I had a really nice conversation with a credit card representative the other day… turned out that the young person is going through teacher’s college. We ended up talking for half an hour about the challenges of the profession, and I shared — summarizing as best as I could — what I had learned throughout my career, from my perspective in this relatively remote community and its specific demographics.
The representative was extremely kind and thoughtful, and at one point suggested that I consider reaching out to be a guest lecturer to his cohort of teacher candidates, or that I could apply to be a professor in the faculty of education at his Ontario university.
For a moment, I saw myself doing that.
It’s not the first time I have considered a career path in higher academic fields. I remember a moment, several years ago, when a colleague had suggested that I look into university-level teaching, and then told me how my face had lit up at the thought of completing a PhD and giving classes to undergraduate and graduate students.
I still would love to achieve a doctorate degree. I have wanted to have a PhD of my own, on my wall, since I was old enough to understand what it meant.
And it used to bother me greatly that I wasn’t as smart as the young prodigies who were able to race through high school. Through later elementary and high school, I struggled with insecurities regarding my intelligence, and I still have a hard time with the anxiety — feeling that a certain level of brainyness was supposed to be my identity, and that I was failing at it, not living up to expectations or standards, not even my own.
And yet I love to learn and I love to contribute to the body of knowledge belonging to humanity. I try to keep doing better as I know better.
And I am keenly aware of the cautionary tales about academia circulating in the world — stories of cliques and pressures involved with researching and writing and attending meetings while developing a thesis.
But in speaking with that teacher candidate the other day, the longing returned.
The good news is that if I do decide to go back to graduate school, especially if it is online (which I would prefer, given that I still have a child in secondary school and we live at least six hours away from any university that I could attend in person), I have had a taste of it and I know I could be successful.
Where I run into issues are these problems:
1) The anxiety reminding me that I could have made things easier had I chosen to complete a thesis as part of my PME, rather than going the coursework route at the time. It’s unfortunate, on one level, but not terrible — I would not mind doing a second master’s degree in a subject that I truly love.
2) Finding a program for a master’s degree that is decently rated or regarded, which is also doable in distance learning, and which would then lead into the PhD candidacy.
For example, I would dearly love to enter the program on folklore at Memorial U in Newfoundland. But it’s only offered in person. So I must wait.
3) Concerns about my energy levels and resiliency. No matter that kind of breakdown or burnout I experienced in 2019-2020, the general literature on these things suggests that it takes roughly 5 years on average to fully recover. I’m past the halfway point, but I still have many rough days, often in sequence, and I have to remember to be kind to myself and get enough rest. Do I have the physical stamina to get through two demanding sets of coursework and research, knowing that the second set will be even more rigorous and challenging?
Like the song says, you can’t always get what you want… so I must consider, what, out of these things, do I need?
One need is to add to bodies of knowledge, by putting my ideas out into the world. Publishing my thoughts, perspectives, research, and conclusions. What’s to stop me from setting myself a goal and sending work to an accredited journal?
And then, in a few years when the nest is thoroughly empty, maybe more graduate and post-grad programs will be available online, or I will be more able to travel. So maybe right now I am getting what I need in the sense of being able to rest as required. Any pressures I feel are entirely self-generated, and I am relearning — I must — how to manage them while coping with a brain chemistry that continues to insist on making everyday things seem more difficult than they actually are.
So I suppose, for the time being, I will keep the dream of a PhD in my pocket. And add the encouragements of others as they come along. The game isn’t over. It’s simply on pause.
It’s not a trope that we see very often, I think. In fact, in considering this topic, I was hard-pressed to come up with more than the following examples of movies involving editors of any kind as characters: The Proposal (2009), Never Been Kissed (1999), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), Julie & Julia (2009), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), and any of the Spider-Man movies involving J. Jonah Jameson.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) lists 70 titles involving book editors — yet only eight tagged with generic ‘editors’ as a keyword (none of them being Spider-Man?!?) — and I only really remember having watched one other on that list, The Holiday (2006).
I’m tempted to perform a deeper analysis, theorizing that literary editors (fiction and non) rarely appear as protagonists in narratives. I get the feeling that when they do appear as more than background or supporting characters, unless they’re involved in a life crisis, threatened by other-worldly or malevolent forces, or it’s a romance.
Note to self: still need to watch 1408(2007).
Is it just me, or does literature and the media tend to paint the idea of being an editor as something that is … not exciting? As being valued support and/or controlling member of a writing team who tends to stay at the edges of the action, around whom flurries of activity revolve and to whom submissions are made for approval or denial?
I can see how that impression might exist. After all, the task of editing itself tends to be quite anchored, seeing as it involves (at minimum) poring over a document or footage of some kind to check for errors and fix mistakes. It’s not necessarily physical, unless an erasable, possibly magnetic board and removable notes are involved. Possibly a standing desk. And unless the editor is embedded within or leading a departmental team, the role is often shown to be fairly solitary and isolated by its very nature.
How many editor characters have been written and directed as being jaded, straight-laced, and even cruel in their decision-making and professional interactions? Alternatively, some have been developed as quirky, eccentric, overly kind, and eager to experience more, especially those characters who desire to make the leap from editor to writer, or assistant to full editing duties in service of producing excellent books and stories for the world.
How many of us can say we actually personally know a professional editor who can give us an accurate inside look at their lived individual experiences? Are the fictional editors of movies and literature in any way realistic depictions of the profession? Whether the characters are primary or secondary, what do they get right about the job and life of an editor, generally speaking? Is it even possible to generalize what it’s like to be an editor? Or are they idealizations based on the lived experiences of writers themselves?
In turn, how might the portrayals of editors in the various industries requiring them — newspapers, magazine, academic, and book publishers, manufacturing companies requiring production of clean internal documents, publicity firms, journals, etc. — have an impact on the growth and development of the field in the real world?
For example, what proportion of working editors today are BIPOC (AKA people of the global majority)? How many are women, or members of the LGBQT2S+ community? If the representation is indeed lacking of editor characters with these personal, cultural, ethnic, and/or spiritual backgrounds, as I suspect it is, then that’s deserving of attention. And so should be the development of editor characters who are whole, complex individuals rather than the stereotypes and caricatures that we may be accustomed to seeing in pages and on the silver screen.
I remember having a moment, back in teachers’ college, when a fellow student told me that they’d registered for the Teachers Writing Lives elective course, for the educator candidates who aspired to become authors while also in the classroom. I wished I’d taken the course at the time, and I kind of still do. From a basic Google search, it looks like similar courses exist today.
Because if we want to examine and then counter the negative patterns and impressions caused by the most common examples of fictional editors in books and movies, what better way than to pull from our own experiences, fellow editors of real-life Earth? And in so doing, use the narratives we both invent and recall as a means of deep reflection on our practices, our work-life balances, our incorporation of healthy lifestyle habits, our short- and long-term career goals, and a distinctly vital element, our networking.
Oh, that’s one other thing that I just realized is common to among the editor characters that I am aware of in books and films: they are, overwhelmingly, already successful in their professions. Where are the stories of aspiring, struggling, novice, and apprentice editors, other than Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal? Do we need more of those to help inspire the current and future generations who are drawn to correcting words and images, helping documents to shine?
Darned right, we do.
Editing is not an easy task, by any means. It can be as challenging as it is rewarding. One editor alone is lending their strength to a writer’s efforts in communicating their message; a team of editors working with solo or collective, collaborative writers are powerful entities, indeed. But we rarely see them, hidden away in offices and behind desks and boards and computer screens as they tend be.
And in this new era of ChatGPT and AI voicing, the role of the editor in polishing manuscripts is still significant. I don’t know about you, but when a congenial computer voice misreads or mispronounces something in an audiobook or a video, I’m willing to bet it’s because there was an uncaught or uncorrected error in the spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation that the artificial intelligence took literally. And it drives me up the wall. But again, maybe that’s just me.
Cheers, fellow editors. I see you, and I salute you.
When I get my business plan done, I think I’m going to make myself a hoodie emblazoned with EDITOR. Just because I can. And editors are awesome, no matter how they’re portrayed in fiction.
Thanks for reading! And please, feel free to tell me your favourite or most memorable experiences with editing or editors in the comments below. Change names to protect the innocent as needed, of course.
Yesterday I was thinking about the ways that fictional writers are portrayed in books and films, and how those depictions can affect the way authors, and their friends and families, see themselves.
That led me to another question, branching from the concept of two types of writer — that being struggling and waiting for a ‘big break’ vs the wildly successful and prolific best-seller: what does success really mean in the writing, editing, and publishing industries, anyway? Is it only to be measured materially, in terms of moneys earned?
I recall a similar discussion that once took place during a professional development meeting, regarding the concept of success as it applies to young people moving forward during and after high school. Among the markers or milestones identified as having achieved success were, of course, good grades and course completions for credits needed to graduate, but then there was a levelling up or over, with a look at how to determine less quantifiable measures, such as happiness and satisfaction.
My position is that when participating and investing (time, energy, money) in some or all aspects of the literary field, every wordcrafter is implicitly or explicitly setting short- and long-term goals for achievement, and success is not going to mean the same for all of us.
For example, I once had a dear writer friend tell me that her goal was to become prolific, always producing something new for readers and building regular (or abundant) sales that way. The timeline for such productivity works out to a new manuscript every x many months. (There’s actually a great episode of Castle in which Rick is at poker with his successful writer friends, who chide him on slowing his pace to only one or two books a year.) To my knowledge, she is achieving in her quest, and feeling much satisfaction in the realization of her efforts.
But what about money?
In modern Western capitalist society, happiness and personal satisfaction tend to come second in line to the priority of achieving some kind of financial earnings from writing, editing, and/or publishing. Of course, being content and feeling validated are much easier when you have enough to eat and a clean, dry place to live. As the saying goes, money cannot buy happiness, but it sure makes life easier.
Therefore another reasonable, attainable goal might be to reach the point where participating in the industry gives the wordcrafter enough in return to pay the bills.
Depending on the rate at which an editor chooses to charge for their services — by the hour, by word count, by page count, etc., based on their experience and qualifications — it’s possible for that professional to aim for collecting a certain number of contracts per week and month to build and maintain a desired stream of income. The challenge then becomes actually obtaining those contracts in a highly competitive environment.
And it follows that success would (or could) becoming a recognized and trusted professional, sought-after and needing to schedule breaks in contracts rather than hustling to get them.
I would term that as being wildly successful.
And a writer whose fans are clamouring for the next work, who is approached by agents or publishers, is given advances and reaches a recurrent best-seller status — sure, that could meet the expectations of wild success.
But where my anxiety starts rising is in the thought of the pressure that might follow in either of those circumstances. Once that mountain is summited, can it be done again? If there’s a need for income, then the effort must be repeated. As many times as possible.
So is it possible to feel successful (even wildly successful) while also struggling to get that ‘big break’, even if it never happens?
Is it possible that feeling successful might come from simply being able to focus on and embrace all aspects of the industry in the hours devoted to working?
Given the necessities of earning an income — especially now, during a period of high and rising costs — I’m not sure it’s practical to untangle some degree of financial security from the definition of success in the literary industry, wild or not.
The next step, then, for anyone venturing into full-time publishing, editing, and/or writing, is to draft SMART goals for achieving short- and long-term success, using the measures defined by the individual professional: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
It follows that at least one of those career SMART goals has to include something about money. What earnings would be most realistic and attainable? And what would the contingency plans be if financial milestones are not achieved, or maintained?
There’s a very good reason why most writers and editors do that work as a side-hustle or passion outside of their regular jobs.
And therein lies a certain wicked problem, for those of us who can no longer, for reasons outside of our control, handle a regular full- or part-time job to cover the costs while building the portfolio and gaining contracts.
The flip side of that? It’s just as difficult, in another way, to build the portfolio and gain contracts when most of one’s energy and time is consumed by that regular job.
In wicked problems like these, there are no easy solutions or compromises to be found. There are innumerable options, and potential consequences, leading to one painful but undeniable truth: no movement forward can be made while sitting on a fence.
To be successful in a career, no matter what that means, starts with having short- and long-term goals for being part of that profession. Goal-setting is an expected part of a business plan, after all.
So, dear fellow readers and writers and editors and publishers, when you are identifying the metaphorical mountain(s) you want to climb in your chosen industry, what is your process for determining your aims?
Do you treat your goals like the thesis for an essay, or a problem for a report, by posting them somewhere visible as an ongoing, living checklist or chart?
What happens if you find yourself getting bogged down by details and possibilities? How do you cope with anxiety and financial strain while manifesting your dream?
How many of you have sought advice from goal-setting masters, career coaches, websites, blogs, or videos on social media? Were any of those resources helpful for you?
And finally — when was the last time you set a reasonable goal for yourself, achieved it, and how did you reward that victory, large or small?
When I get to turning over ideas for the two works-in-progress and other story ideas lurking in my files, sometimes I have to remind myself of the general advice, “write what you know”. And this makes sense, of course, because if you want to composing plots and characters that are realistic and recognizable, you need those details.
But sometimes I want to just follow my imagination into times and places where I’ve never been. That means taking the time to gather details — learning what is not known.
During that process, I find myself wishing for an assistant or two who might be able to seek out certain nuggets of information for me, either in anticipation of a plot development or to help solve a problem. Alas, having not yet achieved best-seller status at the time of this writing, hiring an assistant is beyond my means. And that’s all right, I really don’t mind doing research.
And neither does Rick Castle, the fictional writer played by Nathan Fillion in the eponymous series that ran from 2009 to 2016.
Among the fictional writers of fiction that are portrayed on the screen and in written works, I think Castle is my favourite. Emma Thompson in Stranger Than Fiction (2006) might be a close second. Her struggles with writers’ block resonate powerfully, of course, and I definitely appreciate her angst while she tries to figure out her next steps.
But it’s Castle’s enthusiasm for the writing process and his willingness to dive into various forms of research (mainly, in the series, shadowing a particular detective and her colleagues, but also performing interviews, learning new skills, and making notes all along the way) that I find highly appealing.
He has a gorgeous office in his loft penthouse apartment (see pictures below, featured in setdecorators.org and found onEveryday Planet, posted by Jenny and Christie Childers in “Inspiration from Castle: Richard Castle’s Office, January 17, 2014 — I highly recommend checking out their page for more images!). His sumptuous yet practical living and working accommodations are paid for by his previously successful series of books, eventually adding an awesome computerized massive whiteboard to his set of tools, yet he typically writes with his feet up and his laptop on his lap. I don’t have a loft, a great big oaken desk, or a tablet of any size (save my mobile phone), but the feet up and laptop warming my legs — that’s a habit that I tend to follow. It’s a bad one, too, not great for my sciatica or my posture, so I am trying to get back to using my desk. And following another of his examples by recording plot points and character ideas on sticky notes.
I’m going to echo Christy and Jenny on Everyday Planet, here… So. Many. Books!
Sometimes a fictional writer, perhaps by virtue of being developed by other writers, demonstrates some really great ways to get things done.
In Stranger Than Fiction, Emma Thompson’s character, Karen Eiffel, sometimes attempts to sink deeper into understanding her protagonist or a given situation by acting out the problem, unashamedly and with full commitment.
When that doesn’t work, her agent sends writing coach* Penny Escher (played beautifully by Queen Latifah) to help her work through the issues that are slowing her process. Penny’s strategies are varied, but the one that has always stuck out in my mind is checking to see whether Karen has received or procured fresh, new paper, which might cause some inspiration.
A decidedly uncluttered, and therefore distraction-free, working environment. No less elegant, or clean, though! Image source: iloveemmathompson.comHer choice to use a typewriter is interesting — how many of us still go old-school mechanical, even if it’s electric? Image source: iloveemmathompson.comEven though Penny calls herself an assistant to the author, in my mind, she’s a coach. End of story. Image source: The Creator’s Apprentice
In my experience, there seem to be two main types of fictional writers of fiction:
a) those who are wildly successful but struggling to get the next set of words down, for a variety of reasons that can run from simple lack of inspiration to psychosis or insanity, and
b) those who are ready to be successful, with completed manuscripts of varying lengths, but who are lacking a publisher or an agent to give them attention.
One example of the latter (sort-of) is blogger Julie Powell (Amy Adams) in 2009’s Julie & Julia. Her frustration, which bleeds into and affects her marriage, comes in part from living as inexpensively as possible in New York City while also working a regular job. Now, we do need to recognize that Julie Powell was a real person, who sadly left this world in 2022 — damn you, Covid-19). So whether the character in the movie might truly fit the category of a fictional writer of fiction is debatable. But her experience, as depicted in the film, really stands out in my mind as being far more realistic and recognizable than that of Rick Castle. After all, consider the contrast between the numbers of hugely successful authors, on which his character is partly based, and the multitude of aspiring and struggling writers who are getting by while waiting on their big break.
What’s shown in fiction is pulled, to some extent, from reality. The degree to which imagination is involved can depend on the situation, the genre, and any number of other factors. Sometimes the fictional writer of fiction, like many protagonists, might give us what is likely unrealistic goals. But maybe the point is having those goals in the first place. And even if Rick Castle or Karen Eiffel aren’t real people, they were created by those who have similar experiences and processes and have been successful with them. In that sense, could these and other like characters become, on some level, like writing coaches themselves?
Now I am debating a rewatch of Castle from the beginning, to jot down the techniques and methods that I find intriguing or remind myself of what I have used before. I never did watch the final season of the show, actually … and shoot, I loaned the first disc to a friend sometime back in 2018.
Victoria B. provides a decent initial breakdown of Castle’s process here, in her post “4 Things I Learned About Writing From Rick Castle“. But I remember having gotten more specific when teaching in-person Writer’s Craft classes, and there is more to cull from the series, if I take the time to do so.
Another branch of this thought to follow is whether there are many interesting fictional portrayals of editors in books and film. Of course, The Proposal (2009) revolves around two characters in the editing industry, but we see very little of them actually at work. I may have to dive into that search tomorrow … maybe while Rick Castle is pestering Kate Beckett on the screen.
What are your (or your family’s or friends’) impressions of fictional writers of fiction in literature and media?
If you tell someone you’re a writer, do they start to assume you’re in type a), or type b)?
Have you consciously or unconsciously modelled your own working process after one of these characters?
I am still of mixed feelings with regard to leaving my teaching position, though my body likes to remind me that it was the best decision I could have made.
Part of the problem is that throughout my teacher training and career, during professional development days and through various kinds of communication from various levels, I really internalized the message and belief that educators should be leaders, should be the change they want to see, and keep looking for ways to improve the system to reach all students.
I deeply wanted to meet that standard. I wanted to generate change from within. I learned with great difficulty how challenging — and, at times, impossible — that could be, especially during certain political climates.
It was hard enough when the provincial government shifted to Conservative-run, and plans for developing an Indigenous-led curriculum were abruptly abandoned … funding for support programs were reduced or cut entirely … and funds for keeping teachers’ morale up, such as providing food at long meetings, were taken away, partly out of the misguided perception that teaching staff is overpaid and spoiled anyway.
In the middle of that shift, I was doing my master’s degree, taking courses on the theories and practices of effective leadership, and it was both infuriating and disheartening that the frontline learners — because teachers and educational assistants are always learning — were no longer receiving any kind of support. Since I had began my career in 2001, there had always been a certain feeling of finger-pointing in the field: a suggestion that became a statement blaming teachers alone for noted declines in student achievement, especially in certain boards identified as “under-performing”. I’m not sure if this happened after the province began adopting standardized testing models, or if it began some years earlier, when the Harris government stripped funding and then the McGuinty established a funding model for classrooms that is based on population, which severely limits the kinds of classes a small secondary public school can offer.
But this attitude that circulates throughout Ontario society that educators get paid too much for too little work — it was one of the reasons I left. It had become all too clear that the people currently in charge of our section of Canada do not respect, trust, or appreciate the exhausting work that it takes to be an effective leader in the classroom. Many articles and editorials and blog posts have already stated that even before the pandemic, the job was and is getting harder, with fewer resources, and these factors are part of the trickle of experienced education workers out of the field and into stress leaves or other industries.
I really think that at the upper levels, this situation is kind of ideal: the more educators and EAs at senior-level categories who leave, the more new and less-experienced teachers and assistants can be hired to replace them, at a substantial savings, given the difference in most contracts between a staff member at 5 years or less of being in the classroom vs someone at twenty years or more.
(Also, my thoughts are racing on this topic… I will do my best not to jump around inefficiently while I summarize, because honestly, each problem in Ontario’s public education system — many of which were exacerbated by the first round of Ford’s four years — deserves an essay all on its own.)
You see, one of the tasks I had done as a Student Success Teacher was to not only track and document the various interventions implemented to support and assist high school students identified as at-risk of dropping out, but also to act as a kind of gate-keeper to help them (or their families/parent(s)/guardians) access different kinds of services, such as mental health assessments and counselling, learning disability assessments and accommodations meetings, community food providers, and even providing them with clothing items and/or hygiene products if necessary. This was out of the recognition that a young person isn’t going to be able to learn at their full potential if their basic needs aren’t met.
And when it came to tracking and documenting, a few times it fell to me (during the Liberal provincial government) to complete a massive Domesday Book-style cataloguing of the numbers, so that the Board and Ministry levels could see whether our school was maintaining its pass-fail rates, improving them, or struggling. And I am not a numbers person. The task involved a lot of data gathering and analysis, but I was always proud of getting it done in spite of the stress, because the picture seemed generally … okay.
For a while, my school wasn’t losing ground. We had some gains in pass and graduation rates, mainly through targeted literacy and math interventions. But the numbers weren’t high enough and the pressure for education staff to do more and better, with less, continued.
I received a lot of praise for the things I was doing to try to reach students who were struggling, which was lovely. Sometimes my efforts even worked, pulling learners on the edge of dropping out or failing classes back into the fold. But what I was doing was never enough, and the effectiveness of my strategies depended, in many ways, on whether the student even saw a possible, positive, future for themselves. When a kid is living with household instability and/or food insecurity, are having to couch-surf due to problems at home (including domestic violence), have undiagnosed or untreated mental illness and/or learning disabilities, just getting to the school and staying in class is a victory in itself. But some of them only show up because they have nowhere else to be, or because it is the only safe place for them. How can a child focus on class work and lectures if they’re not seeing the point? If they’re hungry, or scared, and misbehaving or lashing out because they don’t want anyone to see their vulnerabilities and haven’t learned how to regulate their emotions during a period of hardship? What if that includes being raised by one or more individuals who also had negative experiences during their school years, which could have happened for all of those reasons plus the impacts of the Residential Schools era?
A young person with no realistic or significant life goals for their adulthood — no plan for how they might contribute to their community or society in a positive, productive way, and/or for how they might support themselves beyond the bare minimum — is a young person who, for the most part, is going to drift and have difficulties connecting with and seeing the overall purpose of the lessons they are expected to attend and the work they must complete in the classroom. I witnessed this over and over during my 20-year career.
Teachers and educational assistants who are trying to do their jobs and give their students the skills and knowledge they need — in accordance with the official curriculum — can also get frustrated and feel helpless, moving into defensive mode, when they have run through their repertoire of tools and strategies to help a struggling student, and the problematic behaviour remains.
There is no such thing as only delivering the material. That may work for a very small subsection of the student population, but too many of them need in-class parenting and support to supplement or substitute for home situations outside of their control.
So when the government points the finger of blame at teaching staff and school boards, claiming they’re not doing enough to get kids across the finish line, it gets to me. It gets to me a lot.
The data that became the basis of the Student Success Program showed that secondary school students who earned 16 credits in their first two years of high school were more likely to graduate in four years (that being the goal set by the provincial government many years ago, after the fifth year grade 13 / Ontario Academic Course system was eliminated). Therefore Student Success Teachers are supposed to concentrate on grade 9 and 10 students, with the aim of ensuring that each learner in the cohort meets that milestone. Most of the first 16 credits are compulsory, which leaves the freer selection of elective classes in grades 11 and 12 as a carrot to keep them going. Plus, many of those electives need certain freshman and junior-level courses as pre-requisites.
It’s all good in theory. But add in those variables affecting young people outside of the school environment … the things that teaching staff cannot control, including student self-perceptions developed through elementary school, when their academic struggles would have begun, as well as their awareness of differences between themselves and their peers.
Helping struggling students to learn and complete the courses they need to be able to graduate high school, and go on to the programs and training that they have to take to enter some kind of career, is not an impossible task, but it is an uphill battle, even when the government was providing in-school supports.
And it’s about to get even worse than it has been.
As usual, the Ontario government chose a Friday to make a dramatic announcement:
New education bill aimed at lagging school boards, minister says
Some school boards, mostly in northern Ontario, rank low on standardized testing and graduation rates
Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce speaks at a press conference at Queen’s Park in Toronto on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
Ontario’s education minister says legislation that would increase provincial control over school boards is aimed at a subset of boards whose students have been falling behind on key metrics such as graduation rates and standardized test scores.
Stephen Lecce tabled Bill 98, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, in April.
Lecce said 15,000 students per year in Ontario do not graduate from high school within five years, and that non-graduates have a 5 per cent higher rate of unemployment, a 13 per cent lower rate of labour market participation and lower incomes than the provincial average. He also noted students have regressed in some standardized test results through the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) as a result of the pandemic.
“Now in, addition, some school boards have consistently lagged behind on key student performance indicators, including on EQAO assessments, on graduation rates and student attendance,” said Lecce. “It’s why we’ve devised this plan.”
Lecce framed the bill as part of his government’s efforts to bring education “back to basics,” emphasizing literacy and math as foundational skills, while “not in any way denying” the importance of other development of other skills and social-emotional development.
“But yes, we do believe foundational skills of literacy and math,” he said. “Those anchors need to be mastered in the classroom as a first principle.”
NDP education critic Chandra Pasma questioned Lecce at the committee meeting, criticizing him for directing school boards to “do better, with no additional resources to bring down class sizes, no additional resources to address the fact that half of our schools have no mental health resources at all, no additional resources to support the fact that many children with disabilities and special needs aren’t actually even able to participate in our school system.”
She challenged him to name one school board that is “not interested in student outcomes and students’ success.”
“Well, I can name 10 school boards that have been at the bottom quintile of performance for the last decade,” he replied. “When you have school boards who have for a decade —”
But then he was cut off there by the committee chair, who said the time for the opposition round of questions was over.
While Lecce didn’t single out any school boards, the province tracks indicators of student success including graduation rates and standardized test scores.
According to the most recent available metrics, the school boards with the lowest scores were mostly in northern Ontario. When it comes to graduation rates, District School Board Ontario North East had the lowest score, as less than 72 per cent of students graduated after either four or five years in 2021.
It was followed by Rainy River District School Board, Keewatin-Patricia District School Board, Superior-Greenstone District School Board, Lakehead District School Board, Rainbow District School Board, Grand Erie District School Board, Hastings & Prince Edward District School Board and Kenora Catholic District School Board, all with rates from 73 to 78 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Conseil scolaire catholique Providence in Southwestern Ontario ranked first with a graduation rate of nearly 98 per cent. The Toronto District School Board — the province’s largest — ranked near the middle, at 91 per cent.
After the committee meeting, Chandra told The Trillium she believes the minister was making unfair accusations about the boards where students are struggling, “especially when the factors that are hampering student success are actually within the minister’s control.”
In many cases, especially in the northern and remote communities where graduation rates are lower, the boards are having trouble recruiting and retaining qualified teachers and the government has “turned a deaf ear” on requests for additional funding for those schools, she said.
“So it’s completely unfair to pin the blame for lower student outcomes on school boards when the minister is not setting them up to succeed.”
Some school boards seemed to bristle at the suggestion they need the province’s help.
“While the changes may be intended to foster stronger trust and collaboration between the ministry, trustees and the professionals who lead our school systems, instead they seem to imply a sense of distrust in trustees and our senior leaders,” wrote the Lakehead District School Board in its submission to the committee.
It wasn’t alone.
The Toronto District School Board issued a press release outlining its “significant concerns” with the bill, including that the province can override local planning and unilaterally determine whether the board’s performance is satisfactory and, if it is deemed not to be, embed support personnel within the board. It notes the government hasn’t defined their scope of duties or given any “guidance about how these people will be considered, qualified or selected for their roles.”
The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board criticized the “one-size fits all” nature of the bill, which it said significantly silences the voice of voters by restricting the autonomy of elected Trustees to represent the local interests within their mandate.”
“We have significant concerns that (legislation) will further erode the power and ability of locally elected school boards to advocate for and meet the needs of the students in communities we know best,” said board chair Steve Russell in a submission to the committee. “As the members are aware, local school boards were the first democratically elected representatives in Ontario and remain critically positioned to represent the communities we serve.”
That was echoed by the Ottawa Carleton District School Board, which said it is “concerned with the scope and breadth of these changes and their potential adverse impact on the local autonomy of school boards to act in the best interests of their communities.”
Other boards gave similar feedback to the committee and all called for greater consultation with the ministry before the bill and its regulations are passed.
As a former educator of many years, a parent of a young person still in high school, and a voter, I have so many concerns about this announcement … yet I know from bitter experience that reaching out to voice my critique and make suggestions is a futile effort. This is a government that actually hid the results of a parent poll when the results didn’t meet what they wanted.
But let’s take this announcement apart, anyway.
But earlier this week Lecce told the committee studying the bill it’s anchored around provisions that allow him to establish a framework that requires school boards across the province to focus the government’s key priorities on student achievement, and publicly report results in a multi-year plan. The government would have tools to address lagging boards, including by allowing the ministry to deploy “support personnel” to assist them.
Cross’s article omits the following quote from CTV’s report, which helps to clarify what Lecce says are the key priorities on student achievement:
The bill will also facilitate more training for teachers and ensure regular reviews of Ontario’s curriculum based on “labour market and learning needs.”
“I think our schools do great work. I just think we could do a lot better,” Lecce told reporters on Monday. “My mission is: we should lift our standards, [w]e’ve got to lift the ambitions of kids. There are too many children living in a basement, too many kids who lost hope in our province and country. It’s not their fault. We can do something better.”
“The point is that schools need to be emphasizing and focusing on strengthening skills that matter to parents, mastering the skills that are going to help young people succeed in whatever discipline they choose.”
Okay … he’s almost got it, there. So close to awareness! Yet the emphasis of increasing effort remains on the education workers who are already burned out and worn thin from the pandemic and the reduced funding that came before it. Wrong direction, Stephen. Should I give you formative feedback on this conceptualization of how to improve public education in Ontario?
There’s more … yes, there is accuracy on the need to strengthen skills. But what matters to parents isn’t always what is going to matter to a young person, particularly one watching parents struggle. The kids are aware that society is fixed and weighed against them. What is the point of plugging away at subjects and skills that someone distant from them thinks are important, when they have their own more immediate priorities?
Note that succeeding in a discipline of choice also means having access to materials and content supporting that. For example: I learned in spring 2020, when classes were moving online to help reduce the spread of the virus, that some of the big high schools in southern Ontario have science and trade classes that we could never offer in our area because the Ministry is still following that funding formula set up by Dalton McGuinty. Our local English public high school does not have Earth Science, or hairstyling and aesthetics, or even a sewing class anymore. Often, the administrators have to alternate Visual Arts with Dramatic Arts and Music, because there simply aren’t enough registrants to allow all three courses to run at the same time. Virtual learning was supposed to help solve some of these logistical issues, but having taught online myself multiple times before Covid, and having taken online courses myself, it is obvious that that solution only works well for a handful of students. And our school board must still limit the kinds of courses available online, as well as having a limited number of correspondence courses, some of which are outdated.
If Lecce really wants to help young people succeed in life, he has to remember that sufficient research exists to show every $1 spent on education returns $1.50 to the economy within ten years of a cohort’s graduation.
What would give me hope is if he said he was improving funding to provide more opportunities for learning in classrooms, ensuring that even the small schools have access to those amazing courses beyond the basics.
But no.
Instead, they’re going to spend money on “support personnel”.
What does that even mean? What will be the purpose of that role? Who will fill that position? How much will it cost? What powers will they have?
And then there is the ‘evidence’ that Lecce cites as rationale for this plan: the results of standardized testing.
He acknowledges that the pandemic has played a part in affecting graduation rates. Again, soooo close to hitting the nose! But what he fails to see, or recognize, is that depending on the EQAO’s math and literacy tests adds more pressure to both education workers and students. It limits what instruction and content can be provided in classrooms, where the lean is to ‘teach to the test’, resulting in another reason why struggling students disengage. The costs of those tests are also astronomical. And the argument ca be made that they are designed to please the upper echelons, reassuring families of means that their schools are better.
I have more knowledge of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), and I can tell you that it is questionable whether its quality is consistent from year to year. That the content of the nonfiction reading passages sometimes hits on concepts or environments beyond the lived experiences of most students in Northeastern and Northwestern Ontario. It’s especially challenging for kids who are English as a Second Language learners. The test is, in many ways, set by those hired by the government to serve certain agendas.
Imagine what progress could be made if the EQAO stopped with the OSSLT — what engaging lessons, focusing on truly marketable literacy skill sets, that students would see as mattering far more than passing this test, could return to classrooms, encouraging greater and more regular attendance among those who have struggled academically since elementary school; what money could be reallocated to supports for students with autism; what emphasis could be made on increasing cross-curricular student-driven projects, developing learning environments in which teachers lecture less and coach more.
Because that latter trend in classroom instruction — self-directed learning in smaller classes of 15 students to 1 educator, within a set of clearly-defined goals determined by the curriculum — that is what the last decade or so of educational research has been showing to be most effective in engaging and helping students to gain the knowledge and demonstrate the skills that they want and need for adulthood. Even more, this focus enables the shift away from out-dated lesson planning, leading to the incorporation of Indigenous teaching and learning practices, which could help significantly with Reconciliation as well as improving the next generations’ understandings of interconnectedness.
The model that most of us are used to seeing is the lecturer before a full classroom, providing information and then circulating to maintain discipline and focus, answering questions and providing real-time feedback at the same time. What I learned while doing my second graduate degree was that the body of research saying that this teacher-centred classroom model is based on the 18th century industrial concept of training up obedient and efficient workers. It does not answer the multiple needs of individual and collective students as we recognize them now, and I think a teacher-centred classroom causes more disengagement than remedies it, but that may be over-generalizing.
The bottom line for me is that the Ministry of Education in Ontario is continuing to pour money and resources in the wrong direction, feeding traditionalist practices that are not useful or in concert with the data and experiential research results coming from rigourous peer-reviewed studies in education practices. The familiar focuses and rhetoric may seem reassuring, with the blame weighing even more heavily now on the schools and boards who have been working with dramatically reduced resources, and unfortunately, a portion of the population will undoubtedly take it as such. But all I am seeing is a pattern repeating, and it’s one that does not produce the desired results. And it’s going to continue for three more years, at least.
I wish that I could actually communicate with Stephen Lecce, but even if he listened to reason and looked at contemporary research, it’s not just him — it’s also his boss, Doug Ford, who needs to look at the facts. Sadly, they and their party always seem to be less interested in understanding how to make the province better by investing in their future voting citizenry, and more focused on maintaining a status quo established some time in the last century.
I may end up sending the Minister and the Premier a letter. Maybe I’ll just send the same one over and over until I get something other than a rote response.
Whatever the education unions decide, I will support them. Whatever the frontline education workers want to do, I will support them.
And selfishly, I’ll continue to be relieved that I’m no longer inside the beast. And that my second child is nearly out of it.
There are other posts on this blog about my wee pupper and our other pets, but she is on my mind because she really wants to be outside right now, just observing the world… but I do not.
I have no reason to not want to be outside. I should be outside. But I have Reed Timmer on livestream chasing (potential) tornadoes in the Dominator 3, and I know that if I do go out on the deck or in the front yard, I won’t be able to just sit. There is a lot of clean up to get done and I need help with it.
Plus, Trixie has gotten reaaaallly good at escaping.
She not only fits under sections of the fence around the front yard, and the gate, but last summer she discovered that she could go under the deck and slip into the neighbour’s yard. Naughty!
If she were a larger dog, I would be happy to give her alone time in either yard. But being a chihuahua-papillon mix, she is small enough to be carried off by another creature — it’s not unknown for small dogs to be targeted by owls, foxes, or even ravens in my part of the world. And yes, she has been swooped at and eyed greedily by ravens in recent years.
So I don’t let her outside without being close by, myself, even if I am just by the door.
There is also the Cat Factor: if I decide to sit outside with Trixie, inevitably Sylvie, our rescue cat, will want to be out there with us. It’s good for her, too, I know… I know. I have a harness and a lead to keep her from getting out of the yard.
Really, I’m being pet-lazy this afternoon. What I ought to do is set up my laptop so that I can track the storm chase while sitting in the sun.
But that is my other concern: I am trying to be careful with how much sun I get. I burn more quickly than I used to, thanks to some of my medications. There is a sun shelter on our deck — do I have the energy to locate the chairs?
Plus there is the escape risk…
I could try putting Trixie on a lead, again, but she will end up tangled around things. I have thought of getting her one of those electric fence doohickeys, but I don’t know if that would be worthwhile, and it’s certainly not doable today.
When the temperature is warm enough, I will also need to bring out the bearded dragons and the Guinea pigs. It’s only fair. (Still figuring out a way to give the sneks some secure outdoor time, too.) And then, after that point, I don’t go back in the house a whole lot, in order to ensure all of the animals are safe.
Getting everyone out and back in again is a whole process.
The crux of the matter for me, too, is that at this point of the spring, I feel a lot of pressure to spend time out in the fresh air and sunshine. The snow is gone, the warmth has returned, and what am I doing, still hiding out in my house?
The longer I sit inside, the more guilty I feel. Yet I also have the anxiety that comes from knowing that we haven’t yet solved the problem of Trixie’s escapes.
Plus… all my stuff is in here.
But I know the animals would be happy to get out and bask. We should enjoy the in-between time, before the extreme heat episodes and the rise of the insect kingdom.
Maybe I could haul out some lengths of firewood and shove them into the gaps where pupper gets under the deck?
She acknowledges that seeking out a test-read can be nerve-wracking, but is ultimately beneficial and a worthwhile, if not necessary part of the writing and publishing process.
I have never really minded seeking out beta readers, while knowing that other authors absolutely refuse to share one word or plot detail until their draft is finished. Unfortunately, my at-times eagerness to share has resulted in showing my WIP to the wrong individual, who was either not a fan of the genre or of a belittling personality altogether. Or my timing has been off, sharing for input after the ARC has already been approved.
As I consider going back to the two WIPs I have been sitting on for a few years, part of my shyness is the impact of that first experience with a poor beta reader. Thankfully, I no longer recall specifically what was said, only that it stung badly and left me feeling uncertain and insecure.
While not all of those offering feedback are going to be negative while they offer (or attempt to offer) helpful advice, it’s important to take that step back afterwards and consider their perspective. Their frame of reference is, of course, going to shape their response. And maybe it will be useful in engaging you in a sharper reflection on the work that you’ve done.
For myself, remembering what I have about that encounter has brought me back to another profound realization, or recognition; that the story I am writing should, initially, be for myself alone. I am the first reader of the words, the first to be caught up in the unknowns and the questions facing the characters, the first to be puzzling out the possibilities.
And if the draft isn’t making me happy because it’s just not, then I change it for me.
And then I find a beta reader who I know is more into the genre, for a more accurate take. And I might even be more specific with my requests for feedback, instead of leaving it completely open-ended.
It’s all learning.
So, fellow writers, who are your trusted beta readers? And what is your approach when you ask them for their thoughts?
While I work on building my editing service, I am also determined to get back to the stories that want me to write them. It’s on my daily to-do list, permanently.
And yet…
It used to be, ten years ago, that I would stay up super late after the kids were in bed, and power through until 1 or even 2 am, letting the story take me where it wanted to go. I called this, “off-roading”.
What I remember from that experience was that once I got over the hump of the first few chapters — or even through some interesting scenes, written non-linearly — and understood the characters and their conflict more, the rest would begin to flow.
So that is what I need to get back to.
I noticed this blog post on LinkedIn the other day, written by April Davila: “Writer’s Block? Maybe You’re Writing in the Wrong Format” (https://www.janefriedman.com/writers-block-maybe-youre-writing-in-the-wrong-format/), and it reminded me of that past experience — the moment when I got stuck, and emailed a scene to a friend to ask for feedback, and with her help, realized I was writing in the wrong format.
It’s very frustrating to want to do a certain plot line or character development, but have the words refuse to cooperate.
Even more so when, as Writing Coach April says, “Maybe you’re not writing what you think you’re writing.”
There are two WIPs I have for which this observation applies: the creepy haunted dollhouse epistolary novel, and the haunted museum / mining town paranormal romance.
With the first, I have a binder filled with most of a manuscript, but it has been sitting and gathering dust for several years in part because the story wasn’t going where I had envisioned, and in part because I showed it to the wrong beta reader (mental note: read that blog post I bookmarked on beta readers…) I had an outline for the epistolary, lots of ideas on how things might or did happen, but it wants to do and be something else. Should I show it to another beta reader, in its current unfinished form, in the renewed hope of encouragement? Or start over?
With the second, I published the first chapter already as an incentive for myself: I wanted it to become something like a serial, release the next chapter every month until it was done, but that proved less feasible than I thought, given my new daily challenges. But I still want to explore and write it — there may even be a way to connect the paranormal romance to the epistolary.
If I reconsider the format of each, as Writing Coach April suggests, would that help me to get back some momentum?
It sounds like a worthy experiment, at the very least.
But what I did do today was focus on other little things that helped me feel better about myself and my environment.
I reminded myself to be okay with resting.
And while catching up on Ted Lasso, I told myself that although it is good and important to do the research, I don’t need to change who I am or much of how I show that I am a good editor and proofreader. I will connect with some clients, and won’t with others. That’s okay — just part of the whole. I don’t need to be all things to all potential clients, because doing so may not be fair to them or to me, if I start spreading myself too thin (again).
Looking at the competition (potential colleagues) is important, but so is uncovering who my editor self is, celebrating what I do best, and slowly building my repertoire. Like designing books and ebooks as well as helping to make sure they are polished.
I think I am also a bit stymied by knowing the next stage of the business plan, after the SWOT, is going to be looking at long-term goals. And right now, there is only the vaguest of ideas on what those might be, other than becoming self-sustaining and having a regular stream of clients.
The depression in my brain wants me to berate myself, look only at the negatives, and return to a state of apathy, giving up on even trying. But it’s not in my nature to stop trying, no matter how exhausted and frustrated and sad I might become for a while.
The anxiety wants me to second-guess every move I make to figure out next steps; it wants me to doubt my efforts and struggle with every decision in a storm of overthinking. Saying “Screw it” and jumping in with both feet, using that leap-of-faith attitude, helps in many ways to relieve the pressure, at least for a bit.
It just would be nice if every day wasn’t a battle. And I say that knowing there are others with far worse battles, on many levels… but each one is relative, isn’t it?
Anyway. Appointment in the morning, followed by a visit to the pet store to get food for various animals in my menagerie, and then I will pick something in the business plan to-do list, upon which I will focus my efforts in the afternoon. Or evening. As well as continuing to battle the household clutter, in anticipation of my adult child and his partner’s visit in two weeks or so. Oh, and the leaves need picking up in the yard… the garden needs starting…
One thing at a time. Celebrate the little victories. Yes.
This blog post is a reminder to me to take the time over the next few days and do a more detailed breakdown and analysis of a few editing services’ websites that I find to be highly effective (and not a little intimidating).
Why?
I completed drafting the Customer Expectations and Competition Comparison sections of my business plan, and as a result, I feel both inspired and a little out of my depth. There’s a recognition of strengths that, over the new few days, I can add into the SWOT analysis, and a growing awareness of the areas and skills I need to continue improving. Two decades in education leave me hesitant to say “weaknesses”, because I know these are things that don’t necessarily have to remain liabilities, other than the obvious — those caused by my chronic illnesses.
Looking at the competition brings me back around to the question of whether to cast the wide net or to niche down.
And I kind of want to do a more in-depth analysis of the membership of Editors Canada, developing a spreadsheet that shows the numbers re: specialization, experience, certifications, etc. Location does not seem to be as significant as a factor of success, given how much editing and proofreading occurs online or via email exchanges. How long would such an accounting take, though? There are over 1,300 members. I suppose I could simply narrow my search to the genres and document types that I am most comfortable and experienced in editing. How useful would this list be to me, I wonder? Would it strengthen my business plan, and if so, to what degree?
Meanwhile, back to those highly effective websites… I sense a need to go back through the three I originally selected for comparison (based on their owners’ services, professional experiences, and other details similar to my own) and possibly create a checklist of look-for characteristics and qualities to help guide my own editing service development and its website.
More homework for me… Yay!
I would also like to produce some kind of survey for potential clients, which is challenging given that the majority of my clients to date have been via networking.
But in the interests of market research, and kick-starting my survey, would you mind telling me: if you were looking for editing or proofreading services, what aspects of the website would be most attractive to you, encouraging you to inquire further?
Tori L. Ridgewood 