This text is part of the special Syndicalism booklet
In Quebec schools, the number of unqualified teachers has reached new records. The labor shortage is glaring, as is the staff desertion rate. According to the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), part of the solution involves improving working conditions, but also a change of outlook on the profession.
After four years on the benches of the university, a quarter of young teachers will leave the profession during their first five years on the labor market. This is one of the professions with one of the highest desertion rates in the province, deplores Sylvain Mallette, president of the FAE.
“It’s difficult to interview teachers who leave the profession, since, for many of them, it’s perceived as a professional failure,” he observes. When we manage to question them, it is the very difficult working conditions in which they have been placed, but also, it is the contemptuous look that the managers have on them and the refusal to recognize the space they need to to work. »
For Sylvain Mallette, this record desertion rate is explained not only by the difficult working conditions, but also by a work climate in which the skills of the teachers are systematically undervalued. And according to him, this is explained by the fact that the profession is typically “feminine”. “These are ‘care’ professions, it is said that women have a ‘vocation’, that they will render services in spite of everything, he believes. Because it is a profession mostly made up of women, governments and administrators can afford to have a slightly more paternalistic, infantilizing view. It is very much a problem of recognition of expertise. »
A crying need for recognition
“Managers don’t say to themselves: ‘the teacher is capable of doing the job, of mobilizing his knowledge, of calling on his expertise,’ continues the union president. It’s as if they had the reflex to tell themselves that the teacher doesn’t know, so we’ll tell him what to do. Mr. Mallette gives as an example the operation of the training program in Quebec schools, which favors certain pedagogical approaches and excludes others. However, the same pedagogical approach does not work in the same way in different classes of the same school, he underlines. “The teacher should be able to experiment, to use several pedagogical approaches. The former teacher also observes this infantilization of teachers in the strategies put in place to support students in difficulty. “It’s like saying to the teacher: ‘if you have problems in your class, it’s not because your class is poorly composed or that the services don’t exist, it’s you who aren’t not prepared and trained. »
For many years, teachers had to stay at school to make corrections to student work, while school principals could change students’ grades without the knowledge of teachers, continues Mr. Mallette. “We waged a battle so that, in the law, evaluation is the exclusive domain of teachers,” he says. This is a fundamental gain for the profession, which ensures the integrity of the assessment process. Sylvain Mallette considers that the teacher must have the choice to carry out his correction tasks where and when he wishes; it is a guarantee of trust and recognition of its expertise.
“There are very heavy tasks, little support from managers, no recognition, a perpetual questioning of the decisions made by the teacher in his class, and it ends up weighing very heavily, he sighs. . It undermines the credibility that the teacher has of himself. »
Change of look
In addition to the amendments to the law to prevent “tampering with notes”, a guide to professional assertion aimed at determining the situations that harm the recognition of the expertise of professors has been published, rejoices Mr. Mallette. A system of teacher mentors for young teachers and intervention research associating mental health and work organization have been set up.
But for the union president, it will take individual and collective awareness concerning the teacher work climate, in order to better denounce the elements [malsains] and provide solutions for teachers to achieve professional fulfillment. For many elements, the struggle for the recognition of the profession should also be inspired by the feminist struggle, he believes.
“Words must be accompanied by a change of outlook, of mentality, of mutual respect,” he asserts. “That’s what union action allows us to do, not only for the rights of workers, but also for the recognition of their expertise. »