Valuable lessons

If not for the ugly blight on its reputation perpetrated by the now-defunct residential school experiment and some lesser-known provincial and territorial disputes, Canada’s school system would have an enviable record in its commitment to meaningful education.

Readers may also question the future of classroom education given existential threats from the ever-accelerating pace of artificial intelligence (AI), but this timely book suggests Canada’s educators will continue to fulfil their age-old roles of preparing students for an ever-changing world.

Featuring deeply personal individual commentaries from teachers and former students, this tribute to those at the front of classrooms is reminiscent of a writing style effectively employed throughout an earlier culturally-themed book assembled in 1966 by iconic Canadian author James H. Gray titled The Winter Years.

Yet unlike those earlier revelations that spoke largely of hopelessness and despair permeating throughout much of Canada’s communities during the 1930s, stories featured in Peter Mansbridge and Mark Bulgutch’s A Noble Profession: Inspiring Stories of the Teachers Who Shape Our World combine to paint a compelling and uplifting portrait of our 21st-century national education system.

Co-authors Mansbridge and Bulgutch share a decades-long working relationship for CBC News, and both have daughters who are teachers. Having previously co-authored the nationally acclaimed Extraordinary Canadians (2020), their unabashed national pride is again evident through their choice of contributors who help make their newest book a must-have addition to home and school libraries.

A Noble Profession is a timely homage to those in charge of school classrooms throughout Canada’s provinces and territories, featuring personal experiences of 35 teachers and former students whose stories succeed in reminding us that our schools, public or private, are indispensable to an individual’s potential — and to an entire nation’s ability to grow and prosper.

Their stories should also serve to blunt tax-weary criticisms often directed at a public system where employed professionals are often mistakenly seen to be working only seven hours a day and 10 months of the year for salaries surpassing those of the general workforce.

The teachers’ stories here will help silence such criticism through their revelations of work-related stresses such as out-of-classroom lesson planning, multi-page student essay assessments, school team coaching and extracurricular programs that often lead to 10- or 12-hour work days.

Critics will be further challenged by stories confirming that teachers are one of only a few professional groups whose members are expected to regularly aid, direct and discipline several dozen potentially rebellious clients at one time, offering considerable reasons behind the comparatively early retirement and mental burnout history within the teaching profession.

Readers may question the process used by Mansbridge and Bulgutch in choosing the geographically varied group of participants who represent the provinces and territories in this candid portrayal. But the sincerity evident in these stories from teachers and students alike crucially suggests that dedication to students in their classrooms is an ongoing and hallmark characteristic of Canada’s teachers.

Contributions to this revealing collection notably includes one piece addressing the bitter legacy of residential schools submitted by a young, relatively inexperienced teacher from a tiny hamlet on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, effectively portraying her ongoing attempts to undo the wrongs of the past.

Another concerns a former student, now age 76 and a lawyer in Hamilton, Ont., admitting his appreciation for one particular, often-harried teacher who introduced him to the notion of critical thinking that fostered a successful career and a better understanding of the world at large.

In somewhat similar ways, all the stories offer readers much-needed understanding of the complexities that combine to make a typical day at work for more than 400,000 Canadian teachers markedly different from that of other professionals.

Hinting at a hopeful future, one teacher adeptly captures an overriding theme found throughout the individual stories comprising this book: “AI can support learning in some ways, but it can’t replace what happens when real people share space. We laugh, create, and connect. This is the kind of intelligence — embodied, emotional, and deeply human — that no machine can replicate.”

Joseph Hnatiuk is a retired teacher.

Peter Mansbridge launches A Noble Profession at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location at 7 p.m. tonight, where he’ll be joined in conversation by Free Press education reporter Maggie Macintosh.