In which I am assured of Due Process

It had been three full days since I was forcibly removed from my practicum at Gordon Bell, and I still had no word from the University as to where I stood, or what I would have to do to salvage what remained of my prospects of ever becoming a teacher. Finally, at 4:00 on Wednesday the 23^rd of November, I received the following email from the Director of Student Teaching:

In response to your email dated November 22, 2011, I would like to
provide the following information:

· When you declined to meet with the Faculty of Education Deans,
your file was transferred to the University of Winnipeg’s Registrar
Office.

· Currently, your status is under review. Due process will be
followed and you will be duly informed as the investigation moves
forward.

If you require further information, please contact the U of W
Registrar.

Sincerely,
Deb Woloshyn

It was clear that my faculty was washing its hands of me. If I had any more questions, I was to contact the Registrar. It might have been nice of Deb to tell me the Registrar’s name or his email address, but apparently I was on my own when it came to that. In any case, whoever he was, this Registrar was obviously not about to get my practicum privileges restored. I guess I was just going to have to wait and be contacted. At least I had Deb’s assurance that due process would be followed.

In Which the University Stonewalls

It had been 9:00 on Monday morning when I had been escorted off the premises by the Vice Principal of Gordon Bell. At the end of the day I received a very short note informing me simply that my practicum had been terminated, and in response to my request for clarification of my status, I was further informed on the following day, rather ominously, that my file had now been "transferred to the Registrar's Office". As to who the Registrar was, or what he was doing with my file, the Education Faculty was apparently content to let me sit and stew.

There was nothing to do but persist: I wrote back again, asking what was going on:

Hi Deb

I have a couple of questions about my status; if you cannot answer them I
hope you will tell me whom I should ask. I don't exactly understand what you
mean when you say my file has been transferred to the UW Registrar. I have
assumed I am still a student in good standing within the faculty. Therefore
I am wondering:

1. What will the Faculty of Education be doing anything to find me an
alternative placement so I can get credit for my practicum?

2. Will I be provided with written reasons as to why Gordon Bell requested
my removal from the school?

3. Can you confirm that I am still a student in good standing, and as such
what steps will I need to take in order to complete the requirements of my
practicum?

Marty

This letter was sent out at 12:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday. I am sure you would like to know how the Department replied to this correspondence. If you can put yourself in my shoes for a moment, perhaps you can appreciate that I was quite urgently interested in getting an informative reply. However, at the time, the University in its wisdom felt it was appropriate to keep me waiting until 3:30 on Wednesday before giving me an answer, and for those of you following this story at home, that's also how long you're going to have to wait to hear what they said.

In the meantime, you might be wondering if I blame Deb Woloshyn for the way I was treated during those very difficult three days. The fact is Deb had always treated me quite well up to that point, and it is inconceivable that she could have been acting on her own in this matter. There can be no doubt that the precise timing and wording of her responses to me would have been carefully controlled by the Dean's office: she would have merely been given the role of spokesperson.

On the other hand, as a thinking feeling human being, she cannot possibly have felt that I was being handled fairly, and by putting her name to the correspondence, she was effectively endorsing the treatment I was being given, even if she was only following the Dean's orders. I like to think that if I were in her position, and the Dean were telling me how to answer a student who was in a similar position, I would  have told the Dean that I had a duty to the student to be as informative as possible: if the Dean told me that I was to tell the student exactly what the Dean wanted him to know, I would hope that I would have had the integrity to tell the Dean to find someone else to do his dirty work. Don't we have tenure in place to guarantee academics that they can act with integrity without fear of retribution? Or is tenure just an expensive perk written into the union contract to guarantee job security?

Can they kick you out just like that?

Let’s understand what had just happened. My practicum block was over before it had begun, and all I had was a three-line letter from the Director of Student Teaching telling me that I was not to return to the school. No reasons given, and there was no appeal process indicated. I had shown up that morning as a student teacher in good standing, and now I faced the prospect of being finished as a teacher altogether. What school would hire a student who had been kicked out of his practicum?

The lack of written reasons only made the circumstances of the termination seem all the more sinister. What could it possibly mean other than I had done something so unspeakably horrible that it was beyond even putting in writing? It was essential that I get to the bottom of this. So I immediately wrote back to the Director of Student Teaching:

I wish to be provided with written reasons for my termination, including reference to the relevant University policies and procedures under which the termination was carried out.

Marty Green

I received my answer the next morning:

The Certification Practicum Student Handbook states that "School administrators have the authority and right to remove or request that Student Teachers be removed from the school. This may occur on an immediate basis if deemed necessary by the school administration." At this point, any further process regarding your file has been transferred to the UW Registrar.

Regards,
Deb Woloshyn

Director, Student Teaching
Faculty of Education
University of Winnipeg

In which I am escorted to the sidewalk

When we left off yesterday, it was Monday morning, the first official day of my practicum block. I was sitting in the principal’s office waiting to be told the purpose of this unexpected meeting which I had been called into. Finally they appeared and sat down, the principal and the vice. After some perfunctory pleasantries, it was time to get down to businees. It seems they had been hearing bad things about me.

Just what had they heard? It’s really hard to say. I’d like to tell you what happened, but there is a problem. You see, up to this moment, I have not seen a written record of their version of what went on in the meeting, so for reasons that may or may not be apparent to everyone else, I feel it is not in my best interest to put forward my version. There are nevertheless certain facts which I do not believe ought to be in dispute:

1. My faculty advisor had already been called and would be meeting with the principal later that day.

2. Effective immediately, I was suspended from my practicum privileges until further notice.

I was then escorted to the sidewalk and told to leave. At 4:00 that afternoon, I received the following email from the Director of Student Teaching:

Hello Marty,

I am writing to inform you that your practicum block at Gordon Bell High School has been terminated for this term. You are not to return to the school. Please contact my assistant Monica Hoersch should you wish to set up an appointment.

Regards,
Deb Woloshyn

Director, Student Teaching
Faculty of Education
University of Winnipeg

In which I am invited to another meeting

The Faculty of Education courses are compressed from 13 weeks to 9 in order to accommodate a four-week practicum block. The mini-drama with the Dean of Education had played itself out during exam week, which falls between the end of classes and the beginning of prcacitum.  On Monday I was scheduled to begin teaching Grade Nine science at Gordon Bell. The unit was Static Electricity.

I had orignially been offered the chance to teach a very good class of Grade 11 AP physics students, but my co-operating teachers had the idea I might be interested in a real challenge instead. It’s hard for me to turn down a challenge, so I accepted. My new class consisted, I was told, mostly of students who were “supposed” to be in Grade 10. One of them was accompanied to each class by a parole officer. Another had recently been suspended for beating another student quite badly. You get the idea.

I previously mentioned that although the practicum block begins at the end of the term, we are already placed in out schools one day per week from the very start, so we get to know the students and teachers. Two weeks before the beginning of my block, the Grade Nine science teacher told me he was finished the Biology unit. He had originally planned to teach two weeks of Chemistry before handing off to me for Static Electricity, but now felt that he didn’t want to interrupt the Chemistry unit. “They won’t remember anything in January if we switch half-way.” So he wanted to start Static Electricity immediately.

I had already prepared for the entire unit, so I asked him if I couldn’t start then and there. He agreed, so with ten minutes advance notice, I ran around the lab grabbing all the props I could think of: magnets, balloons, iron filings, plastic rods, woolen rags: you know, basic science stuff. I was about to become a teacher for real.

This isn’t the time and place to go into the details of everything that happened, except to say it was unbelievable fun. By the time my official practicum block was set to begin, I had already taught seven full classes. Monday morning, the 21^st of November, was going to be a very special day for me: my co-operating teachers had offered me the chance to teach not just one class, as was the norm, but two classes. My second class was a very bright class of Grade 10 Chemistry students, and I was looking forward to our first session.

When I came to the office to sign in, I was greeted by the vice-prinicipal. He told me he wanted to have a word with me before classes, and would I wait in the office? I sat down.

The clock ticked on while I waited, first five minutes, then ten. Half an hour later, the vice principal finally returned, accompanied by the principal. “We’ve been hearing some things about you that we want to talk about…”

I call the Dean's bluff.

On Tuesday, having reviewed the University of Winnipeg's posted policies on non-academic misconduct, I asked the Dean's office if they could show any reason under those policies why I should attend the meeting they had scheduled for Thursday. Wednesday morning I received the following reply:

Dear Marvin Green,

As mentioned previously, the Deans of the Faculty of Education wish to meet with you to discuss complaints from faculty members and students concerning your in-class behaviour. This is planned as an informal meeting. An unwillingness to attend will result in more formal proceedings.

Sincerely,

Christy

Christy Campbell

Office Assistant
Faculty of Education
University of Winnipeg
786-9733

I couldn't see anything wrong with that. (Othere than I never really cared for the name Marvin.) After all, it was me who had been holding out for more formal procedings in the first place. So I replied:

Thank you, Christy. I have decided that it is not in my best interests to attend.

Regards,

Marty

Thursday and Friday came and went with no further word from the Dean's office. I didn't know that all hell was about to break loose.

Non-Academic Misconduct

When we left off our story, I had just been ordered to report to the Dean’s office to face unspecified allegations regarding my conduct in class. I was warned that “Failure to appear will result in further action under The University of Winnipeg Non-academic Misconduct Policy.”.

I looked up the University’s policies on “non-academic misconduct” on the internet. You can find them  here under "Regulations and Policies" You’ll see that Section 8a deals with academic misconduct: this is plagiarism, cheating, etc. Non-academic conduct is covered in Section 8b.

What is non-academic misconduct? The policy manual talks about the University being a community of scholars, and goes on about collegiality, fairness, learning environments and such, and finally defines non-academic misconduct as any “patterns of behaviour which,over time, cumulatively cause others to experience a perceived threat to their academic or social environment, or to their personal well-being.”

Unlike Academic Misconduct, where the rights of the accused and the appeal process are described in great deal, Section 8b is silent on these matters, referring the reader to the Registrar for further information. Significantly, we note that the crime of non-academic misconduct is defined not in terms of the actions of the perpetrator, but in terms of the perceptions of those actions by the supposed victims.

With no clear definition of the actual offense, and no procedures set out whereby I could defend myself, I felt it would be unwise to voluntarily take part in such a process without clear delineation of just what process I was being engaged in. So I replied to the Dean as follows:

I have consulted the University of Winnipeg Regulations and Policies document as posted on the internet and I am unable to find an reference in Section 8b as to how I can be asked to attend a meeting on this basis without some form of due process. If you can show me any reason based on University policies why I ought to attend such a meeting I will reconsider my position.

I was going to make sure whatever happened, the other side played by the rules.