am very concerned about children and youth either missing from school or chronically absent. Over-represented among the missing and absent are children and youth from groups that are marginalized.  

There are many out-of-school factors that contribute to chronic absenteeism or to school avoidance: family factors (income, housing, and food insecurity, health challenges and mental illness, etc.); student factors (lack of prior school success, poor social skills, lack of self-control, etc.). But there are factors over which schools have control that also contribute to absenteeism and school avoidance (disciplinary climate, limited challenge, or inadequate remediation, etc.).  

Schools, school boards, and provincial ministries of education are changing policies and practices that contribute to the problem. Out-of-school suspensions for students who are chronically absent or late (yes, some suspend students for being absent or late) are being eliminated. Many are rethinking penalties for tardiness because it contributes to a punishment-oriented climate. Systems that removed students from the class list because they missed many classes are rethinking that practice because it absolves the teacher and the school from responsibility for reaching out to the student and the student’s family.  

Many schools have the goal of creating a safe, welcoming, and caring school environment, and devote conscious, persistent effort to creating those conditions. It is widely recognized that when those conditions are not present it is difficult to achieve the other goals of schooling.  

Schools are increasingly adopting “restorative practices” to change the school climate to nurture healthy relationships, create learning environments that are just and equitable, reduce conflict, and repair harm.[1] The term restorative practice includes a wide range of procedures based upon the premise that schools are communities where the behaviour of one person has consequences for others in the community. What I call talking circles, meetings of students and staff that are not impeded by physical barriers such as desks, are designed to encourage trust-building and shared values through personal stories or experiences, feelings, and ideas.  

Restorative practice applies to all members of the community, administration, staff, students, and students’ families. Creating a context in which care for one another is prized and practiced is an important component of restorative practice. Social and emotional learning are others.  

Fairness is a key value in restorative practice. Members of the community must feel that they are respected and that their feelings and ideas matter. An important dimension is that the community’s rules are clear to everyone and applied in a manner that is perceived by everyone to be fair.  

Everyone benefits when schools are safe, welcoming, and caring environments – especially children and youth who come from marginalized groups. But the creation of such environments simply doesn’t happen on its own. Restorative practice takes consistent and constant whole-school effort, progress monitoring, the willingness to change practices, and the engagement of everyone, including students and parents. 

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[1] Evans, K. and D. Vaandering (2016) The Little Book of Restorative Justice in Education: Fostering Responsibility, Healing, and Hope in Schools. Simon and Schuster.