Thread by @lflfilipe

I’ve had a lot of emotions cycling through my mind since yesterday’s announcement, and have been trying to find the right words to share, beyond the staggering numbers. What this means to me as a teacher; what your kids mean to me; and what all this could mean for the both of us.

Being a high school teacher is a funny job. You are so much a part of their lives for four years; seeing them every day, and watching them grow over such a significant and influential part of their lives.

You’re a part of big moments both in the classroom, where their achievement reveals something special about them, & outside the classroom, where you really learn how multi-faceted they are as human beings, as they win soccer championships or compete in mock trial tournaments.

And then you aren’t. And they’re gone, often forever, from your lives. Sometimes they come back to say hi, but life takes off and they are happy and successful, you hope.

Your children ask me a lot of questions in the meantime. They ask me questions about their lives; about friends; about what it means to be happy; and how to know when you’re doing the right thing, among other things.

They want to know what they’re good at, & how they will know, & they ask what it means to change their mind in the future. They are curious about life. Your teen, who never seems to say more than “fine” to anything you ask them, has a lot to say about a lot of things.

When things happen in the world they can’t make sense of - like what happened in New Zealand - they ask about that too. Imagine being asked why bad things happen, by a 15 year old, and then having to address it with a room of them?

These are heavy, important conversations. And conversations I take seriously, and consider a privilege to have.

And these are not small conversations in length. They can often last for a couple of hours, after school.

This year, in particular, with a newborn son, these conversations and commitments have caused tension in my own life between my responsibilities as a partner and father, and what I feel like are my responsibilities to your children and what they want and need.

What they want and need is what gets me to coach a team or put together an assembly I probably don’t have the time for. But it matters to them, so it matters to me.

I think about your kids a lot. I am nervous with them as they await word from a program they applied to. I am sad with them when they lose a big game. I am frustrated for them when the work they put in doesn’t translate to the kind of academic success they want.

At least not yet; because we know it’s a process, and many will eventually get there. They ask about that too.

I write letters of reference for them that, as I complete them and list their qualities, often catch me off guard with how incredible these growing people are as human beings.

Your kids have inspired me to have my own children and I often wonder which of your children’s attributes by son might one day have. And as he has gotten older, he has met your kids.

So they are a part of his extended family now as well. They ask me about him, too. They even stop in the street to day hi to him as my family is out for a walk.

I also sit with your kids when they cry, are disconsolate, and are in the depths of crisis. That has been happening more and more lately.

Over the last few years I have had to intervene in more and more situations where students were contemplating suicide, wrestling with severe anxiety, and other substantial mental health challenges.

I get a lot of emails from them when they are panicked & unsure of themselves or their work. I am often hit with how much seems to be at stake with my interactions with them; how grateful I am for having stopped to ask a student how they were doing, & what that question reveals.

This has become increasingly harder to do, and there are some I haven’t checked in with that haunt me over a period of time away like the March Break.

With the prospect of classrooms swelling even further in size, I worry about how much less of that I will be able to do, as I shift my focus to the everyday, logistical, and operational functioning of a classroom.

I worry about what I won’t, or can’t see, anymore. The conversations I won’t have. And how your kids will feel coming to school every day with less and less opportunities to connect.

Already, the TDSB student census revealed some concerning trends about students’ sense of belong. I worry what will happen as they increasingly become one face among many, as classroom sizes increase, or are forced to interact with a course solely through a computer screen.

Those conversations can’t happen the same way. And I don’t know what that will mean, long term.

Am I concerned about my job? Of course I am. Like you, I have a family to support. I have a newborn son, and a partner on mat leave. I have bills to pay like anyone else.

And I have worked really hard during my 11 years as a teacher, and I am proud of the work I do every day. Both in terms of its meaning, but also in terms of the quality of the work I do.

But I am concerned for your children. Those same children I sit with everyday; talk to about small and big things. I am worried for what yesterday’s announcement will mean for them, as they move into high school.

I am worried about what I am being asked to do, and whether it will be impossible.

What is frustrating about yesterday’s announcement is that that none of it is about your kids. It’s not about what they need. I don’t think @LisaThompsonMPP or @fordnation think about your kids the way I do.

I don’t think they make decisions about your kids the way I do. I don’t think they care about your kids the way I do.

Are bigger class sizes better for your kids? Is less teacher contact better for your kids?

Even if the reduction in teachers is somehow perfectly captured by other teachers retiring or resigning, there will still be chaos in schools as teachers are shifted around the system and spread out to meet the arbitrary nature of these changes.

It will destroy the community and culture of schools, something that takes years of careful work and support to build. Things that cannot be captured by a dollar amount. Is that what your kids need right now? Is that what you need right now?

This government seems to know the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.

So I am sitting here thinking not just about the questions and conversations I have with your kids now. I’m thinking about the questions and conversations I won’t have because of these changes.

And I think your kids, and mine, deserve better. And I hope you let them know you feel the same way.