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3.2 Teacher Competence: Making Teachers The Problem And The Solution · Public Good

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Justin Fraser.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm Shannon Moore.
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  Speaker 1: And this is Public Good on the Prairies.
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  Speaker 2: Today's topic is teacher competency discourses and the way that
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  Speaker 2: notions of the good teacher are being constructed and imposed
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  Speaker 2: on educators. Teacher competencies are frameworks that define knowledge, skills, practices,
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  Speaker 2: and behaviors expected of teachers, often translating the complex work
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  Speaker 2: of teaching into observable and measurable standards, suggesting a uniform
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  Speaker 2: and best way to teach, and ignoring the varied context
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  Speaker 2: in which teachers exist. Their emergence has been motivated by
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  Speaker 2: neoliberal education reforms and the growing influence of organizations such
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  Speaker 2: as the OECD, but are often legitimized through discourses about
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  Speaker 2: student safety. We wanted to include this theme in our
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  Speaker 2: series of Public Good on the Prairies because Manitoba recently
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  Speaker 2: formalized teacher competencies through Bill 35. Bill 35 was passed
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  Speaker 2: by the Manitoba Legislature and received royal assent on May 30, 2023.
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  Speaker 2: It represents a significant change to how the teaching profession
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  Speaker 2: is regulated in Manitoba, particularly because it gives the provincial
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  Speaker 2: government explicit authority to establish competence standards that teachers must
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  Speaker 2: meet to obtain and maintain a teaching certificate. It also
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  Speaker 2: establishes a director of certification, a public registry containing information
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  Speaker 2: about teacher certification, including the class and status of their
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  Speaker 2: certificate and records of disciplinary action, and a commissioner of
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  Speaker 2: teacher professional conduct that responds to complaints about teacher conduct
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  Speaker 2: and competence, and establishes new disciplinary mechanisms. The Alberta government,
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  Speaker 2: the United Conservative Party, also introduced legislation governing the discipline
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  Speaker 2: of teachers in 2022. Their Education Amendment Act was introduced
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  Speaker 2: to oversee teacher misconduct, and it also included the language
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  Speaker 2: of teacher competence.
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  Speaker 1: So joining us to discuss this is Dr. Melanie Janssen, Dr.
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  Speaker 1: Jill Morris and Dr. Christy Peterson. Melanie Janssen is a
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  Speaker 1: professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, the
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  Speaker 1: Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. She's a
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  Speaker 1: settler living and working in Winnipeg, Canada, on Treaty 1
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  Speaker 1: territory in the homeland of the Red River Métis. Melanie's
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  Speaker 1: research uses critical perspectives to explore the interrelated workings of
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  Speaker 1: power and discourses and how these affect the experiences of
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  Speaker 1: classroom teachers, the ongoing marginalization of children, and the undermining
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  Speaker 1: of public education. Prior to working at the university, she
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  Speaker 1: was a teacher for 15 years. She currently serves on
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  Speaker 1: the boards of the Canadian Association for Young Children and
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  Speaker 1: People for Public Education. Jill Morris is a curriculum scholar
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  Speaker 1: and assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at the
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  Speaker 1: University of Winnipeg. With over 20 years of experience working
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  Speaker 1: in K-12 classrooms in Ontario and BC, her research is
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  Speaker 1: grounded in phenomenology and critical theory as a means of
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  Speaker 1: provoking second thoughts about classroom, teacher, and educational experience. Specifically,
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  Speaker 1: her research explores teacher authority, the discursive implications of Canadian
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  Speaker 1: and international education policies, the educational potential of the everyday
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  Speaker 1: in the classroom, and the metaphors that shape an understanding
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  Speaker 1: of the possibilities for schooling and teacher education. Finally, Christy
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  Speaker 1: Peterson is an instructor in the Faculty of Education at
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  Speaker 1: the University of Manitoba. She has over 20 years of
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  Speaker 1: experience in the public school system as a classroom teacher,
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  Speaker 1: visual arts specialist, resource teacher, and acting principal, teaching students
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  Speaker 1: across early years, middle years, and senior years. Christy's research
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  Speaker 1: focuses on early career teachers and the transition into the
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  Speaker 1: profession including critical consideration of induction practices, mentoring, and the
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  Speaker 1: gendered expectation of teachers. Her work engages with eco-feminist thought,
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  Speaker 1: feminist post-structuralism, and critical theory to consider what it means
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  Speaker 1: to learn and become teacher within the contemporary educational landscapes
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  Speaker 1: that are intensified by the shifting complexities and subsequent manifestations
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  Speaker 1: of inequity, neoliberal reform, climate crisis, and the ongoing impacts
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  Speaker 1: of colonization.
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  Speaker 2: Our discussion today focuses largely on two publications from our guests.
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  Speaker 2: The first is a co-authored piece by Janssen, Peterson and
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  Speaker 2: Tosi called Teacher Competence Discourses, Exposing, Controlling and Punishing the
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  Speaker 2: Bad Teacher, and it was published in the Journal of
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  Speaker 2: Education Policy. The second is a co-authored piece by Morris,
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  Speaker 2: Couture and Phelan, and it is called Riding Fences, Anticipatory Governance,
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  Speaker 2: Curriculum Policy and Teacher Subjectivity, and it was published in
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  Speaker 2: the Canadian.
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  Speaker 3: Journal of Education.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Dr. Melanie Janssen, Dr. Christy Peterson, and Dr.
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  Speaker 1: Jill Morris to Public Good on the Prairies. We're so
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  Speaker 1: grateful that you've made time to have a conversation with
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  Speaker 1: us to share your insights and wisdom. So each of
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  Speaker 1: you have recently published articles that consider the rise of
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  Speaker 1: competency discourses. So I want to start by opening it
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  Speaker 1: up to all three of you. to begin our conversation.
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  Speaker 1: So where is this rise of competency standards coming from
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  Speaker 1: and what does its use across our different provinces and
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  Speaker 1: contexts potentially reveal? Whoever wants to start off, we'd love
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  Speaker 1: to hear your perspectives.
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  Speaker 4: I was thinking it might make sense to start with
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  Speaker 4: just a little sketch of the OECD and what the
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  Speaker 4: heck the OECD is. It's the organization that for economic
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  Speaker 4: cooperation and development. And when you say OECD, that economic
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  Speaker 4: framing gets a little lost. For me anyways, in my thinking,
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  Speaker 4: I like to sort of start back there, go back
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  Speaker 4: there and understand where I'm working from when I think
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  Speaker 4: about this. And it's been around for a while since
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  Speaker 4: the 1960s. And Canada was like one of the founding countries.
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  Speaker 4: And it has sort of this trajectory in terms of
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  Speaker 4: moving into education specifically. So it's like 2003 with PISA,
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  Speaker 4: which is the Program for International Student Assessment. And then
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  Speaker 4: it moves into the work that they did around the
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  Speaker 4: future of education and skills 2030. And then you've got
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  Speaker 4: the learning compass, which is where we start to get into,
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  Speaker 4: you know, how those, the notion of competencies is being
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  Speaker 4: activated and how it will be sort of rolled out
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  Speaker 4: and sort of brought to bear on international conversation about education, right?
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  Speaker 4: And then it extends now, it's 2024, you've got the
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  Speaker 4: teaching compass.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's helpful, Jill. And one of the
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  Speaker 3: things that I always like to remind people about is
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  Speaker 3: exactly what you're signaling, is that especially when we think
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  Speaker 3: about the word PISA and what PISA does, people often
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  Speaker 3: forget that the OECD, the E stands for economic and
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  Speaker 3: not education. So I really appreciate that reminder. And I
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  Speaker 3: think the other thing that I would just add to
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  Speaker 3: that is in addition to this idea of competencies, the
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  Speaker 3: OECD has actually linked teacher quality with improving student outcomes.
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  Speaker 3: And so that's why also I think we see this
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  Speaker 3: motivation internationally to sort of track or standardize or regulate
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  Speaker 3: teacher quality. I'm using air quotes there because there is
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  Speaker 3: this linking by the OECD between teacher quality with improved
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  Speaker 3: learning outcomes, which of course, this doesn't actually bear out
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  Speaker 3: in research. And I know we're going to talk more
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  Speaker 3: about about all of the motivations around that. But I
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  Speaker 3: just wanted to add that link to how the OECD
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  Speaker 3: is motivating this idea of teacher competencies through teacher quality
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  Speaker 3: and this assumption about improving student learning outcomes.
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  Speaker 5: And can I just add like, just for a Canadian context,
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  Speaker 5: just then what we've seen manifest is like over 10
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  Speaker 5: plus years or so across different provinces and territories, either
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  Speaker 5: provincial governments or other bodies creating teacher competence frameworks and
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  Speaker 5: taking influence from other countries that have already done so,
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  Speaker 5: like Australia, and implementing that in different contexts, whether it's
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  Speaker 5: in the districts and divisions or provincially.
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  Speaker 1: And I really appreciate that all three of you have
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  Speaker 1: talked about this notion of OECD because that figures so
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  Speaker 1: prominently in this work. You know, OECD, this is this
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  Speaker 1: international group, and yet we see it manifesting in our provinces,
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  Speaker 1: really in the local, in material ways. And so following
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  Speaker 1: up on that, like, my question would be, like, why
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  Speaker 1: does OECD have such a vested interest in pushing competencies? Like,
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  Speaker 1: what does the OECD have to gain from this? And
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  Speaker 1: what are the implications of this for teaching, for students,
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  Speaker 1: for communities?
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  Speaker 5: I think we've seen, like, we've got how the government
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  Speaker 5: has switched their narrative about, like, connecting education to fulfilling
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  Speaker 5: and supporting economic growth and the provinces and territories and
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  Speaker 5: kind of framing like universities as places to meet the
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  Speaker 5: needs of the current needs of economic situations rather than
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  Speaker 5: it being an intellectual pursuit. I think that's kind of
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  Speaker 5: where we're seeing like some of the ripple effects of
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  Speaker 5: that and what that's looking like.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know if this will be an unpopular perspective,
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  Speaker 4: but I think one of the things that we were
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  Speaker 4: attempting in the article that we wrote was to try
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  Speaker 4: and maintain a little bit of a sense of balance
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  Speaker 4: in that I agree with Christie's point that we've got this,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know if it's a shift. I
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  Speaker 4: think that it's becoming a stronger and stronger thread in
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  Speaker 4: the conversations that we're having, right? Where education is tied
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  Speaker 4: to the economy. But I don't believe there is this
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  Speaker 4: like evil cabal of folks sitting down around the OECD table. And,
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  Speaker 4: you know, well, how can we screw the teachers over? Right.
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  Speaker 4: I think that there is a very reasonable intention to
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  Speaker 4: to bring together people to be thinking about education collectively.
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  Speaker 4: I'm really trying to frame this positively because I think
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  Speaker 4: it bears on our ability to engage in the conversation
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  Speaker 4: to not entirely vilify the effort. So they're trying to
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  Speaker 4: have these conversations, but they sort of there's this, what's the,
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  Speaker 4: like an unawareness, like a sense of what are the
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  Speaker 4: implications of the discourse that has become the backbone of
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  Speaker 4: this conversation?
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  Speaker 3: I don't disagree with you on that, Jill, but I
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  Speaker 3: think part of what frames those narratives is the overwhelming
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  Speaker 3: discourse of neoliberalism and how that has really influenced the
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  Speaker 3: ways in which people think about all things, including social
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  Speaker 3: goods like education. And so folks at OECD, and those
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  Speaker 3: who are involved with PISA, for sure, they're likely well
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  Speaker 3: intentioned folks who want to, in quote, improve the quality
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  Speaker 3: of education globally, which, you know, no one is going
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  Speaker 3: to disagree with the intention. But I think what happens
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  Speaker 3: is when we're all so steeped in neoliberal discourse, the
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  Speaker 3: ways in which we frame that or the ways in
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  Speaker 3: which we think about that become very economically or output driven.
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  Speaker 3: And so the narrative becomes quite simplistic in add more
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  Speaker 3: here to this equals greater outcomes. And I think it's
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  Speaker 3: a simplistic discourse or simplistic way of thinking, again, informed
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  Speaker 3: by neoliberalism, that's kind of creating this effect of good intentions,
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  Speaker 3: but perhaps manifesting in not ways that reflect perhaps what
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  Speaker 3: we believe about education and certainly for this conversation, what
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  Speaker 3: we believe teaching is about.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I agree with the points that you're
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  Speaker 4: making as well, Melanie. And I read the impulse to
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  Speaker 4: kind of come up with this. This is the neoliberal
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  Speaker 4: sort of structure, this sort of linear progression, right? name
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  Speaker 4: the problem, solve the problem, move on, name the problem,
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  Speaker 4: solve the problem, move on. And I'm like, well, you know,
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  Speaker 4: if I can be sort of understanding of that impulse
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  Speaker 4: and at the same time say, you know, in my
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  Speaker 4: experience as a classroom teacher, that's actually not what education
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  Speaker 4: looks like, right? It's much more complex. It's importantly human.
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  Speaker 4: It's not actually that reductive kind of mechanical sort of
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  Speaker 4: pattern that they follow.
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  Speaker 2: Melanie and Christy, I wanted to turn to your recent publication,
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  Speaker 2: Teacher Competence Discourses, Exposing, Controlling and Punishing the Bad Teacher.
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  Speaker 2: It deals specifically with teacher competencies. But can we start
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  Speaker 2: for our listeners who are not steeped in this unfortunateness
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  Speaker 2: in the same way you folks are? What are teacher competencies?
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  Speaker 3: Well, teacher competencies and the ways in which they're manifesting,
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  Speaker 3: let's talk about the Canadian context, is that they are
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  Speaker 3: a regulatory framework. So it's a way of making explicit
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  Speaker 3: what good teachers do. And as we've mentioned, they emerge
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  Speaker 3: from the OECD reporting, but then they've manifested in a
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  Speaker 3: number of province and territories in the last 10 or
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  Speaker 3: 20 years through different policy reforms. And what they aim
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  Speaker 3: to do is to control the quality of teaching by
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  Speaker 3: listing the attributes of what good teaching is. And, of course,
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  Speaker 3: as we've already been alluding to here, this is, of course,
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  Speaker 3: fraught because, as Jill's saying, these are very– moving kind
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  Speaker 3: of definition they depend on who decides context of course
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  Speaker 3: and and i i think where christy and i are
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  Speaker 3: trying to what we try to articulate in this paper
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  Speaker 3: is that when we list out competencies as you know
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  Speaker 3: what is a what does a good teacher do when
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  Speaker 3: we create this list of competencies it really technicizes what
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  Speaker 3: teaching is, really instrumentalizes it as if it's sort of
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  Speaker 3: add and stir, and then you get the good teacher.
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  Speaker 3: Whereas what we're trying to articulate is that teaching is political, ethical, relational, contextual,
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  Speaker 3: and because of those things, it requires a great deal
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  Speaker 3: of professional judgment. And so to try to distill down
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  Speaker 3: what good teaching is into a list of competencies really
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  Speaker 3: does a disservice to how we understand teaching teaching and
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  Speaker 3: the project of education. And of course, we think it
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  Speaker 3: has pretty detrimental impacts on the teaching profession and on
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  Speaker 3: teachers' identities themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Christy, I don't know if you want to jump
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  Speaker 2: in on the what are teacher competencies, but I want
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  Speaker 2: to add a little bit to the question, which is like,
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  Speaker 2: how does that framing in teacher competencies already trap you
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  Speaker 2: when you're trying to critically engage with the notion of
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  Speaker 2: teacher competency?
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  Speaker 4: So what are teacher competencies?
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  Speaker 2: And if you want to add to what Melanie said,
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  Speaker 2: and how is the framing kind of already a trap?
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  Speaker 5: Well, I think and kind of just going back to
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  Speaker 5: the previous question, a common piece here is like, not
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  Speaker 5: necessarily educators or voices within education deciding on these documents
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  Speaker 5: and deciding on what what is good or what is
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  Speaker 5: successful or what teacher quality is. And so like, we
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  Speaker 5: know that when we have can call it outsiders of
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  Speaker 5: from education, even though people have observed it as a
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  Speaker 5: student themselves or like their kids being in school or whatnot,
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  Speaker 5: that it's still, they do not have like a fulsome
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  Speaker 5: idea or in-depth idea or understanding of what it means
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  Speaker 5: to be a teacher and teach. And the complexities, like
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  Speaker 5: Jill had mentioned before, the complexities of teaching and understanding
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  Speaker 5: that it's not something that's static, that it's the constantly
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  Speaker 5: shifting and the context that teachers are situated in are
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  Speaker 5: constantly shifting and So kind of just more before answering
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  Speaker 5: what teacher competencies are, is that when they're captured in
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  Speaker 5: like a text or a document in that way, it
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  Speaker 5: already becomes rigid and it's not responsive to specific contexts
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  Speaker 5: or regions and the needs of those regions. So like
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  Speaker 5: a good teaching will look very different depending on what
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  Speaker 5: the context is for the school, the teacher, the classroom, etc.
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  Speaker 5: But teacher competencies like for thinking within Manitoba, the example
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  Speaker 5: is a document that is without much input from teachers
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  Speaker 5: or from the education sector has been created by our
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  Speaker 5: Department of Education and Government and lists out almost like
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  Speaker 5: if you looked at a curriculum guide for a student
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  Speaker 5: or for within like K-12 students, the subjects lists out
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  Speaker 5: basically in a very prescriptive way outcomes that attempt to
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  Speaker 5: articulate what good teaching is looks like in terms of
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  Speaker 5: in terms of what's observable in the doing of teaching
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  Speaker 5: but not capturing like all of the hidden work that
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  Speaker 5: is part of teaching that just can't be articulated or
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  Speaker 5: observed or even possibly captured in any kind of quantitative
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  Speaker 5: measurement because we don't always know the long-term effects of
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  Speaker 5: what education does for students so it really overly like
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  Speaker 5: simplifies and reduces the the work of teachers and teaching
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  Speaker 5: into basically it becomes a bit of a checklist because
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  Speaker 5: that's how we know even with like curriculum guides, even
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  Speaker 5: though there might be robust documents that support the theoretical
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  Speaker 5: underpinnings often, the focus becomes the outcomes and it just
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  Speaker 5: becomes a checklist to accomplish and get through. So then
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  Speaker 5: the worry is like what is being done with those
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  Speaker 5: competence frameworks in terms of how they're being utilized and
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  Speaker 5: whether they become just an observation checklist that is used
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  Speaker 5: by An administrator or other like more senior kind of
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  Speaker 5: leader within the school division or district uses a checklist
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  Speaker 5: just to evaluate teachers in a way that's not actually
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  Speaker 5: helpful to teachers and teaching the profession or students in
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  Speaker 5: any way.
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  Speaker 2: Melanie, can you jump back in on the ways in
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  Speaker 2: which somebody may take your critiques of competencies and say, well,
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  Speaker 2: do you want incompetent teachers?
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Like when you try to be critical with it, the
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  Speaker 2: rhetorical framing of it is. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I think the problem with the language of competencies is
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  Speaker 3: it has an of coarseness to it. You know, of
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  Speaker 3: course we want competent teachers. Of course we don't want
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  Speaker 3: incompetent teachers. So it becomes tricky to critique the idea
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  Speaker 3: of because you get into this rhetorical game, I suppose,
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  Speaker 3: of trying to defend something that sounds so common sense.
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  Speaker 3: But I would say this is also reflective of a
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  Speaker 3: lot of the neoliberal language that gets co-opted to make
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  Speaker 3: reform sound palatable and indisputable, right? So it really creates
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  Speaker 3: a binary between competency and incompetency, which equates good and
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  Speaker 3: bad teaching. And so it really simplifies, I think, the
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  Speaker 3: idea of what good teaching is and makes it hard
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  Speaker 3: to kind of critique. But I also think the other
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  Speaker 3: issue that we need to pay attention to in this
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  Speaker 3: is that when we think about teacher competencies, you know,
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  Speaker 3: we get into these debates about good teaching and bad teaching,
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  Speaker 3: which are good teachers and bad teachers. And of course,
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  Speaker 3: what this does is reify teachers as the problem and
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  Speaker 3: also the solution. So when we're thinking about, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the moves in regards to teacher competence and the rhetoric
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  Speaker 3: and the discourses that sort of surround those movements, it's
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  Speaker 3: often because it's addressing an identified problem within the system.
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  Speaker 3: And that problem is usually the teachers. So, you know,
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  Speaker 3: there's a crisis narrative that emerges, the problem.
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  Speaker 4: Is teachers.
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  Speaker 3: We need to do something to improve student outcomes, which
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  Speaker 3: is teachers. And what that does then is places all
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  Speaker 3: of our attention on teachers and teaching instead of perhaps
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: structural problems within educational systems themselves. So we're not looking
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  Speaker 3: at underfunding of inclusion models. We're not looking at underfunding
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  Speaker 3: of teacher professional development. We're not looking at the failing
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  Speaker 3: infrastructure of schools. So I think this is the other
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  Speaker 3: rhetorical move that happens when we get caught up in
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  Speaker 3: arguing about teacher competencies is that we also are deflecting
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: our attention away from the more structural issues that are
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: problems in education and that are creating issues that need
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: our attention as well.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about how this
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: has been formalized in Manitoba through bill 35? Like this
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: isn't just people having ideas about what a good teacher is.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: It's actually been formalized in legislation. So could you tell
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: listeners that do not live in Manitoba?
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: And I think this is an interesting case and this
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: is what Christy and I document in our papers. We
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: look at the ways in which the bill 35 emerged
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: in our Manitoba context. And in 2022, uh, there was
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: a Canadian Center for Child Protection report that came out
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: detailing sexual misconduct that was occurring in schools over a
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: five-year period. And of course, this attracted a lot of
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: media attention. And it also came on the heels of
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: the Winnipeg Free Press having done a report about the
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: lack of transparency in teacher misconduct reporting. So this garnered
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: a lot of media attention, of course, and a lot
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: of public outcry. There was definitely a crisis that was identified.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: And the PCs, the Conservative Party who was in power
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: at the time, vowed to take action. And so they
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: produced what was called Bill 35 in regards to the
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: monitoring of teacher sexual misconduct in schools. It's really interesting, though,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: that the bill that was produced was done so in
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: record time. and also reflected language from Bill 64, which
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: was hotly contested, and later withdrawn by the Conservative government
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: prior to Bill 35. And so basically, the Conservatives had
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: this language, you know, ready at bay and introduced Bill
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: 35 with very little opposition, I would say, from the
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: NDP party. And part of that, of course, is because
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: it's Back to it's hard to say we don't want
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: to regulate sexual misconduct. And so, you know, this wasn't
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: necessarily the problem. But in so doing, when the PCs
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: created the bill, they also then added language of competency.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: So what started off as addressing sexual misconduct by adults
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: in schools became also about addressing teacher competency, which is
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: mentioned far more times in the bill than sexual misconduct is.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: And in fact, falls short of the recommendations of the
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Canadian Centre for Child Protection. They also advocated for training
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: and support. And none of this was addressed by the
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: government and also only focused on teachers and not other
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: adults that might be in the school. So it actually
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: does nothing to prevent sexual misconduct. The only thing it
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: does now is create a database, really, in which the
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: misconduct can be made public. So, you know, it does
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: create the optics of the government doing something. I think
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: the shame about the bill is that it also now
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: has rolled in language about competencies. And I think it's
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: important to think about, you know, that kind of language
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: in the current context in which we are teaching. Particularly,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about parental rights movements and right to read movements,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: which are also garnering a lot of public attention. And
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: so because of the bill, Anyone from the public, it
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: doesn't need to be a parent of a child in
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: the school, but anyone in the public can make a
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: complaint against a teacher anonymously, for sure in regard to
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: sexual misconduct, but also in regards to competencies, which is
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: not defined in the bill and I think is going
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: to really create a chilling effect for folks who are
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: teaching in contexts where parental rights movements have been infringing
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: or moving into schools. schools in really unproductive ways.
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Christy, Melanie has just mentioned the idea that these can
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: be complaints from anyone, not even someone that's ever seen
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: you teach. Obviously, that's a worry. Do you have other
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: worries about what is written in Bill 35?
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: I think that because there was a real lack of
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: authentic invitation to the education sector to participate in the
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: creation of it, or even to participate in the various
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: drafts Because when it was released, the draft was quietly
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: released during the summer of 2025. And then there was
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: an invitation that you could email by the end of
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: August with any concerns. And then basically that first week
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: of September, the document was released. So there was, I mean,
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: you could speculate that there was no serious consideration of
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: any comments or feedback that were made. And also, you
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: could also assume that there wasn't really... any time spent
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: looking at other contexts and jurisdictions that have already established
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: teacher competence frameworks and use them for a while, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: then also have a body of research that argues that
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: they aren't effective in any way or actually detrimental to
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: the profession. So when you look at the teacher competence frameworks,
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: and sorry, just another thing to note is also in
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: the release of it, there are still, if you talk
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: to local educators, there will still be people that are
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: unaware of its existence just because it's just kind of,
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: it felt like it was very quietly kind of passed
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: and published like the document. And then there was, hasn't really,
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: there's been a little bit from the union and sharing
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: about it and making people aware, but there still isn't
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: like been a real critical acknowledgement of the, how problematic
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: it is. But the way that it articulates so specifically the,
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: certain strategies or approaches that we know are not effective
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: within it already it really just creates this very unresponsive
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: and limiting kind of idea of what quality or good
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: teaching is and so you can if you follow everything
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: that's in that teacher confidence framework for example you could
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: potentially be determined by that document as being a good
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: teacher but actually not actually being like a good teacher
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: Because it doesn't capture the ethical aspects where like in
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: those moments of where there is no one right answer,
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: that what it takes to make a good ethical decision
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: for the student or the parent or the colleague that
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: you're dealing with. So it just feels like it is
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: a checklist that is like now going to be kind
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: of stuck in time because it's so rigid and unresponsive
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: to like shifting education landscapes that it will be problem
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: it is problematic and will continue to be problematic as
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: schools change and the needs of students change and the
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: needs of schools and contexts are shifting that it won't
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: be able to grow and address as different issues come
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: up and it really doesn't it really just speaks to
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: the minutiae of teaching it doesn't get at that we're
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: teaching in a time when there's like climate emergency going
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: on or that we're teaching in a time that they're
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: still feeling the effects of colonization and And in terms
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: of like how Canada is responding to reconciliation and Indigenous people.
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: So it just feels like it's this very kind of
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: isolated document that doesn't really serve any greater purposes of education. Jill?
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I wanted to speak to you. Your article isn't just
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: about competencies. Yours is about broader notions of anticipatory forms
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: of governance. But I wanted to ask, how do you
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: feel this conversation parallels what you were speaking about in
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: regards to anticipatory forms of governments in Alberta? We'll start
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: off with because this is public good on the prairies,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: but then you could also pop in with BC, Ontario, too,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: because I think these issues manifest distinctly. in a way,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: in each province, but they're also connected to the broader neoliberal,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: neoconservative attempt to reform education.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Well, they are definitely connected. And I think that one
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: of the things that stood out in what you were saying, Christy,
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: is that there's this sense that this competency conversation just
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: sort of popped up in Manitoba. And this is where
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: I think it's helpful to go back to the OECD, because...
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Even though we may be in a slightly better situation
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: here because the provincial jurisdiction of education allows us to
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: at least seem to be having these local, responsive kinds
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: of conversations about education, the truth of the matter is
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: that the Council for the Ministers of Education of Canada,
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: these people are participating in conversations within the OECD. And
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: so the framing for their understanding of education is coming
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: from the discourse that is being delivered directly by the OECD.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: And it is all of the things that Melanie was saying.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: It's absolutely like, why would we not want to be
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: speaking about competent teachers? And when you look at the competencies,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: you're like, well, these all seem really wonderful. Why are
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: we having an argument about this?
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: it is all connected and it's like the very, very
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: deep roots get overlooked. So the divisions and the sort
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: of like individual priorities of the provinces, I think folks
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: are sort of like happy to let us think that
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Manitoba is having one conversation Quebec is having a different one, Alberta, Ontario,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: and so forth. But really, we're having the same conversation,
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: and an awareness of where that's coming from would be
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: really helpful in responding to those kinds of shifts in government.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: But as you were talking, Christy, I'm thinking about this
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: sort of checklist and how we get trapped in this.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: And for the work that I did specifically in the
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: paper that we wrote, because my teaching experience is in Ontario,
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: I worked on the concept of the professional teacher and
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: how it appears in the documents. And so there's the
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: sense that these competencies, right, for a good teacher, it
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: gets framed as, you know, you're a professional. And there's
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: like this kind of, there's an allure to that. And
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: as I was thinking about it, I'm like, well, why
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: would I not want to call myself a professional? And
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: then I sort of framed this as the kettling technique
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: that gets used in mob and protest control. So police
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: officers have a strategy or police officers, I don't know,
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: it could be any kind of militaristic force, has a
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: strategy for enclosing So when you come up against a force, right,
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: when we try to have a conversation about, ooh, we
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: have an issue with this notion of competencies, and we
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: come head on at it, the language, the discourse itself
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: becomes something that encloses us. And so we're surrounded, right?
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: If I think of myself as a professional, and then
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: professional is defined according to these competencies, right? then I'm
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: sort of like, I buy into it. I'm like, oh,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: I do all of these things in order to be
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: considered a professional. And I'm already being sort of subsumed
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: by a particular way of looking and thinking about the
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: world and about myself as a teacher.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: Can I add something to that? And then the material
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: or effective experience within the schools now is like a
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: new fear unlocked for students what if a parent responses
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: or doesn't like what I've done or what I said
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: to a student in a moment that was a difficult
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: moment where I had to make a decision, maybe it
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: was to protect the safety, physical or psychological of another student.
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: Am I going to get kicked back now because the
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: parent is deeming like my.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Response isn't appropriate towards their child.
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: So it's like this whole new fear that is kind
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: of weaving its way into teaching and education in a
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: way that is it's unfamiliar and it's worrisome because it's
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: going to limit and it's going to put teachers in
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: a difficult place when they are and that kind of
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: goes back to that like self-governmentality and that control of
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: like internalizing the controlling and surveilling aspects of these documents
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: in terms of like the decisions that are now being
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: made for teacher or for students and by teachers and
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: And how will that limit how we, the care or
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: the protection and those like ethical decisions that we are
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: constantly making in regard to children? And how is that
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: going to intervene and create tenuous moments that will make
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: those decisions difficult in a new way that doesn't really,
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: that takes the focus away from the children?
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I would say that that culture of surveillance,
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: that feeling of fear ties in very much to the
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: kind of uncertainty that has been assumed that makes that governance, right?
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: That anticipatory governance so much easier to impose. And if
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: you have, you know, teachers have this increased sense of
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: fear that they're going to be caught out in some way,
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: not living up to expectations to these notions of these competencies,
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: then they internalize that all the more in the sense
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: of like, well, what do I have control of? I'm
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: just going to align myself as much as possible, seem
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: to be or be seen as fitting in with what
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: is expected instead of being in the moment and responsive
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: to students, which is the ethical question of education. And
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: I don't know if this is taking us a little
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: bit off, but in preparing for this conversation, I was
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: thinking again about this idea of anticipatory governance And how
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: it is framed, this idea of looking forward in order
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: to think about what is coming. And this futures logic
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: is taken from work that's being done, important work being
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: done on environmental crisis. And we don't want to just
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: sort of stay in this, you know, inward looking this
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: moment right now. We want to look ahead. So I
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: think in some ways that's getting applied to how we
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: think about education. And we assume, and this notion of competencies,
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: assume that we can develop these 21st century skills that
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: will prepare us to meet whatever this future is. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: as you have been saying, both Christy and Melanie have
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: made the point, this is laid on teachers. And it's like, listen,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: we don't know the future. That's why it's called the future.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: We can't actually prepare for something. It is absolutely uncertain.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: And so the question for me anyways, is that, you know,
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: that's the wonder almost of education is like meeting that
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: unknown in the moment. And it's devoid that that's not
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: something that comes into the understanding of competencies because there's
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: this sort of, the panic that we all live in,
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: that we need to be prepared to face, right?
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Jill, I really appreciate your comment, how you identified the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: 21st century skills that are supposed to prepare us for
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the future. And it reminds me, some of your article,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you touched on a few provinces, including BC and Claudia
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Rutenberg's work around competency. I know we're talking teacher competencies today,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: but the notion that the OECD, these global competencies have
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: are influencing all aspects of teaching and learning in education
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: and students. And Claudia Rutenberg critiques this notion of, of friendship.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: One of the sub competencies in the BC curriculum is
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: social awareness and responsibility. And can we really reduce friendship
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to a set of abilities on a checklist? Well, no,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: of course we can't, right? We can speak of, of
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: close friends, of dear friends, trusted friends, and, loved friends,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: old friends, but we don't talk about competent friends. I'm
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: not going to describe someone as, oh, they're a really
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: competent friend, which just speaks to the absurdity of the
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: discourse in some of these ways and how reductive some
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: of this language can be. And so kind of from that,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: recognizing how all-encompassing some of these discourses can be, all
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: three of you talked in your articles a little bit
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: about the subjectification of the teacher. through these imposed discourses. And,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: you know, by subjectification, I'm kind of referring to how
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: these discourses of competencies, how they influence, how they construct,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: how they constrain and restrict, how teachers think about and
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: do their work. And Melanie, wanting to start with you,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: how do these competencies impact our understanding of the good teacher?
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that what it does is it really
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: instrumentalizes the work of teaching, right? So as we've talked about,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: when we list down what we think good teaching is,
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: then there's an enforced compliance with that either through fear
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: or internalized regulation. But that teaching then becomes very instrumentalized.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: It becomes very much about the technical, you know, teach
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: this to students and they will produce X outcomes. which,
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: of course, takes away from any kind of ethical relationality
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: judgment that might be required in in moments of difficulty
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: with students. And anyone who's been in a classroom who's
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: taught in a classroom knows that it isn't as simple
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: as this technical transmission or transaction of knowledge. There's nothing
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: that that is what we hope to do sometimes in teaching,
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: but it's rarely what teaching looks like. I think also then,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: you know, and I spoke to this earlier, it individualizes
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: the work of the teacher. So it really takes away
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: from any kind of social responsibility, systemic reform, institutionalized structures
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: that also affect teaching and good teaching. So it really
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: places all of the responsibility on the individual teacher. And
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: then it's de-professionalizing in that way, because it takes away
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: teachers' ability to make judgments, to make decisions in the moment,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: even when the outcome is uncertain. And both Christy and
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Jill have talked about this, There's so many times in
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: a teacher's day when they're making decisions in the face
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: of a child when we don't know the outcome of
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: those decisions, but we're using our best professional judgment at
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: that moment. So I think that, you know, the risk
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: of competencies language is it really instrumentalizes the work of teaching.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: It individualizes responsibility and it de-professionalizes learning. And of course,
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: the greater thing here is that it really does also
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: work to influence what we think teaching is. It changes
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: how the general public thinks about what teaching is, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: of course, what the purpose of education is, right? And
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: by that, I'm thinking about the ethical dimensions of the work,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: the political dimensions, the relational dimensions of the work. And
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: so when we think about the purpose of public schooling,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: for example, it is for people to be in relationship
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: with each other. And so that cannot be instrumentalized through
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: teacher competencies or standards or, you know, the 10 best practices.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: I think the language is alluring, as Jill has spoken to,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: and I think it's publicly enticing and people want good,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: competent teachers. But I think, of course, that it's a
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: distraction from bigger conversations about what is good teaching? What
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: do we want from a public education system? And who
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: are we in this collective of profession of teachers?
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: I think too is become evident is that like, it
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: really is a deficit based approach to thinking about the
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: profession and teaching and assuming incompetence in teachers and teaching
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: rather than recognizing like what teachers, like as when they
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: enter teaching, what they already bring, like the type of
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: education that they already bring. And yeah, the teacher education programs,
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: like what is happening in those programs. And then the
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: worry is that if this document then becomes centered in
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: conversations of education and of teacher education is, will it
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: then be used to determine what is happening in teacher
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: education and where else will it be used to determine
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: other aspects of like already how we've talked about defining
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: like who the good teacher is or competent teacher. But
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: it really then shifts it away from like thinking about
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: educating teacher candidates to training. Because like what was said
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: before by Jill and Melanie is like this idea of
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: like instrumentalizing profession and really reducing it to like a
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: technical oriented process of if I do this, then this
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: will happen, rather than thinking about the complexities and the
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: intellectual aspects of.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Teaching and education.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Jill, I wanted to throw to you on this one,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: because we've been speaking about how it subjectifies the teacher,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: the teacher's sense of themselves. And so Perhaps you want
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: to add on to that, but I wanted to make
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: it a bit broader and ask, how is the way
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: the teacher is subjectified or competency discourses are imposed on
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: education and the notion of a good teacher also impacting students, learning,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: and public education more broadly? I know that's a massive question,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: but I wondered if you wanted to... You've got this.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: We're all stewing in this, right? So to identify it
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: as something that is happening for or to teachers, I mean,
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: it's useful, of course, to look at that specifically, but
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: there's no person that is sort of outside of that
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: narrative of accountability, which given its due, if we find
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: like it's like, well, we sort of reduce policy to
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: the numbers, this is what the numbers tell us, right?
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: And so there's a sense that you can take a
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: very complex world and bring it down to these objective measurements.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: And once you've determined that you're going to do that,
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: then everything has to sort of fall in line. Any
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: of the excess, you know, the wonderful things that we
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: identify within just human relationships, but education specifically, it necessarily
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: falls to the side, right? It's like, did the student
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: do five good deeds today? And it's check, check, check.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: And it's like, well, now you have achieved the competency
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: of friendship, right, Justin, in your example. And it's sort
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: of like, I think, Christy, you made this point, like
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: all of that other stuff just sort of is like
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: it's gone. There's nothing to hold it in this conversation, right?
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: And so the students have this sense of and the
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: pressure of sort of hitting all of the markers and
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: then maybe saying, I mean, I can only speak from
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: my own experience because it's subjective, but it's sort of like, well,
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: my goodness, I've done all of these things. Why do
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: I not feel, you know, this sense of achievement? I mean,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: and that is even itself maybe a bit of a
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: problematic word. But I wanted to respond a little bit
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: to something that Christy said, because I do think we've
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: got a deficit approach. But even more dangerous, I think,
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: is the fact that we have this sort of like
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: achievement kind of thing as well. So it's not that
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: I'm worried that I will be found wanting. I think
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: you are when you talk about something like the Bill 35,
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: but you're sort of like, am I good enough? And
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: that's where it comes to that sort of like that
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: kind of an achievement society that we're in right now,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: where it's I, you know, not only can I control
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: an uncertain future, but I'm putting this pressure on myself
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: to be as good as I possibly can be. because
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: it can come down to me. It all comes down
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: to me.
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: And Elizabeth Petard's work on the good enough teacher speaks
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: so well to that, right? Like how it's all placed
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: on the teacher's body. And we are always seeing each
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: other within the notions of what the system values and
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: maybe not what we as human beings value, right? They've
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: changed our notion of value through these anticipatory forms of governance.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: And can I just say one more thing? Melanie's point
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: about how, um, We, this allows us, the idea that
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: we bring it all onto ourselves means that all of
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: the structural things, the political things, right? The social difficulties
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: then are, we set them aside, right? We make it
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: not about that. We make it about us.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And then you just have a demoralized teaching staff
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: that just feels like shit about themselves all the time.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Like who wants that? Like, what are we doing to teachers, right?
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Well, Christy, then to you, you know, how would you
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: speak to the way that these imposed or these discourses
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: impact public education? Like, especially looking at Bill 35, right?
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: What kind of impact has that had on teachers? And
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: how have you seen it used in ways that worry you?
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: The other piece I wanted to comment on was that
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: it also, like, in the conversation when we talk about, like,
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: professionalization and the deprofessionalization that this results in, it also
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: like it doesn't make education a hospitable place for, for
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: anyone that's interested in becoming a teacher, because now like
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: what Jill was saying and Melanie, that it defines a
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: certain kind of teacher. And that means that it's also
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: defining a teacher in like, not just discursive ways, but
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: also material embodied ways. So yeah, there is now there
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: is in people have experienced this like a fear of
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: like not being able to embody their identities that they
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: would in in other places and spaces in their life
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: but feel that as a teacher they have to present
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: a certain identity because of the fear that it might
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: be something that a parent will report or or someone
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: else in the public will report because they deem it
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: as incompetent or unacceptable as being a teacher in public education.
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: So I think that it creates this inhospitable environment for
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: teachers that's not welcoming of all teachers and certainly defines
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: who can be a good teacher, not only in the
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: actions and the behaviors that are outlined, but also in
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: who they are and their identities.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: And then Melanie, over to you. I was wondering if
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: you could provide maybe some more examples of ways that
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: either Bill 35 or just teacher competencies, like what are
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: some examples of them also being used in these ways
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: that worry you?
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: Well, I think what worries me the most is the
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: ways in which this is another move or way in
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: which we are detracting from conversations about the public good
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: of education.
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: So it's it's another way that governments and media and
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: teachers unions are. get caught up in talking about teacher competencies, good, bad, negotiated,
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: otherwise registry, how to perform, respond, et cetera. And we're
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: not talking about the importance of public education or the
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: good of public education. We're not talking about the role
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: of having a professional and autonomous teaching body that is
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: responsible in some ways in public education. We're not talking
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: about the importance of public education being a space where
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: where children and students from all walks of life come
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: together and navigate how to be in the world together.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: We're not talking about public education as a place for
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: children to consider their own identities in relation to the world.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: And so I think that that is a real problem because,
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: you know, as to my guest, Christy and Jill, what
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: they've been saying is, So we're talking about the individualization
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: of teaching and self-optimization of the work, and we're not
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: talking about the purpose of teaching, of teacher ed, and
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: of public education. So I think, to me, that is
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: the real detriment here. But we see this happening in
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: all sorts of ways, right? The right-to-read report, standardized testing.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: All sorts of reforms are taking us away from conversations
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: about why we should be centering conversations on on the
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: purpose of public education and and our collective responsibility for that.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: So I think that for me is one of the
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: biggest I mean, aside from all the stuff it does
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: to teachers and teaching, which is where my my passion
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: and my research interests lie. I think we also need
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: to be aware about how this is yet another way
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: in which it detracts from notions of what is the
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: public good in public education.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: So following up on that then, Melanie, how do we
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: uphold particular standards or expectations of teaching while not... imposing
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: something as reductive as competencies?
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the MTS Code of Professional Practice or
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: ethics is actually a good way to start. And I
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: was actually surprised that the Manitoba Teacher Society didn't spend
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: more time on this in regards to responses to teacher competencies.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: For example, the number one code or the number one
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: item in the list of ethics is a member's first
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: professional responsibility is to their students. And you think about that,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: what is different about that in regard in relation to
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: competency is we're talking about teacher responsibility to a greater good.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't say that you have to be responsible
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: in this way or that way or do this thing
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: or that thing. What it's saying is you need to
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: be responsible for all of your students. And within that,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: there is a tremendous amount of space for teachers to
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: enact that responsibility in various ways, whether that be political, ethical, relational, practical,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: in whatever way. So I think codes of ethics can
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: be useful. But again, I think we need to broaden
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: that conversation out towards what do we mean by good
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: teaching to begin with? And how do we think about
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: teaching beyond a list of standards? And if we think
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: about teaching in regards to, you know, responsibility to individual
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: and collective groups of children, I think it really complicates
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: that conversation. I also think that, you know, all of
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: the bodies that are in relation to teachers, so Manitoba
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Teacher Society, government, school divisions, teachers' unions, And researchers, I
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: think we all need to take a responsibility for this
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: and a leadership role in thinking about the ways in
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: which we talk about public education to our colleagues and
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: with others and the work that we do. And I
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: think kind of helping, you know, folks to broaden ideas
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: of teaching beyond just the technical stuff and more into
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: the professional and relational things. of what it means to teach.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: So I think those would be some ways to think
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: about trying to help create a cultural shift, I guess,
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: is what I'm saying in regards to how we think
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: about conversations with teaching. And I'd say short of that,
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: you know, my other strategy, if that doesn't work, is
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: that we just all get reported onto the registry. I
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: look every day to see if I've been reported. And sadly,
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: I haven't. But this is my other my other tactic.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: And of course, I mean that kind of flippantly. But
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: wouldn't it be amazing if everyone was reported? for being incompetent.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: And then we could really dissect, you know, how we're
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: defining competency. I was thinking too about the things that competencies,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: the list, you know, doesn't allow for. It doesn't allow
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: for things like resistance and advocacy and risk-taking and compassion. And,
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: you know, you could think about, if you think about
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: teaching in those ways and those kinds of ethical ways,
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: wouldn't that be a powerful thing if we were re-imagining
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: teaching in a greater sense in regards to its commitment
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: to a public good and how we might re-imagine or
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: have conversations about what it means to be a good teacher.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: in those kind of broader ethical ways.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I want to just, I wish that you could
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: audibly record or somehow note the fact that I'm nodding
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: as Melanie is talking about the need for conversation. And
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: it's difficult because we maybe do not have the forums,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: but it means, you know, a conversation is something that
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: you can't, codify it's not going to reduce itself into
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: a list of competencies it's in question it's shifting it's
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: fluid it's all those wonderful things and um so like
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: the cultural shift includes sort of like becoming a little
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: bit more comfortable with things you know being in flux
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: um so that we can step forward and have those
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: kinds of conversations that we need to have right.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: And maybe just to add one more thing, you know,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: and how that how those conversations would look different in
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: different contexts.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: So so in Nunavut versus Nipissing versus Nairobi.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: Like teaching should look different in different places. It should
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: it should be responsive to particular communities. And I think
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: this idea that we can standardize and homogenize the work
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: really does a disservice to to the communities in which
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: we work and to the students and families that we
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: work with.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: I want to take us to resistance because right now
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: people must just be like, because this does, because this
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: does all seem rather, rather done. Do you know what
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: I mean? Like the competencies have happened. Bill 35 has
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: gone forward. We're seeing, you know, as Jill has pointed out,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: this isn't isolated to Manitoba or Alberta. It's rippling all
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: across Canada because of the larger influence of the OECD and,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: and neoliberal notion notions of education. And so, I wanted
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: to speak a little bit about resistance. And Jill, you
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: end your article with the following, and I'm going to
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: quote you to you, which everyone loves. But it might
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: yet also serve to remind us that resistance is always
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: possible and that power is never totalizing. That a restriction
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: or fence might draw attention to the possibility of freedom
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: in our classrooms and beyond. To contest curriculum policies that
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: ultimately stymie and restrict teacher agency. is to ask after
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: the possibility of other ways home, other forms of governance,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: other ways of deploying resources, other ways of thinking about education,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: and other orientations to life in the present and in
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: the future. Do you still feel hope in the face.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: Of organized persistence?
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: So when the paper we wrote, one of the metaphors
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: that I got quite caught up with was something far
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: removed from Canada, but the rabbit proof fence in Australia.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: And so just really quickly, and I cannot do justice
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: to the whole sort of like import of this, but
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: the rabbit proof fence was a fence that was built
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: across the land in Australia to protect crops from rabbits.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: And the rabbits themselves, just to note, had been brought
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: there by the colonizers. And so as as colonizers tend
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: to do, they leave things and then they get out
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: of control and then they create these barriers to then
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: restrain them. So the Aboriginal people could no longer cross
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: in the walks that they had traditionally done. And so
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: there was a damage sort of done to the culture.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: And in a book that was written about the story
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: of three young girls, when they are taken and removed
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: from their home and brought to the residential school system
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: there in Australia, their grandmother says to them, just follow
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: the fence because the fence actually is something that is
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: there where you are, where you've been removed from, and
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: it will lead you to where I am, to home, right?
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: And so these restrictions that have been placed upon the
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: way that we are able to think about education and
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: ourselves as teachers are some things, they're markers. It's like,
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: what is that about? Like, what is this directing us towards?
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: And if we follow where this is coming from, does
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: it actually lead us to an understanding that where the
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: discourse is framing things in a particular way? And here's
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: one of the wonderful things about theory. I know people
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: maybe don't love theory, but what Foucault, I think, is
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: telling us here is, Yeah, I know. I said the
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: F word. What Foucault is telling us here is that,
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: you know, that meaning has been made. And so we
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: can understand that and make it different, unmake it, make
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: it in a new way, draw it back into question
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: so that we're not just subject to that force. We
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: become something that can redirect it. And I think of
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: that in terms of my responsibility as a teacher educator, right?
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: To say, you know, what, what, what is the power
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: of your own responsibility within that classroom space? And when
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: you encounter a curriculum document, you know, what should your
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: position towards that be? How are you in conversation with that?
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: So that, and I don't know how to address sort
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: of the folks that are not maybe in front of
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: us in those teacher education classrooms, but at the very least,
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: we can begin to sort of shift that to say, look,
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: they built a fence. Yeah. Why did they build that fence?
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: What is that fence doing? If we follow that fence,
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: where might we arrive at? How might we use it
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: to somehow get past it or to get into a larger,
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: more open field for ourselves and our students?
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: Melanie and Christy, I'm going to ask you the same.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: How do we challenge these reforms and how do we
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: make the public see the impact of these rhetorically rationalized
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: reforms on public education? Like we have the time and
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: patience to have these conversations. the busy parent, how are
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: you getting them to think about the ill effects of
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: competencies on education?
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: I think that's a great question that like, and like
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: what Jill was saying, like it's, we can speak to
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: the teacher candidates that are in the teacher education programs
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: and think about cultivating, continue to cultivate their criticality towards
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: policy and the different forces that they're going to encounter
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: as they enter the profession, whether they recognize them or not,
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: but start to like, be able to recognize some of
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: those more the more subtle kind of nefarious forces that
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: often remain hidden behind a mask of something of what
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: is seemingly a positive intention like teacher competence frameworks but
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: also I think there is responsibility for the union to
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: take it off the shoulders of individual teachers or schools
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: or divisions to advocate and to inform the public and
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: help the public to understand that this competence framework is
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: not a definition of teaching. And so to like begin
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: to kind of, to get away from like this idea
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: of like teaching is training and simple delivery of instruction
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: with a certain outcome, but to begin to find ways
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: to illustrate or represent the complexities that are inherent to
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: teaching and what, teachers in contemporary spaces, what they're contending
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: with and how complex it is to be a teacher.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: I think there's a big responsibility for the union in
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: educating and thinking about informing the public and changing some
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: of those narratives so that there is some other reference
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: as opposed to media or social media or government policy
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: and documents that can be used to be brought into
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: conversation with those other pieces.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and Melanie, I'm going to throw to you,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: but I think Jill and Christy, the important thing you
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: have both said is within teacher education, that teacher education
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: students have a theoretical grounding. So they, when they encounter
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: these forms of managerialism, they can have the sensibilities because
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: they have the theoretical grounding to say, but I don't
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: actually think that's ethical teaching, which is why when they
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: want method from us, we have to push back with theory, right?
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: So Melanie, to you.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: I'm, you know, Jill's metaphor of the fence reminded me
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: of what Margaret Atwood said when they were talking about,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: you know, how do you not feel overwhelmed with climate
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: change activism? And, you know, how does one single person
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: do it? And she said, you know, you rope off
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: your corner of the world and you work within that.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: And if that feels too overwhelming, you pull the rope
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: in a little bit more. So to sort of echo
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: some of Jill and Christy's things, I think about for
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: me in my, you know, what is my circle of influence?
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: What is in my rope? And for me, that's teaching
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: research and my public engagement stuff that I do, whether
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: that's writing or speaking. And so I do try to
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: kind of bring these critical perspectives in the work that
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: I do individually. And then there's also the collectives that
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I'm involved in, like, you know, people for public ed,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: my communications with Manitoba Teacher Society, podcasts such as this, right?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: I think there's ways in which collectively we we can also,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: you know, manifest some of that resistance, at least if
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: it's nothing more than conversations and raising awareness. And when
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: I think about that, for educators who might be listening
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: to this, you know, I think about their same thing,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: you know, what is their own circles of influence? And
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: for educators, it's parents and kids, you know, they have
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: a huge circle of influence just in the conversations that
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: they're having in their doors every day about what is education,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: what is the work we're doing here, you know, re-centering
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: the work. And I think about Again, to Christie's point
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: and MTS, so teachers and MTS working together to change
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: the narrative about let's not talk about what these competencies are.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about what public education is for and what
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: is the role of teachers in that. And then I
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: think one other way that educators, all of us can
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: help make a difference. And this sounds silly, but I
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: think it's in a way.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: So powerful is.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: In some recent interviews I was doing, one teacher said
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: to me, she goes, you know, an absolutely integral mode
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: of resistance is my school's Instagram page. She goes, I
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: am letting parents know every day what is important in
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: our school by the images that I choose to share.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: And they talk about, you know, if you and if
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: you look at the school's Instagram page, it's full of
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: kids playing, engage with literacy, engage with adults in meaningful ways.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: So I think just to sum that up, I would
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: say for all of us to think about our own
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: circles of influence and, you know, what are the places
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: in which we can have conversations and change narratives within that?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Melanie, Christy and Jill, for
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: this wonderful conversation today. you know, obviously it's hard to
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: argue against competency because we all want public school teachers
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: to be competent. You know, in this conversation, I'm thinking often,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: you know, am I a competent teacher or am I incompetent, right?
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: And Melanie, you talked about that binary that's constructed through these.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: Discourses.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: And yet through this conversation, you know, you've all highlighted
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: that there's a lot more going on in these discourses, right?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: And in ways that are reductive, that take away the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: complexity of what meaningful teaching and learning is and in
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: ways that could be harmful. So all three of you,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for sharing your time, your insights
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: and your expertise with us today.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having us.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Justin, what have you been thinking about since our conversation
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: with Christy, Jill, and Melanie?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: I really liked Melanie's quote where she said that we've
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: linked teacher quality with student outcomes. And that reminds me
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: of the neoliberalization of public ed in the U.S. over
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the past couple decades, which has obviously taken hold in
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Canada as well. And there's a lot of research that
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: demonstrates how problematic these education reforms have been. This linking
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: of teacher quality to student outcomes has arisen. all three
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: of our guests make clear that it neglects so many
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: other factors that contribute to student learning. And Melanie discusses
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: how competency standards position teachers as both the problem and
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: the solution, which in turn invisibilizes the systemic, the structural
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: issues facing public education. Underfunding, overcrowded classrooms, increasing classroom complexity,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: failing infrastructure, et cetera. And so there's an assumption baked
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: within competency standards that if you can just hit all
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: of your metrics as a teacher, you're going to be
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: successful and that learning is going to happen. But anyone
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: who's spent time in the classroom knows how ridiculous and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: oversimplified that is. Christy talks about how there's so many
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: micro decisions that teachers make every day and that they're
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: not reducible to a checklist. And this approach reduces teachers
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: to technicians, which is quite frankly dehumanizing. We talked a
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: little bit in this conversation about how teachers are subjectified
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: through competency standards and And I actually think that teachers
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: are increasingly subjectified and transmogrified as AI chatbots under these
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: neoliberal conditions. And that seems a little silly, but I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: actually wonder if the inevitable endpoint of competency standards is
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: something as dystopian as replacing teachers with AI, because AI
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: can satisfy that neoliberal checklist or metrics of what good,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: in quotes, what good teaching is under neoliberal conditions and rationality.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: And AI will save money because you don't have to
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: pay a teacher. And AI won't really develop critical thinking
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: in students. So I just think that this is a
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: win-win-win from a neoliberal rationality perspective, which is terrifying.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that idea that if you just do things in
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: a particular way, learning will certainly happen, right? And I
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: think the quote from their article that really says it
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: all is the assumption that teacher effectiveness improves student achievement
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: is is not substantiated in the research. This idea that
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: people cling to that if teachers were just better, and
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: better is predefined according to these competence criteria, that students
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: will in fact learn. And as you say, there are
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: a myriad of other factors at play that affect students'
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: capacity to learn in a classroom, right? If they come
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: to the classroom hungry, it doesn't matter if you're the
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: best teacher in the world standing on your head doing
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: the most amazing lesson. student in front of you is hungry,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: you know? And so this idea that it all depends
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: on the teacher is such a flawed way of looking
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: at education. It's a distraction technique and it's a bait
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: and switch. It makes people look at the teacher rather
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: than looking at the conditions that we have in our
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: current schools. And that's what we should be looking at
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: is how can governments improve the conditions in which people
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: exist outside of schools and And how can people improve
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: the conditions in which students and teachers are working and learning?
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: And I think that the bait and switch has become
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: palatable to the populace because of the feminization of the
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: teaching profession. So it's because of patriarchy that people have
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: been so trained to talk shit about women. And that's
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: really what this is, is it's become OK for society
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: to say this is all the fault of of a
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: heavily feminized profession of teaching, especially in the early years,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: it's heavily feminized. And then when people are over and
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: over again, blaming teachers for all the problems in education,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: nobody steps back and goes, Hey, that's wrong. Why are
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: you talking about the teaching profession in this way? Because
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: patriarchy has made it. So these ways that we speak
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: about women and feminized professions is somehow okay. When teachers
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: do express concerns about what's going on in the classrooms,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: they're just positioned as self-interested or greedy. And for some reason,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: society is unable to hear, well, not for some reason,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: for all the reasons I already said, society is unable
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: to hear the very real ethical concerns that teachers have
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: about what's going on in classrooms and instead position them
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: as you know greedy self-interested and and society just goes
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: okay to that and it's just like how have we
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: come to the point that we have rested everything on
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: the teacher's body were there were there other things other
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: than you know that myth that myth that if teachers
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: are just better kids will learn is was there anything else.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: That came up for you Yeah, I think this notion
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: of the OECD is really important to dig into a
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: little bit. And I admittedly was surprised that Jill talked
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: about balance near the beginning of our conversation. And she
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: says that there's no evil cabal at the OECD, which
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: is probably true. But I would also argue that there's
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of money being pumped into organizations that either
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: directly or indirectly support the mission of the OECD. I
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: live in BC right now, and the Fraser Institute is
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: in my backyard. And I unfortunately share a name with them.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: So this right-wing think tank loves using PISA scores from
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: the OECD to measure what constitutes a good education. And
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: so these PISA scores from the OECD are used to
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: manufacture this crisis about the failures of public education. And
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: then the only solution, as mentioned, these neoliberal groups push
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: is privatization. And I'd argue that so many of these
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: private individuals, groups, or corporations, that they fund groups like
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the Fraser Institute that have aims that are incredibly problematic, anti-democratic.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: So it's almost as if I think the OECD is
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: being used to launder neoliberal discourse by packaging them up
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: in a way that's palatable to the public, because as Melanie, Jill,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: and Christy make clear, like the rhetorical framing makes it
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: really difficult to argue against competencies What were your takes
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: on OECD's role in this conversation?
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I think this idea of politics veiling itself in neutrality, right?
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: The OECD obviously has economic interests. And yet we see
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: in provinces across Canada, this notion of competencies language, either
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: for students or teachers being imposed and driven by the OECD.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: And yet somehow that's positioned as neutral. That's part of
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: what I would say in regards to that. But I
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: wanted to go backwards and ask you about the notion
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: of balance. Do you think that academics and educators in
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: this moment feel this need to be balanced so that
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: their arguments will be heard or so that they won't
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: be positioned as too one-sided in their writing? What do
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: you think that's all about?
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: It's difficult because balance, just like neutrality, always seems to
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: serve the status quo. I think we're seeing the shifting
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: of the Overton window over the last several decades. And
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: so Balance is increasingly balancing. It's not just left and right,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: to use that simplified political framing, but it's balancing far
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: right with center right. And that makes me really uncomfortable because, again,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: nothing is neutral here. And this, quote, balance has implications
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: for what we take up, for what issues perhaps we're
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: allowed to discursively to surface or that we're allowed to
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: talk about, whether that's in classrooms or outside of classrooms.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: And so to the OECD imbalance, Jill says that the
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: OECD is trying to have these good conversations, but that
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: they might have an unawareness of the implications that neoliberal
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: discourse has on students, teachers, and communities. And again, that
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: could be true. But as the saying goes, the road
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: to hell is paved with good intentions. So even if
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: the folks at OECD are well-intentioned, trying to do this balancing.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: I also think they're an incredibly influential, well-funded organization. They're
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: fundamentally shaping the provision of public education across the world.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: And so they should be shouldering a much greater responsibility,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: and I would argue a culpability, for how they're remaking
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: schools and schooling in neoliberal ways.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The other thing that I wanted opportunity to speak
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: about more or that I hope is taken up a
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: little bit more in the media is how these competencies
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: can be weaponized and the ways in which it is
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: contributing to something that we have spoken about on the
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: podcast already, this notion of the chilling impact. How does
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: it make teachers afraid of taking up particular topics or
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: else they'll be deemed incompetent? Because one of the things
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: we spoke about in the interview was was anyone can
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: make a complaint in Manitoba. And what that means is
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: there could be somebody from parental rights lobbying group who
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: has it in for Justin Fraser. And so as a result,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: has never seen Justin Fraser teach, has no idea what
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: he's doing in his classrooms, but looks and sees what
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: Justin Fraser writes about as an academic. And as a
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: result decides, well, I'm going to launch a complaint against
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: this person for their teaching. And even if that complaint
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: is found to be It still causes a lot of
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: stress and anxiety for Justin Fraser in his classroom and
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: will probably result in Justin down the road teaching differently.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: And I think we need to talk about not just
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: how his competency predefined about what makes a good teacher.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: You just dance this way. Kids are going to learn
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: this way.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: That's just so ridiculous. But also how it's going to
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: be weaponized by people who have their own interests in class.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: converting the education system to their own ideological ways of
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: being and thinking. And I think in my anecdotal conversations
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: that I've had with teachers already, it has already had
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: an effect on teachers. I know one teacher in particular
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: who received a fishing scam that looked as though it
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: was from the competency police in Manitoba, for lack of
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: a better word. So they thought that a complaint had
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: been made against them, but it was actually a fishing scam.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: But the teacher thankfully didn't click on the link and
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: their first thought was to reach out to IT. But
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: they spoke to me afterwards about the effect that that
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: had on them for the three days that they didn't
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: know what this supposed complaint was. And they thought to themselves,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: what did I talk about? What have I talked about
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: in my classroom? And they started to like reflect and
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: think what they what they might have done wrong, right?
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: This notion that as educators, if we are not perfect,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: we're going to be called out for being.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: Incompetent, right?
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: And I mean, teachers talk all day long. Well, I
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: hope teachers don't talk all day long, but as in
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: lecture all day long. But I mean, we're up there
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: conversing with people all day long. Is there going to
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: be moments where you say something flippantly? Or is there
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: going to be moments where somebody takes your teaching out
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: of context and does something with that? You know, I
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: just worry about the ways this is going to be weaponized.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: You know, I, in my academic career, did have a
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: parental rights group launch a complaint against me for a
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: talk that I gave in Regina. And they complained to
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: everybody from my research ethics board to the Social Science
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: and Humanities Research Council, just because they didn't like what
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: I said about the rights of 2SLGBTQIA people. And those
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: complaints were found to be ridiculous by both of those
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: organizations but it still added stress to my life of
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: course right and thankfully I have my institution behind me
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: and what I was saying aligns with human rights legislation
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: of the province the charter of rights and freedoms like
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: but like the time these people will take to complain
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: and the effect that that has on you is I
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: think something that we need to talk about what that's
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: actually doing to teachers teachers who are already working in
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: conditions that are stressful. We're working with children and youth
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: and teachers take that as a heavy responsibility. And when
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: somebody is basically has these competencies as a gun to
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: your head throughout the day, it's going to have an
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: effect on the way you feel as a human being,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: your stress, your sense of self-worth. And, you know, when teachers,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: as a result, do self-censor, we know that the research
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: says they feel demoralized. So if a teacher is not
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: talking about the rights of queer kids in their classrooms
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: because they are worried that somebody will complain against them,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: the result is that they go home feeling demoralized because
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: they've let down queer kids in their classes.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: The problem with these competencies is it contributes to a
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: chilling effect. It erases people's lives. It makes teachers jobs
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: more stressful. And it gives a lot of power to
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: people in the education system to make complaints against teachers
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: that maybe should not have that power. And I shouldn't
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: say the word maybe they should not have that power.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: You know, teachers are not against discussions about what makes
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: us professional and how we can be more professional as
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: this podcast series has made clear. These are people and
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: teachers who think a lot about their profession. That's the
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: one thing that all of the educators we've spoken to
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: have in common is they think.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: A lot about their teaching.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: It weighs heavy on them as human beings. It is
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: a huge responsibility. And for somebody to think that teachers
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: are not taking that seriously is a flawed way of
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: thinking in the first place. So I hope we get to.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: Talk about this a lot in future episodes.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: I'm sure we will. Until next time.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Until next time.