This is a continuation of a previous post.
It is supposed to be a fundamental principle of criminal law that a person is presumed innocent until proven otherwise by the State (government). This is the ideology or the rhetoric (which much of the left have swallowed). The reality is otherwise. In reality, the administrative apparatus of various organizations of the government and semi-governmental organizations assume that you are guilty first and that you have to prove your innocence; otherwise, you suffer negative consequences.
An example is the requirements that the Ontario College of Teachers imposed on me in order for me to qualify as a teacher in the province of Ontario after I moved from the province of Manitoba. To qualify as a teacher in Ontario, you must gain the approval of the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT). The OCT website explains what this organization does:
ABOUT THE COLLEGE
The Ontario College of Teachers licenses, governs and regulates the Ontario teaching profession in the public interest.
Teachers who work in publicly funded schools in Ontario must be certified to teach in the province and be members of the College.
The College:
- sets ethical standards and standards of practice
- issues teaching certificates and may suspend or revoke them
- accredits teacher education programs and courses
- investigates and hears complaints about members
The College is accountable to the public for how it carries out its responsibilities.
You can find the qualifications, credentials and current status of every College member at Find a Teacher.
The College is governed by a 37-member Council.
- 23 members of the College are elected by their peers
- 14 members are appointed by the provincial government.
To qualify as a teacher in Ontario, among other things, you have to answer a questionnaire. On the questionnaire, there are questions concerning arrest–and since I was arrested by the RCMP (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) (but never convicted), I was obliged to prove my innocence in various ways.
I sent, along with my explanation, a table that I had constructed concerning my experiences (and the experiences of my daughter, Francesca) with the child welfare organization Winnipeg Child and Family Services (CFS), located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The table that I constructed about events is a revised version (always subject to change as I gather further evidence or order it better). I posted it earlier (see A Personal Example of the Oppressive Nature of Public Welfare Services).
Below is the first part of the answer to the second question:
I. Issues about my teaching ability. This issue needs to be broken into three parts: the issue of my competency as a senior-high French teacher, my competency as a middle-years French teacher before my assignment as a glorified educational assistant in September 2011 and my competency as a middle-years French teacher during the period from September 2011 to February 2012.
In May, 2011, during a staff meeting, the incoming principal for the year September 2011, Neil MacNeil, attended. During the staff meeting, he stated that he wished he could teach French, but unfortunately, he could not. Subsequent to that meeting, he invited me into a personal consultation. He informed me that I would no longer be teaching senior-high French as of September 2011. He implied that I was responsible for the decline in the number of students in the French program.
I taught French in a serious manner—I am not a “fun” teacher. For example, for one senior French class, I gave the combined grade 11 and 12 students the option of either writing a final exam or doing a final project on the genocide in Rwanda (I had purchased some material in French in relation to this issue earlier). Both sets of students chose the project (with appropriate modifications for expectations according to the grade level); they had to do some research related to the issue on the basis of a particular aspect that they had chosen and present their findings to the class and a short written report to me—both in French.
As a teacher, it is not my responsibility to sugar-coat a subject. If there is interest in a subject, then the person, if s/he is to learn, must conform to the conditions for learning that subject rather than to such external requirements as “having fun” (see the accompanying section from my dissertation pertaining to John Dewey’s analysis of drawing, which is relevant for the determination of what real interest involves).
My own assessment of my competency as a French senior-high school teacher was that I was probably better than average—although pedagogically I still had a lot to learn. I certainly was a much better senior-high school teacher than a middle-years teacher. The stripping of my position as a senior-high French teacher—ostensibly because of declining enrollment in the French program—humiliated me. The only evidence for such an action was the declining enrollment—hardly a rational ground for such an action—unless there is a causal relation between declining enrollments and incompetent teaching.
Looking at the issue of demographics of the school, the number of Aboriginal students in the school steadily was increasing (with problems associated with poverty rather than concern for learning what to many of them undoubtedly was a useless language). Mr. MacNeil’s refusal to look at the relevance of demographics in explaining the decline in enrollment in the French program is indicative of an inadequate grasp of the real situation (or, alternatively, the declining enrollment was simply used as an excuse to strip me of the position for political reasons).
In fact, the year that I left the school, the proportion of Aboriginal students was about two thirds. The former principal, Randy Chartrand (who himself is of Aboriginal background), had already attributed the decline in interest in French to the changing demographics of the student population. The reference to Aboriginal students is relevant since, during the time that I was a French high-school teacher at the school, I had only one Aboriginal student (and I adapted the course for her so that she would learn according to her own capacity). In general, the Aboriginal population has its own problems, quite distinct from the richer, mainly Caucasian (and dwindling) student population. Learning French was hardly one of the priorities of the majority of the student population or their parents. One parent, in fact, ask why we did not offer Aboriginal languages.
When I phoned Randy for a reference in 2013, he mentioned that the student population was even needier.
In any case, I generally enjoyed teaching French at the secondary level. I can only recall one student in grade 10 French who argued that I was a bad French teacher. He had negotiated with his parents the right to go to France provided that he attend grade 10 French. He went to France, but when he was obliged to take the grade 10 French class subsequently, he resisted and resented having to take it. Even when I began my chemotherapy treatments in mid-June 2009 (I felt that I should try to finish the school year), his attitude was very negative.
The same year, there was one parent of a high-school student who complained that his son, who was a student in the 90 percent range the previous year in French, was only receiving grades in the 60 percent range (the parent also worked at Ashern Central School as head custodian). I replied that his son was not making sufficient effort to obtain a grade of 90 percent. To learn anything requires effort. I did not indulge the student nor the parent. (The student, in fact, was a friend of the other student who claimed that I was an incompetent teacher.)
The Abolitionary 