Intolerance - It's just easier

I’m not crazy about jargon and so, when a teacher applied the term “culture” to the classroom, I dismissed the idea. After all, wasn’t culture a concept that required a larger context like a nation or tribe or, in some cases, a race? And yet, the term has niggled me for years. Maybe the teacher was right. Maybe classrooms did have different cultures created by the different teachers who led them.

I taught English and Social Studies with a classroom culture that was relaxed and on the edge of control more to the liking of the non-academic and gifted students than the mainstream

students who prefer a more structured classroom environment with strict expectations and little room for creative thought. The school’s like a multicultural setting. Or it could be . . . or it couldn’t.

Some administrators have more tolerance for different teaching styles than others. As a student teacher, I wasn’t liked by many cooperating teachers. A principal and a faculty consultant thought I should pursue a different career. If my dad hadn’t been a school principal at the time, I would have bailed. But he was and I didn’t. I persevered and learned a lot about tolerance and understanding and the ability of others to understand differences.

The level of tolerance of teachers and administrators differs tremendously. In my experience, those who’ve taught in indigenous communities or those communities with a lot of indigenous people are more tolerant. My teaching career began in Fort Resolution in the Northwest Territories where my Grade 2/3 class had the highest attendance in the school. Harry started school for the first time at the age of 8. By the end of the year, he was reading at an age appropriate level. By the end of the next year, nine students had graduated from my Grade 7/8/9 class into high school, the first time even a single student had graduated into high school in five years. The assistant superintendent in charge of schools for the Northwest Territories was so impressed with my class and lesson plans he had me run an inservice toward the end of my second year in the NWT,

My Grade 2/3 class visiting us at home in the spring

After two years, my wife and I ventured south to the small town of V___ where I got a job in the town’s only school as a part-time guidance counsellor and classroom teacher. The principal of that school was a sad little man who lived alone in the basement of house. His only friend on staff was the janitor. He called me in for a talk one night after having consumed enough alcohol that I could smell him from the other side of his desk. I could no longer take him seriously, if I ever did.  The assistant superintendent for the district disliked me so intensely that, after visiting my classroom only once in November and making no suggestions on my performance, he decided not to renew my contract, waiting until the last day of May to inform me of the fact. When I accused him of unprofessional behaviour, I thought he was going to jump over the desk and strangle me.

The students from this small, rural community were all white farm kids disciplined and easy to manage and therefore, I thought amenable to creative teaching experiences. During the first observation by the superintendent, the students behaved so well he thought it wasn’t a realistic reflection of my teaching. When the assistant superintendent visited my classroom a few weeks later, I attempted to use role play with my Grade 9 students to illustrate a concept in Health class. Some rebelled and so for rest of the year they sat in their desks reading and writing and listening to me.

This experience was far different from teaching a Grade 2/3 in the NWT. To complement a story in our reading textbook, we made butter in class. The superintendent who’d unexpectedly arrived to observe me loved it and I was given a glowing report. Upon resigning from the school after two years, I was offered a teaching position in a larger community and a principalship in another.

After V____, I was hired by a school in Slave Lake as the guidance counsellor teaching four classes of Grade 8 option a week. Time spent in the classroom steadily increased such that my last two years were spent full-time in the classroom after teachers were removed from the role of guidance counsellor. I rebelled against the idea and was given a stern warning by the superintendent that if I publicly criticized a decision by the administration again, I would lose my job. “Fiduciary responsibility” she called it which is interesting because she interpreted that as a responsibility to her and her administration and not the students.

For most of my career I taught non-academic Grade 12 English. The class averages for my students on the diploma exam were at or above average for the province but completions were well above. When I taught academic Grade 12 Social Studies, my class averages tended to be at or below provincial average however again, my completions were well above average. Quite a few took my non-academic English class in one semester and then my academic Social in the other. The culture of my classroom was obviously not to the liking of a number of teachers and administrators and students however it was a culture that many students liked and thrived in.

My experience in schools is not dissimilar to that experienced by Rachel Notley and the NDP when they were elected to government in 2015.   At the time, I had no idea that my fellow Albertans were so intolerant. Threats were made to her life. She and her government were accused of being communist and anti-oil, neither of which were true. The communist accusation is ridiculous. Communism requires a revolution of the proletariat and the nationalization of all business and industry which clearly did not happen in Alberta.  

The shift to the left was only slight by the Notley government. She maintained government spending on social programs, education and health, introduced a $25 a day daycare, a nutrition program for schools, and passed a bill protecting farm workers similar to that which exists in every other province in Canada. She did act on climate change with a carbon tax and a climate action plan however I would argue that addressing climate change is neither a left or right-wing action. It’s simply recognizing a reality, a reality that a right leaning Liberal government in B.C. acknowledged when it passed carbon tax legislation in 2008.

Rachel Notley was accused of being anti-oil while her government did all in its power to enable the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Unfortunately, it was delayed because indigenous nations challenged the right of the pipeline to cross their land in court and environmental groups argued the increased tanker traffic would threaten coastal water life. Because we live in a liberal democracy with the rule of law enshrined in our constitution, construction could not proceed while these legal challenges were before the courts. To provide an alternative, temporary vehicle by which to transport oil to the tidewater, the Notley government purchased rail cars to help move product.  Jason Kenney is now encouraging oil producers to use those cars if they exceed the limits set by the Notley government to help stabilized oil prices, limits that the Kenney government has maintained

The same Albertans who hate Notley hate Justin Trudeau with equal passion. In Hinton, we passed a pickup with a “Fuck Trudeau” sticker displayed prominently across the back window. The same Trudeau government purchased the Trans Mountain Pipeline after Kinder Morgan canceled the project because construction was delayed in the courts. Obviously, Rachel Notley must have had some impact on that decision yet Trudeau and Notley continue to be vilified for being anti-oil. How can this be? Apart from attributing their actions to some elaborate conspiracy, how can they be accused of being anti-oil?

Could it be Albertans don’t like them? After all, Rachel Notley’s a woman. Justin Trudeau’s an intellectual pretty boy, attributes that many Albertans abhor. Albertans like to think their wealth is self-made and they have some kind of control over its distribution and demand. Apart from separating from Canada, there’s not a lot they can do about the federal laws or the actions of other provinces. Could they not have given the Notley government and Trudeau a chance?

And so, I can’t help finding parallels between my experience in the classroom and the reaction of Albertans to an alternative way of doing politics. Rather than seeing two politicians trying to help them, they preferred to see differences. Rachel Notley is not a man and Justin Trudeau is not necessarily the kind of guy many Albertans would want to share a beer with. They simply make them uncomfortable and, rather than deal with their reactions to that discomfort, they react with hatred.