Timeline for Education and Teaching

September 1974 to June 1979 High School

September 1979 to August 1980 Work doing Vacuum Installs

September 1980 to December 1980 University of Guelph

January 1981 to August 1981 Work and Lessons and Auditions for Music School

August 1981 found apartment in Hamilton - 40 Oxford Street

September 1981 Started Mohawk College

July 1983 Summer Tour with Heartbeat Band

September 1983 to April 1984 Graduating Year of Mohawk College

May 1984

September 1984 started McMaster Music

May 1985 Trip to Colorado Springs

May 1986 Trip to Philippines

April 1987 graduated McMaster Music

September 1987 started Bachelor of Education at Faculty of Ed. University of Toronto (FEUT)

April 1988 graduated FEUT, granted Ontario Teaching Certificate

April/May 1988 AQ course in ESL part 1

June 1987 Supply teaching in Oakville

June 1987 Interviews in Mattawa and Sudbury. Hired for Music at Lockerby Composite School in Sudbury. Starting salary approximately $25,000/year.

September 1988 moved to own apartment in Garson, just outside of Sudbury. Began teaching music, adult art, history.

April 1989 Lockerby Jazz Band won Gold at Northern Ontario Band Festival

May 1989 trip to Musicfest Nationals in Toronto, won Bronze

July/August 1989 trip to England, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Germany

August 1989 engagement with Brenda :)

December 1989 moved to Walford Road apartment in Sudbury

May 1990 band trip to Boston

July 1990 our wedding. Honeymoon at Pat Shaw's cottage on Pickerel River. Travel to Indianapolis for the coveted "Bill Gothard Institute" OMG OMG I can't believe it. Somebody stole Brenda's new compact bible LOL. We hated the teaching about music being evil. Damn straight we did.

July/August 1990 getting moved and settled in at Walford Road apartment in Sudbury.

September 1990 Brenda starts BA at Laurentian University, while I continue music teaching, we opened our piano lab and I was also picking up some history and basic math courses.

May 1991 band trip to Bahams.

May 1992 band trip to Hawaii. Brenda came along as an additional chaperone.

June 1992 last day teaching at Lockerby. Resigned from Sudbury Board of Ed. Packing up and moving to Hamilton.

July 1992 moved into our basement apartment on Harvest Road in Dundas. Resumes sent out in all directions.

August 1992 interviewed with Glenn Mallory for Hamilton Board of Ed and was hired to work in teaching music at Tweesdmuir Middle School.

September 1992 first day teaching at Tweedsmuir. Brenda babysat for Linda, I would drop her off on my way to work.

February 1993 bought our house on Adeline Avenue and moved in on the coldest day of the year!

June 1993 Olivia enters the world!

September 1995 first day at Memorial (City) School.

December 1995 Ian enters the world!

September 1998 first day at Viscount Montgomery School.

December 1999 Elinor enters the world!

September 2007 first day at Parkdale Elementary School, teaching grade two.

September 2014 first day teaching itinerant music at Adelaide Hoodless, Queen Victoria, Franklin Road and Mount Hope schools. 

November 30 2014 retirement date. November 28 last teaching day.

June 2013, Now Having Taught For 24 years

Now it's June 24 and there are four days of school left, five if you count the staff meeting on Friday. This has been a somewhat unusual year because of the uncertainty and conflict created by the Ontario government's stripping of our contracts.

Bill 115 was passed hurriedly at the end of August 2012 and set the stage for the upcoming school year. It described unprecedented unilateral contract changes that, in the name of "balancing Ontario's books" simply robbed each and every teacher of their negotiated rights and their hard-earned cash.

At stake was the retirement gratuity, a two year wage freeze and a change to the sick leave plan. The hardest hit were our younger teachers with less than ten years experience. As it turned out, all of their banked sick days were paid out at a rate comparable to highway robbery.

I squeaked under the wire with more than 20 years service and at the time of this writing still will receieve a retirement gratuity.

There were two major rallies in Toronto. First one was last August before classes began, where about twenty thousand people gathered on the lawn of Queen's Park. Later, in January during the Liberal leadership convention, a larger and more boisterous rally was held. This rally was a reaction to the implementation of the controversial Bill 115, which arbitrarily set the terms for teacher contracts until August 2014.

As described earlier, every teacher felt the impact of Bill 115, and resentment toward the government was at an all-time high as Laurel Broten continued to tell stories to the media and complain about how she was "so disappointed" in the teachers for not cooperating with the government. (Government. "We gave you a nice gun. Why don't you want to cooperate with us and pull the trigger?) In the weeks after, teachers sought to hold a one-day political protest and walk off the job. However, this was taken to the OLRB and was deemed to be an illegal action after 24 hours of deliberation.

A pathetic political move was made when Broten announced that Bill 115 was to be repealed shortly after contracts were imposed. Broten was soon out of a job and disappeared off the political stage immediately. Just like John Snobelen 16 years earlier, her "educational toolkit" had the wrong tools in it.

Teachers continued to express their dissatisfaction with their situation by pulling back from all voluntary activities - anything that is not specified in the Education Act as pertaining to their duties. In most schools that meant that all extra-curricular teams, clubs, and activities were stopped.

At Parkdale, I chose to not spend thirty hours of my weekends and evenings to design our annual year book. I came to work 15 minutes before the opening bell. I ensured my students were dismissed safely at the end of the day and then I went home. I used my preparation time to prepare my lessons and my report cards. And when I was not at work, I was not at work.

Throughout this spring of 2013, things progressed slowly. Over the course of this year I sent out 95 email updates to our school staff. We were surprised when OSSTF suddently came to an agreement with the government, putting extra-curriculars back into the high schools. But ETfO members forged on, pursuing our own interests in solidarity. We had made our voices heard through the rallies and through our collective action, and we won the right to sit down with the new premier Kathleen Wynne. For the past four months negotiations have been taking place and yesterday marked the end of the voting period where members voted YES or NO to the "Memorandum of Understanding."

We await the announcement of the results of that vote.

Now, there is a great sense of relief in the air as the year draws to a close.

One highlight of the MOU is the promised 2014 removal of the 2% penalty which was imposed on ETFO members' salaries in 2008. Another interesting item is the bonus of a day's pay if less than five of the eleven sick days are used next year. Only one of three unpaid days will remain. Teachers may apply for, and not be unreasonably denied, up to five unpaid days of leave.

At the presetn, we're in a situation where each teacher has 11 sick days, and no opportunity to carry them over, and no incentive to not use them or to save them. We are facing daily supply teacher shortages unlike any other year. It's because of good conscience, good morals and teachers' commitment to the profession and one another that our schools continue to function almost normally in these final few days of classes.

Our principal of the past four years, Peter Maliphant, is moving on to A.M. Cunningham, and we will welcome our new principal Stewart Cameron on Friday. Peter has been a very decent man to work with. I have found him reasonable and approachable. On many occasions I've been able to support him with computer issues that had him confused.

As far as the graduating class goes, they have been a very good bunch. I taught almost every one of them in grade two. It is deeply satisfying and intriguing to see them grow up and to develop into young adults with a wider and deeper range of skills and abilities. This class of graduates is the third group of grade fives that I previously taught in grade two. My original grade two class from 1998 is now completing grade eight.

Microsoft School of Counting

Let's see...

First comes 3.1
Then... 95
After that... 98
Next? 2000
And then... ME
Followed by... XP
Then: Vista!
And of course after that we have .... (fanfare please) 7!

It makes perfect sense, don't you think? 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7

Drawing to a Close - Again

This is the end of my first year teaching primary. It has gone by really quickly. All in all it has been a very enriching and rewarding experience, and it has done much to rejuvenate my heart for teaching. The open minds of my grade twos have been very refreshing, while at the same time I have learned tons about how limited their experience and knowledge of the world is.

As the last few weeks of this school year melt away, I'll be busy with various special activities. For instance, we are making a banner for our Country Music Day. There will be a year end classroom art project that the students contribute to, like a quilt or something. And, all the while, I'm looking at our present grade ones and trying to imagine what joys and surprises I'll have teaching them next year!

Taking Stock of 8 Years

Just trying to capture the main things-

• band performances- at graduation, during student assemblies, to primary classes
• band performances- at Churchill SS, at SJAM SS for Band Festival
• band competition- Musicfest 2005, St. Catherines, silver award
• purchase of new instruments- 2 clarinets, 6 trumpets, 1 trombone, bass clarinet, 2 flutes
• classroom books- Accent on Achievement, Essential Elements- Jazz
• computer lab- refurbished all machines on old W98 platform
• computer lab- worked with IBM rollout team, 2003-4 for school computer plan
• computers- new network connections in rooms 19, 16, 18, 20, 23, 14, 27, 24
• computers- additional workstations in rooms 19, 18, 14, 23, 24 (library) purchased through home and school
• sound equipment- purchased amp/mixer for auditorium and special events, MES supplier, Hamilton
• sound equipment- purchased USB/microphone interface for sound recording
  
• library- weeded entire collection 2006, adjusted and moved furniture and shelves
• library- with assistance form LLRC staff, catalogued and shelved several hundred new titles
• library- with assistance form LLRC staff, developed a list of priorities and tasks for completing the library set up
  
• library- added computer workstations, bringing total to 12, including one for circulation
• library- reading storage room shared for ESL teaching, 2006-7
• library- Scholastic Book Fair, Feb 2007, earned $1700 in spendable credit with Scholastic. Next book fair scheduled for Sept. 2007
• projects- grad and award certificates, graduation certificates, memory books, graduation slide shows, Remembrance Day slide shows and assemblies
• projects- school musical- selections from Joseph
• projects- stop-time animation, paper cutout method, grade 8/English