Meet the
Professional Affairs Team
"Your
College is going to value you
for what you’re doing now."
By
Philip Carter
Even when
he’s sitting still, Joe Atkinson looks like
he’s in motion.
He radiates
enthusiasm for teaching. And as he lays the
groundwork for sweeping changes in the
profession, he has a message for educators.
"We haven’t done a good job of telling
the public what we do well. A big part of our job
here at the College is to change that."
Atkinson
worked for the Ontario Public School
Teachers’ Federation for 23 years and helped
the federation earn an international reputation
for professional development. Now he’s
taking on a much bigger challenge. As the College
of Teachers’ co-ordinator of professional
affairs he’s trying to make lifelong
learning a central part of every Ontario
teacher’s professional career.
| Today, he’s
meeting with Linda Grant and Janice
Thomson. Grant is responsible for the
College’s professional standards and
education program. Thomson will lead the
College’s accreditation program. |
 |
They’re
discussing the first year’s priorities for
the College’s Professional Affairs
Department. They’re joking, laughing,
finishing each other’s sentences, obviously
on the same wavelength.
Their first
priority is clear. They want to hear from College
members. How far can they stretch their budget
for consultation?
"Make
sure you let everyone know about our web
site," says Atkinson. "We started our
consultation with questions posted on the web
site even before we hired most of our staff. We
haven’t had much response because most
teachers don’t yet know about the web site,
but we felt it was important to establish this
interactive dialogue right from the beginning.
"Once
teachers learn about the web site in
Professionally Speaking, we think this
conversation with our colleagues is going to take
off.
"This
is going to become a very important tool for the
profession as we work together to develop
standards and a framework for professional
learning," says Atkinson.
"We
want teachers to tell us what they think, based
on their learning and experience. We’ll post
a synopsis of those ideas regularly, and the
discussion will go from there. We also want to
hear from members about additional issues or
ideas we should pursue.
"We’re
going to carry on this dialogue with our
classroom colleagues through the web, through
stakeholder groups, through conferences - however
we can."
Teachers
are going to be surprised
Linda Grant
believes the College’s commitment to
Internet communication sends an important message
to teachers. "This is a tool that is vital
to effective learning and teaching in the 1990s.
We’re saying to teachers that working with
the web is an important part of our professional
behaviour.
"But the more important
message that it sends is that you don’t have to be at a university
or a big-city board office to be heard by your College on professional
issues."
Every
teacher in Ontario will be affected in some way
within five years by the College’s
professional standards andaccreditation programs,
says Janice Thomson. "The initiatives the
profession is starting will change the public
perception of teachers, and the way teachers
perceive themselves."
Teachers
are going to be surprised, says Atkinson.
"Some are going to be very surprised.
Because what we’re saying in many cases is
'your College is going to value you for what
you’re doing now'. So for example, if a
rowing coach does a weekend seminar on sports
psychology, we’re going to recognize that
this is part of professional growth... there are
hundreds of examples like that.
"A lot
of the professional learning we’re talking
about is cost-free to teachers. It’s already
part of their daily practice."
Atkinson
said many educators will be surprised to hear
that the Ontario College of Teachers intends to
accredit professional development offered by the
federations. "We know the federations are
offering some high quality programs that teachers
want, and there should be value attached to these
by the College."
Mandate
is clear
On the
other hand, the professional affairs team say
their mandate is very much what the profession
expects - to develop standards of practice and
teacher education, then to accredit the
providers; to develop a continuum of professional
learning, and accredit that, and to provide
teachers throughout their careers with snapshots
of their skills and strengths.
But they
caution that developing standards will not happen
quickly. "You can’t do this work
overnight if you’re committed to listening
and consulting widely," says Grant.
"This is going to be an evolutionary
process, and we’re going to make sure that
teachers are directly involved in the development
of standards. Through it all, we’ll share
the evolution of these standards with the
teaching profession through Professionally
Speaking, the web and other avenues."
Grant says
the first project facing the Professional Affairs
staff is to work with the Governing Council and
the College membership to develop an overall plan
for professional learning. "That’s the
big job, building a consensus about the work this
department should do over the next few years and
how we should do it."
Concrete
proposals
But the
team will also be proposing three more concrete
projects in the College’s first year.
"These
are only starting points," says Atkinson.
"We could have chosen another 50 starting
points, but these are the ones we’re
proposing to the Council - all areas where we
believe the profession will be eager to see the
results."
The first
is a review of the faculties of education, which
were last reviewed by the Ministry of Education
in the early 1980s.
Thomson’s
accreditation program will take a comprehensive
look at pre-service training. "There are
wonderful things in every university’s
program. But we have to be sure that all the
faculties are giving teacher candidates the
training they need to meet standards.
"We’re
not just going to focus on the faculties.
We’re going to ask associate teachers and
principals 'are the graduates that you see
learning the skills they need? Are they getting a
professional education that will fit them to walk
into a classroom and provide the children of
Ontario with educational
opportunities?’"
There are
some blunt questions the profession needs to ask,
says Grant. "Should we be admitting students
into education faculties who don’t know how
to turn on a computer? Should we be training
teachers to teach math who haven’t taken a
math course themselves since Grade 10?"
Atkinson
says he hopes to see three pilot sites operating
at Ontario faculties - at least one French -
before the end of the year as part of the
department’s initiative to develop criteria
for teacher education.
Supervisory
qualifications
The team
would also like to see the College begin work in
a much smaller program area - supervisory officer
qualifications. The ministry developed a
guideline for this area in 1990 and Atkinson says
it’s "one of the freshest programs out
there right now.
"The
supervisory officials already have a review
running and we would be able to work with them.
This area is in pretty good shape and we may be
able to use the process to develop models for
standards and accreditation in other areas."
Teacher
as researcher
But the
project that really taps the enthusiasm of the
professional affairs team is ongoing professional
learning Ñ the "teacher as researcher"
or "action research".
"We
have teachers, department heads, principals who
do research - or would like to - arising out of
their day-to-day work," says Atkinson.
"Is it valued? Can our profession find a way
to recognize the value of what happens when three
teachers get together to talk and problem solve?
"This
project, more than anything else, values the work
that classroom teachers are already doing.
"Again,
there are groups already up and running that are
looking at this. We’d like to support their
work and get their input into Ontario College of
Teachers standards."
Asked what
he hopes College members will learn from this
interview, Joe Atkinson has a quick answer,
"We want them to know their opinions are
valued, that we want to work together with them.
The more we can involve our members, the more
successful the College will be."
To
learn more about Professional Affairs or respond
to the questions posted by Standards of Practice
and Education or Accreditation, click here.
Experienced
Team Leads Professional Affairs
 |
| Joe
Atkinson |
Long-time
federation staffer Joe Atkinson is Co-ordinator,
Professional Affairs. He was seconded to the
College from his position as OPSTF Director of
Professional Development Services.
Atkinson
graduated top of his class from Lakeshore
Teachers’ College in 1966 and went to work
in the Toronto Board of Education, where his
early experience included teaching in inner city
junior and intermediate programs and in the
outdoor education, gifted and adult education
programs.
He joined
OPSTF professional development staff in 1974 and
was named director in 1991. The Ontario
Teachers’ Federation awarded him a
fellowship in 1992 in recognition of his
contribution to teachers’ professional
learning in Ontario and across North America.
Atkinson
holds a BA in psychology from York and a MEd in
educational administration from OISE/UT. A
dedicated community volunteer, he has served as
President of the Ajax-Pickering United Way, chair
of his local hospital’s board and has been
an Ajax town councillor since 1985.
 |
| Janice
Thomson |
Janice
Thomson is Manager of the College’s
Accreditation Unit. She is responsible for
developing criteria for teachers’
pre-service and in-service education programs and
the accreditation process.
She began
her career in education with 17 years in Hamilton
secondary schools. She joined the Ministry of
Education in 1987 and worked on liaison with
school boards and interest groups, and native
education policy.
Thomson has
worked on the College of Teachers project since
1995. She is co-author of the 1986 secondary
school text Canada: History in the Making and has
contributed to educational TV series for both CBC
and TVO.
She
received her teaching certificate after
graduating from U of T’s Faculty of
Education and earned her Supervisory
Officer’s Certificate in 1987.
 |
| Linda
Grant |
Linda
Grant is Manager of the College’s Standards
of Practice and Education Unit. She is
responsible for research and development of
standards of practice as well as a framework for
professional learning for teachers throughout
their careers, from entry into faculties of
education to supervisory officers.
Grant came
to the College from OPSTF, where she was
executive assistant in the professional services
department since 1987. She began her career in
Hamilton schools and has been a teacher,
teacher-librarian, vice-principal, principal,
faculty of education instructor and Ministry of
Education officer.
She has
received awards for her contributions to
education from - among others - FWTAO, OPSTF and
the Ontario Educational Research Council. Grant
holds a BA from McMaster, a MEd from Brock and an
EdD from OISE/UT.
