Ce Que Tu Manges

Henri Brillat-Savarin said, « Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es » or « Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are. “ Recently, our school adopted Peel’s Healthy Living Policy, banning the sale of junk food in schools. This reform means that our school's cafeteria now serves food that is similar to what people should eat at home. Implied also in the phrase “healthy living” is an overall focus on the well-being of the whole person, not just what he or she eats. At its very best, our school models this goal. Overall, it is a good system.
     But some intangibles distract schools from this social contract. In the midst of this erstwhile push toward healthier living, we risk over-processing and adulterating what we put into people’s minds. Enter the initiative of professional learning communities for teachers, which can reward or punish critical thinking, depending on school tone. On days set aside for professional learning, students are released early, leaving teachers to think and talk about new methods and technology rather than ideas or content of learning. Indeed, content has become the village idiot of professional learning communities.
     Even if we perceive education as a “service industry” (like Starbucks or Taco Bell) rather than a helping profession (like nursing or social work), students are ill-served by early dismissal if it takes a toll on instructional quality and time (the “value-added piece”, if you will). So how do we maximize the value of early release time? How do we “cut the fat” or ban the junk, as our cafeterias do?
    As lifelong learners, teachers are hard-wired for self-improvement, personal or professional (if one can even draw such lines), as long as it is authentic. On the other hand, using clickers to answer indecipherable multiple choice questions about methods-based projects (“dis-moi ce que tu manges”, encore) is a colossal waste of resources, both tangible (salaries paid to create and administer silly surveys; thousands of dollars per “mobie” kit) and intangible (the time, education, and compassion of teaching professionals and their charges). Indeed, the very premise of mobie technology – namely, that the end-user lives in an environment of such raw, unmediated brutality that a simple show of hands is dangerous – barbarizes rather than civilizes. Loud and clear, the Board seems to be saying, “Je te dis ce que tu es.”
     Without critical thinking skills, content, or general knowledge, students become passive recipients of life; taxpayers and indiscriminate consumers rather than responsible citizens. And if even the Ministry of Education – arguably the institution that has the most to gain from fostering passivity – wants something better for young people, so too should educators. Making people merely “marketable” (a goal promoted by resource and other teachers) leaves them “stuffed and starved”, to borrow a phrase from Raj Patel, a Fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy. Our life becomes filler without substance.
     On the other hand, the solution costs nothing and saves thousands of dollars per school; nay, tens of thousands when we figure in refunds on redundant mobie technology and decreased absenteeism of the compassion-fatigued. It involves a simple paradigm shift, if you will, to the real reason that teachers and students occupy the same space in the first place.
     As hostile as administrators may be to “content-based learning”, every single, solitary course guideline suggests that the Government of Ontario thinks otherwise. Therefore, for those who care about education, professional learning communities should implement methods in the service of content, not the other way around. For instance, a community designs or revises a unit of study (or even an outline for a course that has been wiped ad hoc off the school’s calendar because of its alleged lack of relevance to employment: read media studies and film arts) to invite a greater variety of ways for students to demonstrate and expand their critical thinking. Of course, these communities take time to develop, time better spent in planning curriculum rather than clicking on questionnaires. Given actual time to design meaningful PLC projects, teachers can incorporate innovative (read: relevant) methods into their deliver of ministry-mandated content. Those who favour method over content can (grudgingly) accept knowledge and thinking as mere “super-sizing” of education.
     Meaningful professional learning is a labour of love: love for the power or information, the necessity of critical thinking, and the compassion and responsibility required to live fully in a liberal democracy. And that’s super-sizing the good stuff rather than the junk, following our consciences, and modeling the future we want.