To produce or not produce - deadline looms

[dkeith]

This is one of the most evocative responses I have received. The writer has given me permission to send it out as long as I don't publish his name and email address at this time. This has been a very interesting discussion hasn't it? Thanks for participating. Don

Dear Mr. Keith,

Your letter was forwarded to me and I read it with interest, dread and sorrow.

You are in the very early stages of this conflict and understandably in shock.  Your desire to carry on and do something like Mr. Filewod's agit prop piece rather than your Shakespeare shows your heart is in the right place, as his was.  

You've shown by your request for input, however, that you are very rightly considering your head.  As a drama, media and english teacher who has seen a monumental destruction of educational validity here in Ontario and seen my department suffer philistine denigration (the former head of phys. ed was made our "superhead" presumably cuz, it's all kinetic body stuff, ya know), I urge you to be bold, bloody and resolute.  Anything less will result in a remarkably rapid deterioration of educational structure, funding, programs, morale and student discipline/commitment.

If you think the general public on whom you might (foolishly) rely for support could care less what play you do, think again.  If they see a picture of your show in the paper at all, everything will be jim dandy at the school as far as they are concerned.  Short of restaging the Clockwork Orange rape or saluting Nazi flags in the photo, it's all one to them.  Are you hoping to get hauled before Admin and splashed all over the papers for your political daring?  Not likely - your production might get cancelled, however.  And the press will have a field day with your politicizing the classroom/poisoning juvenile minds if it does get that far - a teacher's neutrality is sacred.  

And do you think they would recognize or care about your strategy of "class time" production?  A Jesuitical conceit at best.  Put on a play, field a football team, put kids in the science fair - if they're there to be photographed and reported on the public will want to know just what you/parents are whining about (all public servants are special interest groups are whiners are to be marginalized).  In fact, for most people, if the schools are open at all THERE IS NO PROBLEM.  Just look at the Toronto custodial strike last year - the walls were smeared with shit and the floors covered shin deep in garbage and toilet paper and the charade of "reasonably orderly and safe schools" continued for weeks.

If you think it best to hang on "for the sake of the kids", think again.  You will be bled as dry as Caesar in several years from your many wounds and unable to provide the educational opportunities they deserve anyway.  

If you think admin will "understand" your gesture and await better times when they can return their full support to you as you get back to the business of satisfying parents and promoting the school with your productions, think again.  Anybody from anywhere who steps forward to put anything on the boards will be the man or woman of the hour.  You will be history.   "What have you done for me lately?" is a harsh reality to get used to.  I know this from personal experience - two complete sets of admin. in two years and the new ones don't know me from Adam.  I was given no drama sections this year because "the english department needed me."  I don't doubt the honesty of the statement, but admin. had no way of calculating the impact on the drama program, nothing to compare the results with and no understanding of what it means to give all the drama sections to two music teachers who have it as a secondary area of certification.  You have to be prepared to lose what you an your colleagues may have laboured years to create and ready to rebuild from scratch later, if it comes to it.  And it is something you can do if you are proud of your program now.
 
If you think your gesture will be distinguishable from that of certain jocks/others who just don't give a damn about their federation and are going to coach their teams/clubs because they need their fix and it's basically why they are teachers anyway, think again.  Teachers are a very anti-authoritarian and individualistic bunch and you are going to hear an amazing number of rationales for why people should or shouldn't continue to support their extra-curriculars.  Pyrrhic and moral victories on either side, most of them.  Making yourself feel better about what you do will not avert the dire consequences of your failure to show the government that you are united and you mean business.  Earl Manners is consulting with your federation, I hear.  This does not give me confidence - Earl thinks he did well here in Ontario.  His legacy at best could be defined as no more than "the best that could be achieved under the circumstances" and that is the best view of it because, as I see it, he misread the will of his members anyway -  most people I know were disgusted at the indirection of the provincial leadership - or was it misdirection?  If he has learned from his experience and suggests a different course perhaps it will work out for you.

My suggestions?  Support the voices in your federation which call for complete withdrawal of extra-curricular services and other sanctions.  Demand clear articulation of expectation and strategy from your leadership - probably the worst failure of OSSTF here in Ontario.  Do not strike, apart from the odd "day of action" type protest, unless you are prepared to go to the wall.  When they legislate you back (no "if", here - they will not settle) give them the no-frills education they are paying for.   Develop an aggressive, full-time professional p.r. campaign which keeps hammering home what each cut is doing to programs - that's a key place to put your money.  Recognize the sacrificial lambs in your school who are going to suffer the full brunt of this for several years - their education WILL be diminished and attempts by you to minimize that will mean more students hurt more gravely later on and for a longer term.  Support them in other ways.  Take them out into the community theatres and municipal teams, etc. and work with them there.  Only in this way will the parents, the principals, the school boards set up a howl that will make the government back off.  We in "Untario" missed a key opportunity in '97 when we folded up and went back to work after two weeks without a coherent and unified plan of how to respond.  I hope you will be luckier.  Do not underestimate Campbell et al. - there isn't an ounce of rationality or fairness or paternal concern for the kids in them.  They are driven by ideology and the strength of their mandate.  As a result, there is no avoiding more of the sort of legislation you've just experienced - you are going to be kicked and kicked where it hurts and there is not plea or manoeuvre that will put you and your students beyond harm.  By the time the government realizes what it has done it will be in the mess up to its eyeballs and the only thing it will respond to comes then, with your real threat and its own fear.  "Shove the bully back or be prepared to live with his increasingly hot and foul breath on the back of your neck" - I've just written that phrase but I realize it reflects what I used to think, so I'll amend it: "Shove the bully back AND be prepared to live with his increasingly hot and foul breath IN YOUR FACE."  It must be a painful and ugly and destructive fight and it won't be over soon - but hopefully it will be briefer than what we are experiencing here.

Seek opinions widely.  You will hear from those who think my response reckless and needlessly destructive.  But I think the current state of education here in Ontario bears me out.  The pendulum may now be beginning to swing but I doubt it will mean much to servicing students properly before 2005 - and that will only be the beginning.  More than a decade of ill-served students will have passed through the system before we are back to where we were - and that's with a full commitment by a new government to undo the damage (ironically, Liberal, here), something of which none of us is at all certain.

Good luck.  Talk regularly with your membership and across disciplines.   Talk with your neighbours and friends.  Write to the papers.  Call in to the phone-in shows.  And save some time for your own sanity.

NAME WITHHELD 

 
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