In the parlance of school report cards, new Minister of Education Peter Fassbender has a proven track record of playing well with others. He has chaired, co-chaired or been a member of many serious public-service committees, almost all of which dealt with potentially troublesome policy and financial issues at one time or another.
Already though, he has been tagged partly at least as a member of a back-to-the-basics school board in Langley 34 years ago. (Who among us would want to be judged based on who or what we were 34 years ago?)
Fassbender finds himself responsible for B.C.’s $5.3-billion education budget at the time when the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation has elected a new president, Jim Iker, replacing long-serving Susan Lambert.
The problem with being the new kid on the playground is figuring out the power structure: who it is safe to play with, who to be cautious about and who to keep a good distance from when the adults are not watching.
Hopefully, both Fassbender and Iker have those kinds of survival skills. He’s the sixth minister of education since Lambert became a major player with the BCTF, and leadership in the union has had a better history of stability than the minister’s office.
One of Fassbenders’ first challenges might be to lock down that revolving door to the minister’s office, through which innumerable appointees have passed so recently, and engage in a period of watchful waiting to assess what public education in B.C. is really all about in 2013.
We all remember the time it took at a new school to figure out the games and the subtle nuances of “local rules” that shaped how to play those games successfully. That takes time and a willingness to tread carefully.
What, for example, with a new government elected for the next four years and possibly beyond, would be a realistic approach to short- or even mid-term labour relations with the BCTF?
Likely not announcing a 10-year “take it or leave it” proposal as a lead media story, as was so unwisely and so prematurely done recently.
Fassbender clearly has gained experience working under the radar since his days with the Langley “Basics Bunch,” as they were known at that time. His best work since then has been accomplished quietly with an impressive variety of public governance and public-service boards, just getting stuff done without fanfare.
Hopefully, that style of play might translate well into taking a better-informed look at the role of standardized testing throughout the system. Understanding the educational purposes, rather than political ones, of testing at the grades 4, 7, 10 and 12 levels might result in accomplishing what many experienced teachers want — reliable ways to measure how the kids are doing without it becoming a dangerously politicized activity.
Is it time to look at Ontario’s decision to make some adjustments in the reckless policies by which universities continue to train kids for teaching jobs that just don’t exist? Last year, B.C. teacher-training institutions produced more than 2,500 new teachers for maybe 500 jobs.
Given that the only way to really learn how to teach is by teaching, not by waiting for that teacher-on-call phone summons once a week in urban areas, young teachers might be more inclined to gain real classroom experience in Interior and northern schools if they can, and later, seek positions in more populated areas offering a wider range of experience and career-development possibilities.
Much could be accomplished by a slow-to-react, independently minded, experienced, well-informed and, most important, longer-term minister of education.
Many in public education hope that, finally, that person might be Fassbender.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
