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3.1 The Weaponization of Neutrality · Public Good

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Shannon Moore.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And I'm Justin Fraser.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: And this is Public Good on the Prairies.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Today's episode considers the weaponization of neutrality in education. Neutrality
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: is a sentiment that has an air of common sense,
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  Speaker 3: one that gains power through repetition. However, it is not
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: a view that withstands deeper questioning. For example, what does
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: one mean by neutral? Can you describe this supposed neutral classroom?
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  Speaker 3: Is the provincial curriculum neutral? Are school policies neutral? Are
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: there not some topics that require teachers do take an
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: ethical stand? Despite the pointed and thorough critiques of neutrality
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: made by countless scholars, education reformers continue to employ this
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  Speaker 3: term in order to advance status quo politics under the
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: veil of neutrality and to discourage or to make dangerous
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  Speaker 3: and taboo political views that challenge the status quo. In
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: full ignorance of these critiques, the Alberta government recently developed
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Bill 25, an act to remove politics and ideology from classrooms.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: which attempts to impose impartiality and neutrality in classrooms. Yet
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  Speaker 3: classrooms themselves use provincial curriculum, which are value-laden documents that
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: promote particular ways of knowing and being. A school division
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: in Manitoba also just proposed a series of policies that
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: impose a particular politics on schools while simultaneously employing terms
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  Speaker 3: like neutrality, balance, and impartiality.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Joining us to discuss this is Dr. Carla Peck and
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Kevin Lopuk. Carla Peck is a professor of social studies
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  Speaker 2: education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta,
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  Speaker 2: adjunct professor in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion,
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  Speaker 2: adjunct professor in the Faculty of Education at the University
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  Speaker 2: of New Brunswick, and director of Thinking Historically for Canada's Future,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: a SSHRC-funded partnership grant. She researches teachers' and students' understandings
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: of democratic concepts, teachers' and students' historical understandings, and is
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: particularly interested in the relationship between students' ethnic identities and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: their understandings of history. Along with Alan Sears, Carlez recently
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: published a new book called Rescuing Reason, How History Education
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Can Help Save Democracy. Kevin Lopuk has taught high school
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  Speaker 2: social studies in English and French immersion programs in Selkirk,
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  Speaker 2: Manitoba since 2001. In February 2025, he began an interchange
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: with Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning, where he's helping
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  Speaker 2: redevelop Manitoba's K-11 social studies curriculums. He holds a B.Ed.
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  Speaker 4: And M.Ed.
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  Speaker 2: From the University of Manitoba and is currently a PhD
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  Speaker 2: candidate there, researching the emotional weight of teaching high school
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  Speaker 2: social studies. Kevin is past president of the Manitoba Social
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  Speaker 2: Sciences Teachers Association and serves on the board of directors
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  Speaker 2: of the Social Studies Educators Network of Canada.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: All right, so welcome Kevin Lopuk and Dr. Carla Peck
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  Speaker 3: to Public Good on the Prairies. We appreciate you making
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  Speaker 3: the time to have this conversation with us. Kevin, I'm
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  Speaker 3: going to start with you today. Your recent scholarship has
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: focused on the myth of neutrality within education. You argue
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: in a recent piece in The Conversation, which got quite
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: a few number of reads, I just want to let
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  Speaker 3: people know about that, that all teaching is inherently political.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: How do you understand the term neutrality that's being used
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  Speaker 3: in this moment? And why do you use the term myth?
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  Speaker 5: Thinking back on all the way back to my B.Ed days,
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  Speaker 5: which is now a long time ago, I remember this
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  Speaker 5: being one of the very first messages I got from
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  Speaker 5: my education professors was that you had to be neutral
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  Speaker 5: in your teaching.
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  Speaker 4: The message was very, very clear.
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  Speaker 5: I got from the profs that in social studies education,
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: you needed to stay neutral, don't engage with any sort
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: of politics, and that will allow you to stay out
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  Speaker 5: of trouble. So that's something that I've been thinking about
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  Speaker 5: for a very long time. But neutrality in the social
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  Speaker 5: studies classroom, I guess the way I see it is
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  Speaker 5: the classroom environment would be free of any sort of
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  Speaker 5: specific messaging, small p, capital P political messaging. And I
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  Speaker 5: talk about this being a myth because really, inherently, neutrality
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  Speaker 5: does not exist in a classroom. And that's whether it
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  Speaker 5: is in the curriculum itself. whether that is in the
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: classroom environment, posters we have up on walls as teachers
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  Speaker 5: or design of our classroom, or whether that comes down
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  Speaker 5: to the teacher themselves and to something as silly as
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: the way a teacher might dress. All these are inherently
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  Speaker 5: political and inherently are not neutral. So I think that's
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  Speaker 5: why I talk about it as a myth. And if
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  Speaker 5: I give some examples like the curriculum here in Manitoba,
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  Speaker 5: two of the issues that we talk a lot about
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  Speaker 5: in social studies curriculum is are citizenship and sustainability. And
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  Speaker 5: these two things in the curriculum are not neutral. They
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  Speaker 5: are very much, they have a very political message and
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  Speaker 5: it is something that we are being asked to teach
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  Speaker 5: by the ministry themselves. You know, posters, flags that you
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  Speaker 5: put up in your classrooms are all going to have
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  Speaker 5: political messaging no matter what, unless you want just four
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  Speaker 5: bland walls, you're going to have something that has some
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  Speaker 5: sort of messaging.
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  Speaker 4: And yeah, the way even teachers dress.
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  Speaker 5: I remember for a long time, I had this idea
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  Speaker 5: that I needed to be wearing a shirt and tie
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  Speaker 5: as a teacher.
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  Speaker 4: And so I did.
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  Speaker 5: For a very long time, I wore a shirt and
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  Speaker 5: tie because I was a professional and that's the way
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  Speaker 5: I should dress. And then I realized that that didn't
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  Speaker 5: really match with what I was teaching and what I
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  Speaker 5: wanted kids to understand and be comfortable with. It set
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  Speaker 5: me off, you know, as different as in a position
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  Speaker 5: of authority. And that's a messaging. So I changed that
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: and stopped wearing the shirt and tie. So, yeah, that's
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: my sort of understanding of neutrality. And I think it's
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  Speaker 5: important and this might we'll probably segue into other things
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  Speaker 5: we're going to talk about today. But, you know, not
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: only does neutrality not exist in the classroom, but I
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  Speaker 5: don't think we should be desiring any sort of neutrality,
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  Speaker 5: specifically in the social studies classrooms.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for that. Carla, did you want
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: to jump in on that question before?
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  Speaker 6: Well, I might say something about the difference between sort of,
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: as Kevin said, big P and small P politics. This
• 6:35
  Speaker 6: is something that When I teach a graduate course called
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  Speaker 6: Teaching for Social Justice, we talk about this a lot
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  Speaker 6: because a lot of teachers come into that course with
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  Speaker 6: this belief in the myth of neutrality, right? And they're
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  Speaker 6: interpreting that as either, you know, opening up to all
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: sides of every perspective, even those that are rightfully discredited,
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: you know, anti-science.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Perspectives, this kind of thing.
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  Speaker 6: And so, yeah, I have this conversation with them about
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  Speaker 6: the difference between small P and big P politics and
• 7:13
  Speaker 6: big P being the stuff that we see in the
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: political sphere, like political parties, legislation, laws, government policies, etc. Those,
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  Speaker 6: of course, have direct implication on what happens in schools
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  Speaker 6: and curriculum because of legislation, for example, that affects schools
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  Speaker 6: and curriculums. But small P politics is about the politics
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  Speaker 6: that we, about how we live our everyday lives. So
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  Speaker 6: whether we choose to shop at or boycott a particular
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  Speaker 6: store because of their labor practices, that's an example to
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  Speaker 6: me of small P political action, political decisions.
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  Speaker 1: It's got nothing to do with laws or political.
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  Speaker 6: Parties, but it has everything to do with our personal
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: commitments and how we live those out in society. And
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  Speaker 6: so it is naive to think those small P political
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  Speaker 6: decisions and beliefs and commitments don't come into play in
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  Speaker 6: the classroom or in the minds of people writing curriculum
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  Speaker 6: or in the minds of the people providing direction to
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  Speaker 6: those writing curriculum.
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  Speaker 1: And so I think what's.
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  Speaker 6: Most important is for those involved in education at any
• 8:23
  Speaker 6: level to be acutely aware of what are the beliefs
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  Speaker 6: and commitments shaping our thoughts and our actions.
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  Speaker 2: So building on that a little bit, Carla, Wayne Ross
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  Speaker 2: and Kevin Vinson, they write, and I quote, there's a
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: misguided and unfortunate tendency in our society to believe that
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  Speaker 2: activities that strengthen or maintain the status quo are neutral,
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  Speaker 2: or at least non-political, while activities that critique or challenge
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  Speaker 2: the status quo are political or inappropriate. So, Carla, how
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: do you think the term neutrality is commonly used and understood?
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  Speaker 2: And then further to that, how has it been used
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to potentially veil or mask the political weight and imposition
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  Speaker 2: of the status quo?
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  Speaker 6: So neutrality is often understood as, as Kevin mentioned, keeping
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  Speaker 6: politics out of classrooms, treating everyone equally. despite understanding that
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  Speaker 6: not everybody enters into a classroom or the education sphere
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  Speaker 6: on equal footing. It's read as not taking sides, avoiding
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  Speaker 6: controversial issues, presenting all sides of an issue, as I
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  Speaker 6: mentioned earlier.
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  Speaker 1: And these all sound reasonable on the face of it, right?
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  Speaker 6: Who can argue with treating everyone equally or who can
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  Speaker 6: argue with, you know, But the problem is that those
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: kind of cliche kind of sentiments overlook a deeper reality.
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  Speaker 6: And that is that curriculum and teaching inherently already involves
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  Speaker 6: choices in the case of social studies.
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  Speaker 1: Curriculum doesn't just appear out of nowhere.
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  Speaker 6: They have these small p political beliefs to go back
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  Speaker 6: to what we were talking about a moment ago. And
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  Speaker 6: these things influence what they decide to put in curriculum,
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  Speaker 6: what history and whose histories get to be taught, whose
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  Speaker 6: stories matter. what counts as evidence, even what civic values
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  Speaker 6: schools should promote. So I've done a lot of research
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  Speaker 6: with kids on their understanding of citizenship and civic dispositions.
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  Speaker 1: And so on.
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  Speaker 6: And time and time again, we hear the same thing that,
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  Speaker 6: you know, schools promote democracy, but they don't actually ever
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  Speaker 6: practice it. Right. And so so that is sending a
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  Speaker 6: message about what kind of civic values schools promote. So
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  Speaker 6: these are all inherently normative decisions and they are they
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  Speaker 6: are not neutral. But neutrality doesn't just hide the status quo.
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  Speaker 6: It protects the status quo. It's not an absence of politics,
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  Speaker 6: but it is a protection of the current political process. power,
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  Speaker 6: whichever political body is in place, and the ideology is
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  Speaker 6: governing those political bodies and the decisions that they make.
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  Speaker 6: And so neutrality protects those existing political arrangements. And it
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  Speaker 6: assumes that the status quo is the only perspective that
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  Speaker 6: is worth valuing. and thereby it diminishes and shields and
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  Speaker 6: hides very purposely any other perspectives that could be brought
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  Speaker 6: into conversation and challenge the status quo. So of course,
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  Speaker 6: neutrality protects against that challenge as well.
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  Speaker 3: As you say, Carla, I imagine when those students came
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: into your social justice class, they had a preconceived notion
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  Speaker 3: that social justice was political and that what's happening in
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: classrooms is not political. And as you also said, the
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: idea that the term neutrality rings with that of coarseness
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  Speaker 3: in the ear that people think, well, of course, teachers
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  Speaker 3: should be neutral. We don't want them imposing their politics.
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  Speaker 1: So it serves both purposes.
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  Speaker 3: By suggesting the status quo is neutral and also weaponizing
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  Speaker 3: social justice. So I wondered what's the usefulness of the term?
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  Speaker 3: And it's these types of terms that are rhetorical Teflon
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  Speaker 3: for reformers when they want to shove things through by saying.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: You know, we need neutrality in the classroom.
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  Speaker 6: Well, I think that maybe, Kevin, I'll start and just
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: jump in at any point.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I think that I'll maybe look at.
• 12:39
  Speaker 6: It in the reverse way, that any time I have
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: spoken out about education in Alberta, I am accused of
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  Speaker 6: being a social justice warrior or a left wing, you know,
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  Speaker 6: wingnut or activist or whatever. And by using those terms
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  Speaker 6: against me, they are saying I'm not neutral and they are.
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: And so I think by using the term neutrality, again,
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  Speaker 6: it has that common sense-ness about it that is hard
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  Speaker 6: to challenge, but it also allows reformers who are trying
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  Speaker 6: to bring in this kind of rhetoric and policy into
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  Speaker 6: education to cast everyone else as radical and therefore dangerous.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: To add to what Carla is saying is this goes to,
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  Speaker 5: and I think, again, we'll probably get into this a
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: little more, but this idea of neoliberal imposition in education
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  Speaker 5: in general, right? That what neutrality serves is sort of,
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: as Carla said, this of coarseness, right?
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  Speaker 4: That comes along with this, right? Or just the facts, right?
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Just the facts. Give us the facts.
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  Speaker 5: And this idea that even goes back to, you know,
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  Speaker 5: Paulo Freire and this banking concept of education, right? Teachers,
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  Speaker 5: you're just there to deposit the facts into these students' heads,
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  Speaker 5: and then you are to make a withdrawal in the
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: form of some sort of rote memorization or testing, and
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  Speaker 5: that's all you're there to do. So, like, Johnny McDonald
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: was the first Prime Minister of Canada, and that's what
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: kids should know and understand that that's important. But hey,
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: let's not question Johnny McDonald's motives or anything else that
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: Johnny McDonald may have been involved in because that would
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: be critical thinking, which is funny because there's this contradiction
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: in some of this movement, right, that we want critical
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: thinkers involved.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 5: Most people will acknowledge we want critical thinkers, but, you know,
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  Speaker 5: not too much critical thinking because, oh, you know, oh,
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: my gosh, what could happen if we have critical thinkers
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  Speaker 5: that are asking these questions that push against this concept
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  Speaker 5: of neutrality and push against this status quo? So I
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: think that's in one way they're using it. You can't
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  Speaker 5: have critical thinkers in a neutral system.
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  Speaker 6: So Kevin said something I want to pick up on
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: about the, you know, Freire and the banking model, which
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: he absolutely criticized and critiqued fiercely. The idea that the
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: teacher's job is just to crack open kids' heads, pour
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: content in, and that's all, you know, the student doesn't
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  Speaker 6: even have a role themselves. And I think that why
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: I wanted to comment on that is because What I
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: am noticing in Alberta and elsewhere is very explicit attempts
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: and strategies used by the current government to de-professionalize teachers.
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  Speaker 6: And to discredit teachers and to say that, because in
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: my view, when I look at the new social studies
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: curriculum that has been developed in Alberta, which when my
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: friends first saw it in Quebec, they actually wrote to
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: me and said, is this an April fool's joke?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Like it's, it's so bad.
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: Even the so-called revised version is so bad. It's literally,
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  Speaker 6: you walk into a wall of facts, like just pages
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  Speaker 6: and pages and pages of facts that no critical thinking,
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: no vision for skill development, no nothing, what we would
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: expect to see in quality curriculum. And part of the
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  Speaker 6: reason for that, I am convinced, is because the current
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: government believes that teaching is just about delivering information. And
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  Speaker 6: it's not actually both a science and an art. And
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: they're doing that to be able to open up more
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: charter schools, to be able to open up new pathways
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: to teacher certification that do not require a Bachelor of Education.
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  Speaker 6: And this is all part of a larger picture to
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  Speaker 6: discredit highly trained, highly professional, capable people in the classroom.
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  Speaker 6: And the attacks on neutrality are all part of that
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  Speaker 6: game plan.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: How do we untether all of these things, which as
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: you say, Carla, are actually all part of the same
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: shit sandwich, as I'd like to call it here, because
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: they're all attempting to do the same thing. And if
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: we're going to push through this false notion of neutrality,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: we're going to then call teachers ideologues and call curriculum ideological. Well, hilariously,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: we're imposing politics in the classroom with, as we've seen
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: in Alberta, Carla, we're going to talk about Alberta.
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  Speaker 1: Um, the bill 25, right.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: And they've actually legislated this notion of neutrality. And I'm
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: just going to say Alberta introduced, I'm going to quote
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: bill 25, an act to remove politics and ideology from classrooms.
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  Speaker 1: That's the name of the bill.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: We could talk for days just about that title. I
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: think this legislation would, and I quote, reinforce expectations in
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: the education act for school authorities to uphold neutrality and
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: and clarify expectations in the Code of Professional Conduct for
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: teachers to remain objective, present balance to perspectives, and support
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: students in expressing different viewpoints. What do you, as a
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: person who currently lives and works in Alberta, what do
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: you make of this legislation?
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  Speaker 6: What do I make of it? Well, where do I begin?
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: I'd like to say it's a farce. I mean, it
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: is so absurd that it almost defies.
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: The fact that they are using an ideologically grounded political
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: piece of legislation to say you have to remove ideology
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: from the classroom.
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  Speaker 1: Is in itself an oxymoron.
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: You know, and yet, either the people in power do
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: not seem to recognize that, or I think it's more
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: likely they don't care. Because again, they are presenting their
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: ideology as neutral. And therefore, it's not anything neutral doesn't
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: need to be questioned, because, and they use the they
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: use lots of cliched expressions, you know, this is all
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: about the kids, it's, It's all about ensuring balance, you know,
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: and again, those are hard things to argue.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Against just sort of in the public sphere.
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  Speaker 6: But those are code for this is the ideology we
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: want in the classroom.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: We don't want anything else.
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: And we especially don't want anything that might be construed
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: as left wing or radical or whatever. And my response is,
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: you know, oh, so is it radical to believe in
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: human rights? Is it radical to believe that every child
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: should be able to see themselves.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Represented in the curriculum?
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: That's radical okay paint me as radical but um but
• 19:53
  Speaker 6: that's the kind of rhetoric that that gets used so
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: the legislation itself is political and And as we were
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: talking earlier, you.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Can't, curriculum is inherently.
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: Political when you think about small P, that small P
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: politics definition.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Teaching is inherently small P.
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: Political because as Kevin said, how you decide to decorate
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: your classroom, how you decide what resources you're gonna bring
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: into the classroom, how you decide, How much emphasis you're
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: going to put on this or that event or person
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: that you're teaching? You know, do you give them sort
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: of a glancing look or do you do a deep dive?
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: Like these are all decisions that I think without really
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: thinking about it, teacher, again, if they're not aware of
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: how their beliefs and commitments are shaping the decisions they're
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: making in the classroom, a teacher might sort of naively think,
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: oh yeah, I'm being.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Very neutral here.
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: I'm, you know, I'm making sure everybody gets a certain
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: amount of attention, whoever's named in the.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Curriculum and that kind of thing. But again, I.
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: Think that that's why it's so important that as teachers,
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: we are aware of what's actually shaping the decisions.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: That we make.
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: And then that's where we, and it can, that can
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: be really disconcerting for teachers to realize, oh, I didn't
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: know that this particular belief system or this particular understanding
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: of race or whatever was shaping the decisions that I
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: make in the classroom. So Bill 25 is actually going
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: to discourage teachers from doing exactly that kind of reflection
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: in terms of thinking about how do I, how does
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: the way I think, how do my belief systems, how
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: How do my prior experiences and knowledge, et cetera, shape
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: what I do in the classroom? Because they're just going
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: to look at the curriculum document as if it's neutral.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: They won't examine.
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: It because they'll be a lot of teachers will be
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: afraid to because of repercussions if they did question it.
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: And so I think Bill 25 is and already is.
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: And will continue to have a very chilling effect on
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: what happens in classrooms, because already teachers are, you know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: on social media. You can see them posting up a
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: picture of they've got a poster of and it's got
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: a rainbow on it and it talks about belonging and
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: so on. And they're like, do I need to take
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: this down? Because of the fact that pride flags and
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: any other flags beyond the Alberta and Canadian flag are
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: not going to be allowed. And so teachers are already
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: starting to self-censor. And they're doing that out of fear
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: of reprisals, not only from administration or government, but also
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: especially the way social media works now.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: What if something goes viral on social media?
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: Something of an image gets taken in their classroom that
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: they didn't know about and then it spreads or whatever.
• 23:10
  Speaker 6: And so it's going to have and already is having
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: a devastatingly chilling effect on what teachers feel that they're
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: going to be able to take up in the classroom.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And the great irony is for me.
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: We know from research with kids, international research, that the
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: very conversations they want to have around controversial issues, around
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: the current political environment that they're living in, whether that
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: be local, national, global, whatever, whether it's climate change or
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: human rights or whatever the topic might be, these are
• 23:53
  Speaker 6: the very conversations kids want to be having And this
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: legislation will prevent teachers from engaging kids in those kinds
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: of conversations. There seems to be this assumption that schools
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: are somehow a.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Bubble, right?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: That they're not a part of society.
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: And like, you know, if you go back to Dewey's,
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: like schools are the cornerstone, the central part of our society.
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: This is where democracy is nurtured and born and and
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: where students learn what it means to be citizens in
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: our democracy and to participate. It's like the petri dish,
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: if you like, of where we try things out, right?
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: And so this introduction of legislation like this, there's, I think,
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: a baked-in assumption that schools are somehow not a part
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: of society, and yet they are absolutely reflections of our society.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: A further attack on public schools, make them seem as
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: though they're not part of the public. I thought when
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: I was reading through the bill, we spoke about rhetoric
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: earlier and the bundle of buzzwords. I just found it
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: so interesting that they use the terms that sound good.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: They use safety.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: And yet, Carla, as you've just pointed out, if this
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: is not safe for everyone, they use respect. They use
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: focus on learning, open to diverse perspectives that they have
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: decided in advance, essential knowledge, modernized, which we know is
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: their absolute favorite of the neoliberal former, and balanced perspectives.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I find really what we are in right now is
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: a rhetorical conflict, right? It's like, who's got the better
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: language to shove through reforms? And I wondered if either
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: of you wanted to follow up on that, the ways
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: in which reformers, people that want to control what's happening
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: in education or to advance privatization are using these buzzwords
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: like neutrality or the specific buzzwords in the bill itself,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: which are, as you say, hilarious, hypocritical, whatever word we
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: want to use to describe them.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: I want to echo what Carla said about this chilling effect, right?
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: Because they use this language to essentially instill fear in
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: social studies, specifically social studies educators, but educators in general.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: And I know in Manitoba here, you know, and in
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: doing some of my research right now, there is this
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: fear of what one of my participants called the teacher
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: penalty box. that if you go against any of these
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: neoliberal notions of neutrality, that you could end up in
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: the penalty box, that you could have anybody report you
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: without any cause. It could be a random person off
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: the street who heard hearsay from somebody else and then
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: report you. And sure, hopefully there wouldn't be a problem there,
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: but just the fact that you could be reported and
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: be sent to this teacher penalty box is this is
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: what it's doing to teachers is it is instilling that
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: chilling fact that Carla is talking about.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And it's also like when you use a word like
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: safety or parental rights, these are words that are tough
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: to argue against, right? Because as soon as you try
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: to say something on the other side, you know, if
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: you say, oh, we have a problem with the language
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: in the bill and they say, are you against safety, right?
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. How do you argue against safety?
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: How do you argue against respect?
• 27:16
  Speaker 6: And, you know, these kinds of the language that is
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: very purposely used in this bill. This bill, you know,
• 27:25
  Speaker 6: the language was not chosen by accident, you know, very
• 27:30
  Speaker 6: purposely constructed. But the question, if we back up a bit,
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: is who gets to define what safety means? Safety for whom?
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: Who gets to define what respect means? Again, these are
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: terms that are not neutral. They're presented as neutral and
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: they're presented as if everybody has the same understanding of
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: what these terms mean. These terms, as you said, are
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: sort of weaponized to think anybody who raises the very
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: questions that I'm asking and that we're asking as part
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: of this podcast, well, what do we mean by safety?
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Safety for whom?
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: Then what?
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: Then we're the problem because we're just trying to make
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: trouble where none exists kind of thing.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Because surely everybody knows what safety means.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: It goes back to that of coarseness, right? Of course
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: it's going to be safe.
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: Of course we're going to be protecting kids. But the second,
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: as you say, Carla, the second that you challenge what
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: that actually means, then you become the shit disturber.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: So before we talk about some shit in Manitoba, how.
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: How.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Emblematic is this bill of Alberta politics? And what would
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: you say to others.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: That might say this is just an Alberta thing?
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: Oh, I think it's very emblematic of Alberta politics, for sure, because, again,
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: it's part of an overall strategy to discredit and destabilize
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: public education.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And to create distrust in.
• 29:02
  Speaker 6: The public education system and in teachers who work in
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: the public education system. And so we've seen other legislation
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: that would be similar to this sort of anti-trans legislation,
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: but which was called something like safety in sport. So again,
• 29:22
  Speaker 6: using that same language of safety to put forward anti-trans legislation.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's just one example.
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: So I think that this reflects an overall pattern using
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: the notwithstanding clause to put teachers back to work, to
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: take away teachers' charter rights to engage in strike action.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: This is not this bill 25 is not isolated. And,
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: you know, there would be many, many other examples that
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: we could we could name. But Alberta was not the
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: first to introduce anti-trans legislation. Saskatchewan did it sometime earlier.
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: And I believe it's now under court challenge. And in
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: Ontario years ago, they pulled back health and wellness curriculums.
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: because there were so many rumors going around that it
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: was going to teach you know, seven-year-olds, adult sexual acts.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And that was, I remember talking to a friend about
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: it who's not in.
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: Education and he was incensed that it's going to teach
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: young people how to masturbate or something like that.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And I said, have you actually read the curriculum? No,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: hadn't read. And of course, none of that was anywhere
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: in the curriculum.
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: Of course it would not be because that you know,
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: is completely ridiculous that anything like that would be in
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: the curriculum. But because of fear, because of misunderstanding about
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: how curriculum gets developed, because of misinformation very purposely put
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: out there by parental right groups. And by the way,
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: parental rights are not a thing. Children's rights are.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: But children are not property of parents.
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: But because of misinformation, this kind of thing, that curriculum,
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: which had taken so much and also slander against Kathleen Wynne,
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: who was at time was the premier or had recently
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: been the premier, like all of that stuff led to
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: this curriculum being repealed. And so, and, and because of misinformation, disinformation,
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: you know, and misunderstandings and, and, And ideological weaponization of
• 31:36
  Speaker 6: the idea of safety and protecting and this kind of thing.
• 31:39
  Speaker 6: And by the way, just to be really clear, of course,
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: we're using that word a lot. I hope it goes
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: without saying that children, yes, do need to be protected.
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: They do need to be safe in schools. That is
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: without question. But what do we mean by safety? What
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: do we mean by protections?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I don't actually.
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: Think children are safe when they are prevented from being
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: able to understand diverse perspectives and how perspectives can.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Be used to manipulate them.
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: And children are developing their understandings of themselves, of the world.
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: They're figuring out what do they believe in. And they
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: need to be able to understand through careful instruction and
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: in an environment where teachers have professional skill and knowledge
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: to be able to do this kind of work, where
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: the students can learn to unpack misinformation, disinformation, they can
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: learn to recognize it. That actually is promoting safety in
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: my mind. Because it's preparing them for the society in
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: which they live, where we're bombarded by that stuff every day.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: If we cocoon.
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: Students and say, oh, we can't talk about any of
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: that stuff, then they're actually very ill-prepared when they encounter
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: hateful views or misinformation or disinformation.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: So.
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so I think this bill is definitely emblematic of
• 33:18
  Speaker 6: the current environment in.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Alberta, but it's not, as you said earlier, it's not
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: unique to Alberta.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate, Carla, what you've surfaced talking about language
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: and rhetoric, right? About who controls the language and the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: way that this seemingly benign language tied in with misinformation
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: is used to veil power in these ways, right? Like, again,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: to come back, this is not neutral. And you talked
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: a little bit about, I don't think you used these words,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: but this privatization playbook, right, of let's make public education worse,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: then we defund it, then we continue to privatize it.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: And we're seeing that. Kevin, tied into what I think
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: what you talked a bit earlier about, or both of
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: you rather, about this chilling effect and fear. Kevin, you
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: talked about the penalty box. In my career, I was
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: warned by an administrator about a CLM, and I had
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: never heard that term before, a career-limiting move. I was warned,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: don't make any CLMs, Justin, a career-limiting move. And so Kevin,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: jumping a little bit eastward to Manitoba, a school board
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: in Manitoba, I think you're aware of this, recently introduced
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: a policy called activism in schools. And according to this policy,
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: all school-based activism, these activities, they have to be approved
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: by the principal and they have to be supervised by
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: teachers who remain, and I quote, politically neutral. So, Kevin, curious,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: why do you think a school board would propose such
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: a policy and what kind of effect might this policy
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: have on students, on teachers, on the community, etc.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: I mean, this is just another example of what Carla
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: is talking about and moving eastward into Manitoba where we're
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: not immune from any of this. And, you know, I
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: think looking at this policy specifically, there's again, there's this
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: contradiction that is embedded within this, right? So activism in
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: schools has to be, you know, supervised by teachers who
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: remain politically neutral. Well, okay, activism by definition, you know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: is not neutral. So I think we're talking about rhetoric, right?
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: And we're talking about the use of language. And I think,
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: you know, there's some conflation here with you know, talking
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: about like non-partisanship. So politically neutral, I think in the
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: policy is a small P, politically neutral, but I think
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: intentionally or perhaps unintentionally, like it's probably the capital P
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: that they're more worried about, but that's more, you know, non-partisanship.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: But again, non-partisanship and teachers being non-partisan, like we have
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: to be careful because human rights are human rights. And
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: so if kids are wanting to become activists, I know
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: my daughter, 11-year-old daughter, she's a little social justice warrior, right?
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: And she wants to be an activist. She wants to
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: fight for human rights. And to say that those have
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: to be politically neutral, I think is really potentially damaging.
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: Human rights, it's a fundamental commitment in public education. But
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: then again, if we're going to fight against public education,
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: are we fighting against human rights? I'm not getting up,
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: as a social studies teacher, I'm not getting up on
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: my soapbox and claiming students should vote this way or
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: that way. But when it comes to things like human rights,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: it's inherently political. And, you know, we have to allow
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: for students to be activists to fight for human rights.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: The second issue that sort of is problematic with this
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: policy introduced is that it does inherently go against some
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: of the goals we have in Manitoba. Manitoba has, like
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: many provinces across the country, have adapted these global competencies.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: And two of them in particular are critical thinking and citizenship.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: And so by saying that, you know, this activism has
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: to be supervised by teachers who remain politically neutral, there's
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: a contradiction in terms of going with these global competencies. And,
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: you know, I took the liberty of quoting here citizenship
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: from the citizenship global competency in Manitoba. Citizenship involves engaging
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: and working toward a more equitable, compassionate and sustainable world.
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: Citizenship fosters consideration of diverse perspectives for ethical, responsible, reciprocal,
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: and sustainable decisions and actions, and how we have the
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: capacity to make a difference and make choice that contributes
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: to our communities, for the well-being of all. So these
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: are inherently political things. And so to say that this
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: activity must remain politically neutral, there's a fundamental problem here.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: If I can just jump in, I think.
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: Part of what's going on here with the policy that
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: you mentioned from the school board, but also legislation in Alberta,
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: in Saskatchewan, elsewhere, is a misconception about children and childhood.
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: And that somehow children are not yet citizens, that they're
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: citizens in waiting. And that they're somehow not old enough.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: To have beliefs, to believe that.
• 38:36
  Speaker 6: Homelessness shouldn't exist in a country as rich as Canada
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: or a province as rich as Alberta and to want
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: to do something about it. You know, that it's that
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: agency that kids have that actually helps them feel hopeful
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: about the world and not be filled with despair that
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: I can't do anything about it. And so, you know, again,
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: under this, the language of safety and protecting kids, we're
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: actually really insulting them by, by saying, we're going to
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: protect you from this or that discussion because we don't
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: think a.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: That, You're already aware of it. Hello? Like kids do
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: live in the real world.
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: They see people who are homeless on the streets they
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: see people's human rights being denied they see climate change
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: burning literally around them so it's not like kids are
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: unaware of these issues and so when we say oh
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: you can have a club but you can't actually you
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: do anything small or big P political about it as
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: part of your club activities, or you can't have the
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: club at all, or you can't have this conversation in
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: the classroom, we are actually denying children their agency to
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: not only learn, but also their agency as current, not
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: in waiting, current members of our societies. And I think
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: that we're also, as I mentioned, taking away their hope
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: in the belief that things could be better and could
• 40:23
  Speaker 6: be otherwise.
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: And I think if I could just jump in and
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: add here that the disingenuousness of the neoliberal and neoconservative
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: imposition here, that the of coarseness that we talked about,
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: that they're promoting, that either well, it's not that I
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: don't think they understand it, but that they are really
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: pushing something that is politically motivated under the guise of
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: being politically neutral, right? That, you know, neoliberal, specifically neoconservative
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: reformers who preach a traditional, patriotic, Christian, white, settler, colonial
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: approach to things, that is inherently political. So it goes
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: back to what we were talking about before, but like
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: trying to clamp down on teachers who do not prescribe
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: to that one way of being, of doing, that creates
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: that chilling effect.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: And here we go.
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: So I think it's that, Carla, what you were talking
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: about and the agency of students themselves, but also the...
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: either ignorance or deliberate way of trying to pass by
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: a traditional way of looking at education as being non-political,
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: both are detrimental to education.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: And I think, Kevin, you brought up the example of
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: your daughter, right? This like really social justice oriented person.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: And Carly, you had talked a little bit about that
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: as well. And I know my experiences teaching, I remember 2020,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: right after the murder of George Floyd and then the
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter movement, COVID, all of this wrapped together.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Like my students were so hungry to talk about this.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: That was the first thing that we started with every
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: day is like, what's the state of the union? Where
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: are things at right now in the world? There was
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: such a deep desire to talk about these things. We
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: could not, not, right? We had to do this. And
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: yet I felt recently, we're seeing that shift away from that, right?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: We're seeing like from a policy level and that discursive
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: level of, okay, maybe we need to step back, right?
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: This school board in Manitoba that, well, okay, activism in schools, maybe,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: but again, according to that policy, right? Teachers have to
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: be politically neutral. It's got to be pre-approved by the principal,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: all of these. And so Kevin, you know, we asked
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: a similar question to Carla, but how is this policy,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: how is it potentially emblematic of what's going on in
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: manitoba of kind of the landscape and and what might
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: it reveal about manitoba's connection to to broader political movements
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: beyond manitoba yeah i.
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: Mean i think the the neoliberal and neoconservative imposition is
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: is something that we are dealing with across the country
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: and and really in all education systems but it has
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: come to manitoba and they are attempting to clamp down
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: on on teachers and schools that they see as activists
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: who do not prescribe to this traditional way of looking
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: at education. And I just maybe I'm delineating here a
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: little bit or going off on a tangent. But I think,
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: to your point, Justin, I early on in my career,
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: my first week of teaching was 911.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: So I came to school on 911. I had 30
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: kids sitting in front of me all wanting to talk
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: about what was going on in the world. And that
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: that was a seminal moment in my career, because I
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: knew that I had to engage. So to your point, right,
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: during George Floyd, Those were conversations, but it really around COVID.
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: That's when even myself as a 20 year veteran teacher,
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: that's when I started to have my doubts because the
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: chilling effect began to take hold. And I've given the
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: example of during the trucker convoy, right? When the Ottawa
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: convoy happened, that was the first time in my career
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: that I was hesitant to engage in conversation with my students.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: Because I knew I had convoy supporters and I knew
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: I had people who were opposed to it.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: And I really wondered if.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: I wanted to engage with that because I didn't want
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: the backlash.
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: Now, I did.
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: And I think it was it was a fantastic conversation.
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: And I ended up having to help students develop their
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: arguments on both sides of things of the convoy.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: Debate.
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: I had a convoy supporter, a student who came up
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: to me after in tears saying, thank you for allowing
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: the space to have this conversation. And then more recently,
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: I want to add that the second time I was
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: very not too sure about this was with Israel Gaza
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: and whether or not I should engage in this, knowing
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: that there would be backlash. And in fact, with the
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: Israel Gaza situation, I think October 7th, it happened on,
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: I think that was a Saturday. On Monday morning, I
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: knew students would come in wanting to talk about this,
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: and I wasn't ready. I told my students, well, we
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: will talk, but I needed to prepare myself to make
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: sure that I was being careful in how I approach this.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: And that is totally a chilling effect that this age
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: of neutrality, this myth of neutrality is having on social
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: studies teachers.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Super helpful, Kevin. You talked earlier too about this notion
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: of critical thinking. And I wonder too, in all of
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: this conversation, tying this back into language about the shifting
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: discourse or definition, like what do we mean when we're
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: talking about critical thinking and how are we veiling power
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: through the use of that term, right? You talked about
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: the global competencies, how this comes up, like is critical thinking, well, first,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: you know, who's defining it, Carla, to tie into your
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: notions about Bill 25 and and who has the power
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: to define language in these ways, like student safety, you
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: can't argue against that. Critical thinking, you can't argue against that.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: We all want our students to be critical thinkers. But,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: you know, are we thinking critical thinking in terms of,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: you know, how to become a more efficient or productive
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: entrepreneur in our current society? Or are we talking about
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: those who can come to know, name and challenge oppression, right?
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: To identify unequal power relations and to work to, to
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: make it better. And so even something like that critical thinking,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: how that discourse shifts all tied into these notions of,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: of neutrality.
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: Well, I just want to like, Justin, thanks for the
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: question because, and I, you know, maybe here we can distinguish,
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: maybe Manitoba is a little bit doing a little bit better, Carla,
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: no offense.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: But like the, I have.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't take much. No offense to you.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, the global competencies define critical thinking or in
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: their definition, it's a broad definition, but in there it
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: says critical thinking is fundamental to learning more broadly and
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: deeply and making ethical decisions as reflective and contributing citizens.
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's right there in the global competencies as
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: defined by the ministry in Manitoba.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: So it's there. It's teachers.
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: We have a responsibility to engage with our students and
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: help them become those critical thinkers. And it's in the
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: curriculum itself.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that goes back to how do you take
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: activism out of the classroom when a course like Global
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Issues actually has an action-oriented project as part of the
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: curriculum document and the curriculum documents in Manitoba until our
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: new ones come out, Kevin, and I know you might
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: have some idea on when that could potentially happen, are
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: resting on Westheimer's notion of justice-oriented citizenship. They actually quote
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: him in the front matter pages. So it is promoting
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: the idea of active citizenship and to go back to
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: that discussion of teachers or principals needing to be the
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: deciders of what activism can look like and defining activism,
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: the motion actually defines what activism is. Well, what if
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: the student's resistance is against something that's happening within the
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: school system itself, right? It just completely takes away a
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: child's agency, which is a lot of, Carla, what you
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: pointed out. It's about positioning children as property and it's
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: about enforcing one way of looking at things while actually
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: using the costume of neutrality. And I think that's the.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Most dangerous part.
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: And it's also about competing definitions about what it means
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: to be a good citizen, right? That some people think
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: a good citizen is the person who obeys the laws
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: and pays their taxes and just maintains the status quo
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: and doesn't disrupt things. And then there's a whole continuum, right?
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: On the other end of.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: That would be people who.
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: Recognize injustice in the world and work to transform and
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: try to make society a better place. And sometimes that
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: involves questioning and not following unjust laws, for example.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, we.
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: got these competing definitions of citizenship, but what all of
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: this legislation and policies and various examples that we've talked
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: about to try and corral teachers and.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Control teachers... And conform teachers.
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: Is about one very specific view of citizenship that those
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: in power have gotten to define. And anybody else that
• 49:54
  Speaker 6: questions that is then outside of the good citizen box
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: kind of thing. I just, if we can, I'd love
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: to go back to Kevin's example about when you.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Started to question, like, should I teach about this? Should
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: I teach about Gaza? Should I teach about the convoy?
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: And your example about Gaza in particular really struck a
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: chord with me because you were really honest with your students.
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: You're like, I'm not ready. We will talk about it,
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: but I'm not ready yet. And I think in sharing that,
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: you have demonstrated exactly the kind of professional judgment.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: That teachers are equipped to exercise.
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: Because they've got, you know, they've got an in-depth education,
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: they've got experience. Now, you've got 20 years of experience
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: behind you. A newer teacher might not have had as
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: much confidence to say, we'll talk about it, but not
• 50:52
  Speaker 6: yet kind of thing. They might have felt the need
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: to dive right in. But I think that speaks to
• 50:58
  Speaker 6: our need to really support teachers in engaging in these
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: kinds of conversations and and being able to support them
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: in how to make these professional judgments. And so Kevin,
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: whether you knew it or not at the time, I
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: think you were exercising really reasoned professional judgment and you
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: didn't avoid the conversation.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: You just said not quite yet.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: And so building on that, and looking again at our context,
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Public Good on the Prairies, to either or both of you,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: whoever wants to jump in, do you think it's hyperbole
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: to say that the weaponization of neutrality is about undermining
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: public education and advancing privatization? Is that hyperbole?
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: No, it's not hyperbole.
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: It is very purposeful to discredit teachers and to de-professionalize
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: teachers by presenting teaching as I mentioned earlier as just
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: the delivery of so-called neutral content without acknowledging that the
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: very choice of that content is not neutral but also
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: the content itself is not neutral so I think it's
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: a very purposeful part of a game plan to discredit teachers,
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: discredit the teaching profession. And as I said a while ago,
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: you know, there are other factors at play, like bringing
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: in other pathways to become a teacher that don't require
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: a bachelor of education or a similar degree. And, and
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: that's done. I think Justin, as you mentioned earlier, break
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: the system. enter in private as a way to solve
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: the problem of a broken system. But the system doesn't
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: break by itself. The public education system does not break
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: by itself. It breaks because of very purposeful efforts to
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: defund it, to starve it, of both financial resources, but
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: other kinds of resources.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: So we have new curricula.
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: That have almost no resources for teachers to actually use
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: to implement the curricula.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: That's another way to starve the system.
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: And then when teachers go to resources that may or
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: may not be of good quality, depending on their source,
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: they then open themselves up to critique because they're using
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: faulty resources. But the system, the purposeful starving of the
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: system has forced them into that position where they're having
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: to scrounge and look for resources anywhere they can find them.
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: And so these are all connected as a way to
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: create distrust in the public system to cast teachers as.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Manipulators, as people who indoctrinate.
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: Or, you know, as evildoers even, how could that teacher talk.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: About that thing?
• 54:13
  Speaker 6: You know, and so that just creates distrust in the system.
• 54:18
  Speaker 6: And then it opens up for the possibility for other
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: players to come in to say, oh, we'll just present
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: a knowledge rich curriculum for your kids for $ 30, 000 a year.
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: And we'll give you that very traditional curriculum and school
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: experience that aligns with your values. There's a very specific
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: you that's being talked to there.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: And you'll pay us 30 grand a year. And you
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: know what? The government will.
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: Introduce a voucher system to make it more affordable for
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: you to do that. So this is all part of
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: a larger playbook, for sure, to dismantle public education.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, Carla said that so well.
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: I just think like fundamentally by pushing this idea of neutrality,
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: this fundamentally undermines the idea of the public and specifically
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: public education, you know, in terms of defunding public education. And,
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: you know, I had a very close friend of mine
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: who was accused of indoctrinating their students because they did
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: an upstander project related to the Museum of Human Rights.
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: And the question from the parents was, can you let
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: us know if you're going to continue with this indoctrination
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: into a 2SLGBTQ plus agenda? And the response is, or
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: we might have to pull our kids and take them
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: to private school. And then you run all the risks
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: that Carla is talking about.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: It goes to the Wayne Ross, and I forget who
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: he wrote that piece with.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: It's all about controlling the market.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: And the mind, right?
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: We want to encourage people.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: The further marketization of public schools by advancing private options,
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: but we also want to control what's happening in the
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: schools themselves so that we can impose particular understands of
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: critical thinking, particular understandings of activism. And when Carla was speaking,
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: I'm just thinking an infographic. What if we could actually
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: get the public to think of all those tentacles of
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: the ways in which it's a multi-pronged attack, not to
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: use militaristic language, but it's what it feels like of
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: the ways in which public education is being undermined. And
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: so we wanted to end with a question of not
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: going to hope, because I think sometimes despair is also
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: useful and anger is also useful, but what do you
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: think that we can do as with our positions as
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: public intellectuals, even though they make it seem like they
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: shouldn't speak to us because we're part of a bad
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: pool as well. But what do you think we can
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: do to get people to think about the ways that
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: this language is being used to advance privatization or the
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: ways in which neutrality is actually us not going through
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: with our professional, legal and ethical obligations in the classrooms?
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: Well, I think we cannot stop questioning and we can
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: use the positions of power that we find ourselves in.
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: I'm a tenured full professor, which gives me a lot
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: of power relative to some of my colleagues who maybe
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: don't have tenure, don't have a faculty position or, or
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: whatever their situation might be. Maybe they're a scholar of
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: color and they've got other issues that, that systemic racism
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: and so on that makes them nervous about speaking out,
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: and rightly so. I think we can, those of us
• 57:40
  Speaker 6: who have it, can lean into our positions of power
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: and use that to be able to continue to raise questions.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it's easy.
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: That doesn't mean that even with considerable power in society
• 57:57
  Speaker 6: that questioning power comes without risk and without potential for
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: attack and that kind of thing. But we can sort
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: of guard against that by also working in solidarity with
• 58:13
  Speaker 6: one another, that we don't have to and should not,
• 58:16
  Speaker 6: in fact, do this work alone. Because it's one thing
• 58:21
  Speaker 6: to be one voice speaking out, it's another thing to
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: be a whole, to lean.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: On a music metaphor, a whole chorus of voices.
• 58:32
  Speaker 6: It's hard to ignore when multiple people are raising similar concerns.
• 58:40
  Speaker 6: And I think it's really important that we ground our
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: arguments in research evidence and in a way that you
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: don't need to have a PhD to understand what we're saying.
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: You know, that I think that's another way that language
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: can be weaponized by people in academia, that it gets
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: we use language.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: That is not relatable and intelligible to. lots of people.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: It becomes a very exclusive club.
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: So I think we need to be very mindful of
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: doing podcasts like this. I mean, one of the things
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: that I've been emphasizing in the project that I'm leading
• 59:24
  Speaker 6: currently on history education in Canada is I understand that
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: for Most academics, research articles and books and so on,
• 59:33
  Speaker 6: those are important. But for me, it's this kind of work.
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: It's podcasts. It's doing public speaking. It's engaging in coffee
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: shop kind of events, World Cafe, whatever, blog posts, the
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: conversation pieces. We need to talk to people who are
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: on the ground, including teachers, parents, caregivers, and students.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: We can't leave students out of this conversation.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: And so I think we need to use our power
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 6: if we have it. We need to work in solidarity.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: We need to work in solidarity with people who are
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 6: living this in the classroom.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Whether that's teachers, parents, caregivers, students, or all of the above.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: And we need to do it in a way that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: doesn't alienate the very people we're trying to support and
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: talk with and be allied with.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: And thank you so much for bringing up that notion
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: of the collective, because I think part of what the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: attack involves is making us feel more individualistic and in
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: competition with one another.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: And that erodes the collective.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: And right now, When you end up on CTV News
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: talking about Bill 25, Carla, like you did by yourself,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: that's risky. And yet, if you know you have your
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: colleagues behind you, then that risk becomes a little bit less.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: To that point, Shannon, about the collectivity is, in social studies,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: I think we often find ourselves on our own islands
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: in our schools.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: And that's problematic.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: You know, in my recent research, when talking with other
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: social studies teachers and bringing them together, there was this
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: sort of collective sigh of relief, like, oh, yes, I'm
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: not alone. I'm actually, oh, you're dealing with this, too.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: So the collectivity is super, super important. You know, the
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: other thing I was thinking of, too, was Dr. Vanessa
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: Andriotti once told me that, Kevin, you have to stay
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: in the shit, you know, hope is important.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: But staying in the shit is also important because if we,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: if we don't, then we're not going to make it through.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: So yeah.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you. It's been really enjoyable.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much for the invitation and Carla. It's
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: always great to see you.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: So Shannon, what struck you about that conversation?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: I think when Kevin very flippantly said, you know, whether
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: teachers have posters on their walls or whether they have
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: four bland walls, I think there are some people that
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: could hear that four bland walls comment and be like, yeah, well,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: then that's the way to go, right? Then the way
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: to go is just for us to decide as a society,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: what are the core, quote unquote, neutral facts that we
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: can say about John A.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: McDonald?
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: And then that becomes policy. proposed as a neutral form
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: of education when, of course, even determining what are facts
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: and curating for your classroom what facts, what 10 facts
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: you're going to include in your discussion of any unit
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: is always already ideological, is always already political. And what
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: I really appreciated instead was Carla's stance where she said
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: teachers that actually recognize themselves as ideological are being more
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: responsible educators than teachers that feign or believe themselves to
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: be neutral because the teacher that recognizes that we are
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: all ideological political beings is actually somebody who's going to
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: be more responsible about the choices that they're making in
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: the classroom and more responsible about the ways in which
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: their politics may you know, seep into their teaching, the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: way that they may confine how students think based on
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: the way they present material. And so I really appreciated
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: that point from Carla about those of us that recognize
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: that all teaching is inherently political and that we are
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: ideological people and we cannot, you know, take all that
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: off when we come into the classroom are actually people
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: who are going to take this up more responsibly than
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: a teacher that believes that they're neutral.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: It's interesting that Kevin brought up the four bland or
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: blank walls. I took a job a couple of years
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: ago with, I got about 12 hours notice before I
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: was teaching in the classroom. And so of course I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: show up and it's four blind walls and I have
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: students in my room and, and I left it like
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: that intentionally for a couple of weeks to see what
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: happens before I messed around with the classroom. And the
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: first thing that went up, I put in there was
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: a pride flag. So all I had then was four
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: blind walls and.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: A pride flag.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: And it was fascinating to see that the students, cued
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: on the political nature of these four blank walls. They
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: noticed that almost more as if the walls were covered
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: in what might be more typical of a classroom. And
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: of course, with the pride flag up there too, just that,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: that signaled something in those few weeks as well that, oh,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: this is really important, right? Our attention is directed toward that.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: And so Kevin brought up that point of these walls
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: and it was Quite encouraging to see how my students
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: recognize the political nature of four boring gray-white walls.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because, of course, those are political too, right? And
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: it's the idea that some teachers or some of the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: reformers in the provinces that we have been speaking about
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: on our podcast might try to refine as much as
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: possible the this perfectly robotic teacher, right? Well, if you
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: just dress like this, if you just did this with
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: your walls, if you just did this, then you're going.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: To be neutral.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: But in fact, as Carla and Kevin pointed out, you're
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: not going to be neutral. You're just going to be
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: the status quo. There is no way to dress that
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: is not political. Even if I wear an all beige outfit,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: you know, am I dressed in ways that align with gender,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: for example, is something we could be thinking about. Am
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: I wearing makeup? What brands of beige clothing am I wearing?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: It's this ridiculousness of the way that question even traps
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: you to go, OK, well, what's the most neutral way
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: of teaching?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Because it is impossible.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: And neutrality, as our guest pointed out, is an imposition
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: because neutrality is actually the status quo. The status quo is,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: of course, political and that's being imposed upon. And I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: think the third part is it's irresponsible in many topics
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: to be neutral. There are topics that the curriculum already
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: takes a decided stance on, like residential schools, like slavery,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: like to some extent, but not enough, gender-based sexual violence.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: You know, we are not taking neutral stances on these topics.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: We are saying that as a society, these are human
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: rights issues and we need to be fighting against them.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: And so it's not only impossible that teachers are neutral,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: it's irresponsible for teachers to be neutral. And When you
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: ask politicians that make these ridiculous policies follow-up questions, which
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: the Minister of Education in Alberta was asked follow-up questions,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: that's when they start to get trapped in recognizing the
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: always-all readiness of the politics of our classrooms. So, I
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: don't know, that was just something I'd been thinking about.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: Is there anything that struck you or you've been thinking
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: about since we had a chance to talk to Carla
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: and Kevin?
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really appreciated that We can't overstate the increasing
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: fear and chilling effect that's taking hold of teachers and
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: schools today in this current political climate based on this
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: misguided idea that we have to be apolitical or neutral.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that we can separate this imposition
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: of neutrality that you were talking about from how surveillance
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: operates in schools. You know, of course, we all know
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: that security cameras are now ubiquitous in schools. I don't
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: think that was the case a long time ago. And
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: so there's literal surveillance everywhere. Plus, every person in the
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: building has a phone. You can easily be recorded without
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: your consent. That out-of-context clip can be posted to social media.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: But much more than the literal surveillance is that we
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: increasingly self-surveil and self-censor because of these policies, because of
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: this legislation, polarized media coverage, shifting community norms and expectations.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: All of these discourses that influence what we teach, how
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: we teach, or even if we engage with potentially controversial
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: topics in our teaching. And the reality, again, is that
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: in this current climate, it's so much easier, as our
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: guest talked about, it's so much easier to simply refrain
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: from teaching anything that's controversial and just stick to the basics.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: And I put that in air quotes there because reading, writing,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: and arithmetic supposedly are not imbued with particular values. But
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: as Kevin and Carla discussed, even things as taken for
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: granted as what we might consider foundational literacy and numeracy skills,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: they're absolutely political. They're not neutral. And so neglecting to
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: engage in the more fraught aspects of what it means
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: to be a teacher or what meaningful teaching and learning entails,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: I'd argue that's an abdication of our professional and our
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: ethical responsibilities.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: And I think that that's a point that the public
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: needs to hear is that it would go against our
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: principles of teaching to remain quiet on particular issues, right?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: And again, it's these obvious topics you can bring up
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: with people. It's like, oh, so are we to remain
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: neutral on bullying? Would you like a teacher to just
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: not take action if there's bullying in their classroom or
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: to give no messaging about how schools operate in relation
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: to bullying like of course we do it's the of
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: course we do element of it um i i really
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: do wish we had more time to talk about that
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: notion of surveillance in schools when i left classrooms in
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: 2019 in vancouver we did.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: Not have cameras in our schools um and so.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: You know you can hear the same person that would
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: probably put forth the policy that schools need to be
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: neutral would be the same person that would say something like, well,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't do anything wrong. So what does
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: it matter that there are cameras up? Not recognizing that
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: cameras and the notion of surveillance actually affects the way
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: that we all, you know, speak to one another. This
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: has become very clear in these interviews that we've been having,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: these conversations that we've been having with wonderful guests is
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: often that we stopped the recording and we have greater
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: conversations after the recording is over than when the recording
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: is going on.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: So just this, this, this notion of surveillance is something
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: I hope that maybe in a future episode we can,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: we can talk about.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: I think there was three things that, that Kevin and
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: Carla allude to throughout. It's, it's kind of a through
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: line about ways that we can maybe potentially push back
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: to some of these, these discourses. Kevin, Kevin talks how
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: when he was going through his B.Ed program, that it
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: was drilled into him that he has to be neutral.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: And as a social studies teacher, that's what he was
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: trained and educated to become and is. And I think
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: we have to unlearn that as a field. And so
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: just as it took repeated messaging to instill this message
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: of neutrality in teachers, I think that teacher educators in
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: all fields, not just social studies, all fields, all subject areas,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: that we probably need to be way more explicit about
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: and repeatedly outline the ways that education, teaching, curriculum, pedagogy,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: how this is all political. I think that needs to
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: be a through line within our teacher ed programs because
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: it's through embracing the politicality that I think other possibilities emerge,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: whatever that could look like. Pursuit of social justice, culturally
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: sustaining pedagogies, anti-oppressive frameworks, anti-colonial praxis, etc., Beyond that, I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: wonder about in-service teacher education. I don't think it's expected
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: that school boards, divisions, or districts are going to say, hey, teachers,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: teaching is political. You need to embrace the messiness of this.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: I just don't think that message is going to come
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: from them. We shouldn't expect that. And so I wonder
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: where teacher unions might step up into that role as
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: it concerns educating their teacher members about the political nature
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: of education and And then from that, how unions might
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: support teachers who potentially face complaints or attacks from various
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: groups because they're engaging in the fraught and the messy
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: nature of an inherently political education. And then Carla talked
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: beautifully about solidarity. And I think that's really key, that
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: solidarity between teachers is essential in terms of collectively resisting
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: the increasing fear and chilling effects of the moment of
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: Solidarity between teacher educators is essential if we're going to
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: educate teacher candidates about the political nature of teaching. And then,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: as I just talked about, solidarity between teacher unions across
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: local and provincial borders. I think that's really important if
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: we're all going to support teachers and become teachers or
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: teacher educators that fulfill our professional and ethical responsibilities. And
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Carla says this is messy. This is uncomfortable work. And
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: people's engagement and resistance is going to look different depending
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: on context and factors of power or privilege and positionality.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: But I think it's important that just as neoliberal rationality
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: individualizes and isolates us and it atomizes us, I think
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: that solidarity is key to pushing back against those problematic
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: discourses of neutrality and apoliticality. And in turn, I think
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: it's through that that we can hopefully enact a more
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: humanizing and justice mode of education.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: And I think that idea of the collective has come
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: up in every single conversation that we've had over the
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: last few weeks, when we've had the privilege to talk
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: to all of our guests who will be part of
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: this mini-series, Public Good on the Prairies, is this idea
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: of the need for the collective. And as you very
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: clearly point out, there's so much in neoliberal ideology that
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: promotes and advances individualism in our society. And I think
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: also when people are feeling under attack, they tend to
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: retreat into their own individual sort of selves. But more
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: than ever right now, we need the collective. This work
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: is scary to do alone. It's scary to go out
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: and speak against provincial governments advancing, you know, legally fraught
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: ideas of parental rights, for example, or suggesting classrooms should
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: be neutral, whatever it is, it can be scary to
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: go out there and make those points. And so why
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: more than ever doing this work alongside All of you
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: folks on this podcast doing the work in our, you know,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: public good advocacy in each province and then sharing connections
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: with people in other provinces that are also doing public
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: advocacy is so important in this moment. And so I
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: hope that this podcast becomes an opportunity for people to
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: form their own collectives or to become part of the
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: collective that we're forming here with Public Good on the Prairies.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: Until next time.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: Until next time.