1980s
Teachers Rally on the Steps of Legislature, 1988
- Saskatchewan Bulletin
The ‘8Os opened with a warning from President Karen Rongve that bi-level bargaining and local control of local issues were in danger if trustees continued to refuse to discuss working conditions at the bargaining table. Speaking at the SSTA annual convention in November 1980, Rongve said: “The stance taken by many school boards is that present legislation allows trustees to keep working conditions of teachers as a management right.”
For two years teachers had been passing resolutions at Council meetings urging the executive of the STF to ask the government to include such items at the provincial level, or to change the structure of negotiations if the trustees remained recalcitrant.
Public school teachers in Calgary went on strike for 41 days in 1980 over working condition issues. The Calgary teachers were ordered back to work, but did achieve a ministerial order requiring the school board to go back to the table and bargain working conditions.
In the spring of 1981 STF members were told that improvement in the quality of teachers’ work life was defensible on its own merits as an organizational goal. Saskatchewan teachers agreed. STF teacher welfare staff were already working on discussion papers on noon-hour supervision, preparation time, part-time job sharing and paid parenting leave. Professional development people were aware of the phenomenon called “stress,” which was affecting teachers all over the province. Lionel Sproule, incoming president in 1981, recalls, “All around the province there were ‘bushfires,’ spontaneous situations of teacher unhappiness, teacher concern, teacher discontent about something.”
In September of 1981 the Federation held a conference on the quality of teachers’ work life that Lionel Sproule remembers as the most successful conference the Federation has ever had. Nearly 600 teachers attended, representing locals all over the province, along with representatives from the SSTA, the universities, the Department of Education, and other Western Canadian teacher organizations. Saskatchewan teachers went back to their associations prepared to help local members identify and articulate local concerns, and by the beginning of 1982 it was evident that noon-hour supervision was at the top of the list.
Not all the issues facing teachers in the ‘8Os are clear cut. Gary Genge feels that the work of the Federation in serving teachers is getting more complicated, not less.
“I’d speculate that it has quite a bit to do with the changing nature of the teaching profession—it’s a better trained profession. Teachers are more sophisticated in carrying out their jobs, and to the degree that we interact with them in professional development and the like, it’s not as simple as advocating the use of Cuisenaire rods. We get ‘multi-channels’ going down the same track. We get questions in areas like classroom management, special education, integration of special education students in the ‘mainstreaming’ program, computers, gifted education, multi-graded classrooms, all superimposed on a scenario—particularly in parts of rural Saskatchewan—where there’s a declining enrolment, So people are also somewhat fearful for their own economic welfare and simply retaining a job.”
Ruben Richert has been working in the area of professional development for nearly 20 years with the Federation. For the last three years one of his special areas of responsibility has been the northern schools, and he too finds that rural and northern teachers are especially vulnerable to the pressure of today’s conditions.
“Northern teachers often feel isolated, or cut off professionally. And I think that a lot of teachers in the rural schools are starting to feel that way, because of declining enrolments. Where they used to have two Grade 2 teachers now there’s only one teacher covering Grades 2 and 3, and only two high school teachers trying to cover the spectrum.”
To add to their problems, Richert finds that rural teachers may suffer additional stress because of the lack of support services of the kind available in the city systems. “People are expected to teach two or three grades, with some hearing handicapped and some emotionally disturbed students, without the kind of support services that are needed. We’re a long, long way from having equality of opportunity for students when you compare the ‘Cadillac’ systems in which you have psychometricians, educational psychologists, ‘itinerants’ for the gifted, for the emotionally disturbed, and special classes in almost every area, with some of the rural areas which don’t have any of these services at all.”
Richert argues that as well as fighting to remove the “dissatisfiers” such as noon-hour supervision, the STF has an obligation to help teachers put more satisfaction into their work life, and that’s the job of professional development. “The only way you can get at the issue of satisfaction is through professional development—giving the person more opportunities, more expertise to make decisions about their students and their needs, more expertise and opportunities for self-renewal.” Staff relations, or how people work and live together in their school, how they make decisions, and their work environment are the real satisfiers, according to Richert. “I would argue that both morally and politically we have a responsibility to help all the members of the profession to get more satisfaction from their careers.”
Mel Lofstrom, General Secretary of the Federation since 1982, feels that a commitment to quality education and further developments in the teaching profession are as vital today as they were 50 years ago. “The STF has made significant gains for education and teachers, but they will be maintained and strengthened only through conscious and determined efforts by individual teachers, local associations and the provincial teacher organization,” he says.
“Our experience as educators and members of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation over the years has taught us that teachers can influence the direction of education in this province and that teacher involvement of this kind is a necessary component if we are to obtain our objectives.”
Lofstrom believes that the balanced commitment the Federation has displayed to the cause of education has produced results that support maintaining that approach.
“I look back on the past 50 years and there are some guiding lights. The balanced emphasis we have placed on professional development and teacher welfare has served us well and made us a credible organization. It has told our partners in education in the province—government, trustees, parents, universities—that we do not take positions lightly or move without a fair amount of thought. When all is said and done we have a sound record of meeting the first objective of the Federation—to promote the cause of education in Saskatchewan.”
In addition, according to Lofstrom, the history of education in Saskatchewan reveals that the significant partners in education spend a lot of time talking to one another, even if they do not always agree. “We have the openness and the trust that we can disagree, and very strongly, over some of the major issues, but we tend to maintain a respect for one another and that helps in the long run.”
In looking to the future, Lofstrom feels that in addition to continuing those successful approaches which have served well in the past, teachers must continue to emphasize building bridges for dialogue, understanding and trust among those in the educational community. In particular teachers must be prepared to make special efforts to listen to and understand the concerns of parents, to explain the programs and goals of the school and to build a supportive and trusting attitude toward the school, its programs and teachers.
He believes the goal of continuous learning must be a significant component of efforts in the K-12 programs. Schools must be seen as important building blocks for developing the skills and attitudes conducive to life-long learning.
Learning about oneself and preparing for a productive contribution in a democratic society, rather than preparation for a specific job or vocation, must be the goal of schools, Lofstrom says. “When young people see themselves as important individuals with opportunities to contribute to society and to continue to grow, we will have made a significant contribution in education.”
1983 is a special year for the Federation. It’s the Golden Jubilee year, the 50th birthday of a teacher organization whose vigorous pursuit of teacher objectives belies any notion of a comfortable middle age. It’s a time of leave taking, when many of the people who joined the Federation staff after the war or during the expansion in the late ‘5Os and early ‘60s have retired, or are about to do so. New people are joining the staff, there is new leadership in the Federation, and a new government in Regina.
General Secretary Mel Lofstrom believes that when all these things are considered, it will undoubtedly mean some change. In spite of this, for the organization it is an exciting time of review and looking ahead to new and continuing challenges for teachers and their professional organization.
“The Federation consists of people—in the schools, at the local association level and at the provincial level—who have a strong commitment to their province, and they will assure that the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation will continue to be a powerful advocate for a high quality professional life for teachers, and for high quality education for young people.”