The B.C. Teachers’ Federation vs. B.C. government debacle of recent days has not been without some redeeming educational value. Not at all.
With 500,000 kids banished from their classrooms, the parents of those children scrambling to find safe havens for their kids and 41,000 teachers out of work, what we’ve seen is a lesson in the difference between being in charge and leadership.
Being in charge, being the boss, is often about the demonstration of raw power. It is about who wins and who loses, without regard for the consequences either to the organization affected or the individuals within the organization.
Being a leader, in contrast, is about the ability to imagine and then carefully bring people to an understanding of better possibilities, new horizons that will enhance both the organization and the situations of the individuals dependent upon it.
Good parents understand leadership: “Look, we don’t have a lot of extra money to spend right now but here’s an alternative ….”
Kids learn from that approach and the family becomes stronger. Trust in the wisdom of dad or mom counts toward the next difficult decision.
Poor parents simply deliver the edict: “No, we can’t do that. Why? Because I said so.”
In the case of the BCTF vs. the government fiasco, what we’ve seen, on the part of both government and the BCTF negotiators, is all about being the boss and “because I said so,” with virtually nothing about “here’s what we could do instead.”
The BCTF knows, or should know, that putting 41,000 teachers out of work two weeks before July and August is the worst possible time for its members. Teachers, most of whom receive their annual salary in 10 instalments from September to June, receive their last cheque at the end of June and then don’t see another deposit until an advance payment in mid-September.
No matter how financially well-organized anyone is, going three months without income is a hardship.
The BCTF knows, or should know, that year-end is an important time for teachers and the kids they have shepherded since September. It is just that kind of job, and for teachers who have formed a bond with their kids all year, walking out with two weeks to go feels like quitting on them.
Bringing forth big-money items that nobody could seriously consider with the system already in a state of confusion is not leadership.
Calling or forcing a strike in the last half of June is all about power, all about showing the other guys who is boss. It is not about leadership in public education.
Government, instead of focusing its imagination on ways to back the BCTF into a loser’s corner and show them who holds all the cards, might have considered the long-term cost to the reputation of public education and government’s responsibility for that.
Some leadership from both BCTF and government might have shown us what wise governance could really be all about.
That has not happened.
Government might have identified any number of ways to enhance the public school system that, at minimal cost, might represent real improvement in the teaching/learning situation for both teachers and kids.
A provincially provided program of serious professional development leading teachers toward the organizational and instructional techniques that will be necessary to support the government’s own Education Plan for B.C. might have been put on the table as a trade for some of the BCTF’s more unlikely requests.
Some serious movement, short of $250 million, toward addressing the real problems of lack of classroom support for children with special needs might have struck at the heart of what has brought the negotiations to an impasse.
The BCTF, on the other side of the table, might have proposed, instead of some of its more implausible demands, a proposal for the mentoring of inexperienced first-year teachers. The costs involved would be justified as enhancing the profession.
Nothing like this has formed any part of the negotiation.
Instead, what we’ve seen is a struggle between combatants seemingly unaware of the chaos caused by their lack of responsibility for leadership.
So, at the end of the day, the negotiators go home leaving a lesson about how to fail up on the white board for the rest of us to try to understand.
In the meantime, both the once-proud reputation of B.C. public education and government’s ability to govern it wisely and well slide deeper into the mire of public opinion.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
