I'm a big beleiver in goal setting and each January I take the time to write down some of the goals and accomplishments I hope to meet and acheive each year. This year one of my goal is to be published, either professionally or scholarly. As my first official venture into the writing world I decided to submit a piece I wrote on food drives in schools to "Teacher" a magazine/newsletter that is distributed to all public school teachers in the province. I was very pleased to find out that they were going to run my article and quite excited to open up my copy today and find it there. Despite a small missprint about what city I teach in, and that the more I read it the more I want to edit it, I am happy to be taking small steps towards my goals and contributing to socially just and reflective thinking within the public school system.
Without further adieu, here it is
Charitable Drives in schools
Are we teaching equity or charity?
Here we are, back at school with the holiday season tucked neatly behind us. We hope that the holidays are as welcome and a happy time for our students and communities as they are for teachers, but sadly we know this is often not the case. Our provinces increasing child poverty rate is a vivid and painful reminder of BC’s continued cuts to social spending and our public safety net. This is not news to teachers, who know full well the reluctance of our government to fund programs most of us would consider essential in the first world country in which we live. As teachers who care about our students and communities we often engage our schools in charitable practices in part to help others, but also to teach our students empathy, caring, and that there are many in the world and in our own backyard who do not have enough. Food drives continue to be one of the most pervasive charitable drives in school. Year after year school children are asked to bring in food to give to others in need. Success of the drive is often measured in the amount of food brought in, but unfortunately not in quality. Too often food drives are filled with expired items, unwanted or unusable items, or nutritionally poor foods. Even the most well intentioned items such as Kraft Dinner, or boxed cereal which may seems like easy and palatable options are often inappropriate for families and individuals who rely on food banks due to the scarcity of fluid milk in many food insecure households. The upsetting fact is that food banks are meant to be an emergency measure, but unfortunately they have become entrenched in Canadian society as our answer to those who do not have enough to eat. Unfortunately, charitable food programs are a Band-Aid solution to what is the great societal injustice of thousands of Canadians not having access to safe, affordable, and nutritious food. The reason these programs exist is because of people, like teachers, who care and want to help others in need. They are a response to a crisis, but these charitable measures do not address the root cause of hunger, which in our province is intimately linked with an ever-increasing cost of living and further cuts to social programs.
As we enter the New Year entrenched in job action, BC teachers are keenly aware of our government’s unwillingness to protect public programs.
“Charitable responses to social programs is at best a temporary solution and at worst the perpetuation of the idea that private citizens, not government, are responsible for protecting those who are most in need.”
We stand together in our belief for funding for education, programs and support for our students, and fair treatment and respect for teachers. We are in a fight for justice, where government must be held accountable to support public education. We share this message with the public, including our students. It is important for our students to learn about taking a stand for what they believe in and becoming an advocate for change. With all the potentially negative impacts of job action on our students, the idea of justice and advocacy is a poignant lesson and teachable moment to seize with our pupils.
Teachers know that public education is in a dangerous place, and that real change must come from our government to protect students and teachers. I look at my own school as an example of how the lack of funding is affecting us. Our inability to afford the very textbooks mandated by curriculum is a blatant example of how deplorable it is that 3 billion dollars that has vanished out of public education. Teachers want better, we want books, but more importantly we want change. We are in job action to demand this change and we rightly justify it to the public, but are we really looking at the big picture when it comes to our schools, students, and communities as a whole?
Holding a food drive to alleviate hunger is akin to holding a book drive instead of demanding funding for textbooks. Charitable responses to social programs is at best a Band-Aid solution and at worse the perpetuation of the idea that private citizens, not government, are responsible for protecting those who are most in need. While food drives can teach children about empathy and helping others, it also teaches them that it feels good to help others, even if the help is not what is needed. We can also teach children empathy and social justice by involving them in the issue and getting involved with organizations who are attempting to make grassroot changes to public policy and social spending in our province. The unfortunate truth is that as charity increases, so does our sense of justice and belief that our government could make real and lasting change for those most vulnerable. Finding meaningful and proactive ways to engage our students and communities in charitable action helps our students, society, and teachers. We are at a crossroads with public education, but we also stand at the same crossroads with public health, and social programs. Justice and equity in policy for one can work to translate into justice and equity in the others. BC teachers believe in justice, let’s now teach it to our students and give them a chance at creating equity instead of charity and demanding change.
