Page Content
Looking Back and Now Forward …
As the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Alberta Teachers’ Association move toward their conclusion, we naturally begin to turn our attention from the challenges and accomplishments of the past and toward the uncertain future of public education in Alberta, and beyond. The contributors to this edition of the ATA Magazine are all accomplished and passionate advocates of public education, and as they look forward from the vantage point of 2018, each advances a vision of what our education system could and should be and what must be done to get there.
Readers will note that the contributors also reflect a variety of different backgrounds and include several international perspectives. Pasi Sahlberg coined the acronym GERM to refer to the Global Education Reform Movement, and not in a complimentary way—in this edition we see evidence of an alternative, international progressive consensus on the role and future of public education. (I spent far too much time attempting to match Pasi by coming up with a cute and catchy acronym for this, but gave up. Perhaps one of you will succeed where I have failed. Challenge issued!)
Several of the articles that follow set about examining the purpose of public education and the role it should play in our collective economic, social, cultural and political life. Craig Findlay asserts that public education should seek to “insulate students—and by extension our broader society—from the adverse affects of living in an age of acceleration and distraction.”
Among the range of possible futures identified by Stephen Murgatroyd, the one he advocates for is based on Jacques Delor’s four pillars of learning where the curriculum and the schools delivering it support “the development for all students of high levels of a range of literacies, creative and design skills, and an ability to be resilient and adaptive.” In Murgatroyd’s preferred future, “schools become places for engagement and development, true centres for creative communities, communities of interest and communities of practice.”
Dennis Shirley provides a vision of the role of the school, contrasting it both in purpose and operation from models drawn from business and industry. He says: “schools have a different function in society than hard-drive manufacturers. Schools should produce citizens who will be stewards of the environment. They should promote civility and acceptance of differences. They should teach children to protect the weak rather than just reward the strong.”
Other writers focus on how we need to respond to current political and economic constraints that stand in the way of achieving the preferred vision. In this context, Greg Thompson and Kalervo N. Gulson point to the need to clearly understand what is meant by “public” in public education: “Around the world a soft revolution is taking place. This revolution is focused on how governments think about the ‘public’ in the context of public policy, especially in the context of health and education and their public institutions.”
They go on to argue that we need to push back against a minimalist view of “public” that characterizes any type of education institution funded by government, in whole or in part, as being public, regardless of the manner in which it is governed or staffed or draws its student population.
Roar Grøttvik and Larry Booi and, for that matter, our president Greg Jeffery, take note of the important choices that will have to be made in the immediate future and how teacher organizations must advance that progressive agenda for public education.
They bring to this issue of the magazine a sense of urgency and immediate purpose which is well expressed by Booi in his clarion call to teachers: “The profession needs to help the government find the means and courage to lead positive change. If we fail to do so, teachers will face another decade of mounting problems and frustrations, and the full promise of public education for many students will continue to be unfulfilled.”
Finally, Wilson Winnitoy, who has helped to guide the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s strategic planning initiatives since 1992, grounds all this in a strategic planning frame. He asserts that at the heart of strategic planning is an assertion of agency: “We can intervene in our future. We can shape it in positive and deliberate ways. No matter how solid, seamless and relentless the forces acting on us may look, we can and will find the cracks and openings where we can create change.”
This is a powerful sentiment, eloquently expressed and so typical of Winnitoy’s world view. And on that note, I conclude the Editor’s Notebook with a brief expression of thanks to Wilson Winnitoy, a great friend of public education and of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, as he retires from his work with us.
