Since I've been asked... Part Three

Mea culpa; in the first two portions of this series I ended up getting lost in my own convictions; I should have been more specific as to my answer to the question 'What should we do next?'

I think that what's needed most regarding the schools closures situation is producing a genuine, logic-based effort to gain understanding about what the current realities of our education system are, how funding is applied, all of it. 

Not a 'debate'; that could certainly follow once there's a better level of comprehension on the parts of our 'aware-and-energized' residents. Before you can debate, you need to have the basics down pat. 

'You're entitled to your own opinion. You're not entitled to your own facts.' 

So we need an examination of our realities before we can begin debating the best course to take. (Presuming that the HWDSB's decisions are not acceptable. And given the outcry –no matter its size– I think it's safe to say that they're not. Or at least, given our level of understanding we're maintaining that they're not.)

I'm a believer in getting people together in a room to discuss things. It's a fundamental dynamic going back tens of thousands of years: the clan around the fire. 

Yes, I believe in social media. 

Yes, I believe in 'all things-Internetish'. 

I believe in newspapers, I believe in magazines, I believe television, radio...and mental telepathy. (Just seeing if you were paying attention.)

But call me 'old school' if it makes you feel better, I believe that there is something elemental about proximity, about physical process, about immediacy, about breathing the same air that renders just about everything else  as 'complementary contributory factors. Great adjuncts to 'being there'. 

'It ain't real until you kiss 'em.'

So I believe we need to have these discussions, these explorations in-person, in the same room with other persons, finding comprehension together. (As augmented by all of the above; it's not 'one or the other', it's all of them. But first-and-foremost, I believe in the process of being there. Think of it as having the same status and implication of going to church.)

We should be having a roving town hall. 

From ward to ward. 

An 'Education Examination Tour'.

Part seminar, part panel, part 'Speakers' Corner Squared' (open-mic), where an investigation of our educational realities unfolds. 

Yes, I believe there should be a website. Where basic, solid information is presented. And there should be message boards. For 'aware-and-energized' Hamiltonians can get their hands dirty and discuss factors to their hearts' content. 

And I believe that the neighbourhood associations throughout our city should be driving this kind of effort hand-in-hand with entities such as the Hamilton Civic League and the Council of Canadians, amongst others. 

So the practical answer to the question 'What should we do next?' to me is not predicated on sending emails or letters of protest to trustees and councillors and MPPs and the Premier, but on people starting to think hard about how this discussion can best be fostered. 

I have to frame things this way, because this is what I believe in. 

M Adrian Brassington


Town Halls Hamilton
Hamilton Neighbourhood Associations

Since I've been asked... Part Two

If you want to have a say in how things unfold in your city, specifically regarding your schools, then you cannot take a 'stand back' approach. (The proof is right in front of us.)

You cannot vote in your trustees, invest in them the power to make the management decisions that need to be made, then stand back and don't play an active part in how those decisions are made and ultimately, implemented, and expect to be satisfied. (You can...but it's clearly more about naïveté than anything else.)

Moreover, you cannot hope to counter this paradigm within a feedback/consultation mechanism such as the ARC process, something 'owned' by the very people who 'aware-and-energized' in Hamilton are now furious with, whose heads they want on pikes, whose decisions and actions are now the stuff of (small-ish) mass protest.

Since I've been asked... Part One

This week has seen a) a heat-wave, b) the S.O.S. rally at the HWDSB headquarters at 100 Main Street West, c) a fair amount of commenting about the whole education situation, and d) protracted correspondence on my part with concerned residents. One in particular.

The emails back-and-forth with this tried-and-true Hamiltonian were initiated after Margaret Shkimba's article 'We can do better for our children' was published. Although my tack wasn't the same as my correspondent's. Theirs was more about 'ideas' and 'getting creative' in response to this 'crisis'. Mine was more about taking several steps back and taking a look at the bigger picture. Concentrating on what would be required to do something with the ideas and the creativity we might be able to come up with. 

My email-buddy eventually asked 'What do we need to do?' But before I relate my answer(s) to them, allow me to post here an online comment following on the heels of the protest yesterday at the –current– BOE headquarters:

In the words of Chris...

Overheard en route to a rally:

Protester A: So where did these cuts or budget crisis originate from? 

Protester B: I think it's part of an effort by the government to balance the budget or cut the deficit or whatever... There's probably more to it though.

(Silence)

Protester A: Is it simply delayed maintenance and chronic under-funding?

Protester B: Not sure. 

Protester A: Did this suddenly come from the feds, or from the provincial level? 

Protester B: Dunno.

Protester A: Why all at once in a big catastrophe? 

Protester B: (shrugs)

Protester A: It really makes one wonder about competency, doesn't it?

You know, it's one thing to be jarred by the perceived incompetence of public servants.

It's another thing entirely to be jarred by the incompetence of residents. 


As they're beginning to wax voluminous about the incompetence of public servants. While they're grabbing pitchforks and torches and screaming for blood, preparing to march...without seemingly having a firm grasp of the facts.

What am I talking about? Comments read so far about the upsetting-to-some HWDSB headquarters relocation and school closings.

And because so much of all what unfolds has sure looked and sounded like righteous indignation, high dudgeon or just plain rage, I'd like to share something offered to me on this very subject by someone who has a far better up-close-and-personal grasp on 'public reaction' than I would ever claim to:

"What we're seeing looks a lot more like 'wrath' than anything else I can describe. And while I'm all for pitchforks and torches, I feel that this illustrates a number of pitfalls of this process. Not only does it overly personalize the issue (ie: Judith), but it also tends to lead to knee-jerk reactions. As a part of a larger, participatory political culture, it's normal and even functional. In a disjointed arena like ours, dominated by a few powerful interests, it generally only makes things worse.

In and of itself, such wrath does little to engender broader political involvement. Unlike most kinds of activism, which are skillfully designed to engender further involvement and development, wrath needs only a political lever by which to punish someone. It doesn't articulate a deeper analysis, it doesn't seek popular involvement and at best it leads to a replacement of one or two politicians, which changes very little structurally. What it does accomplish is making sure that neighbourhoods who already have the most influence are able to exert more.

There are constructive ways to rage. You broaden and deepen the critique, build networks, link issues and treat every event and action like a training course for the next. Struggle and conflict are some of the most potent organizing tools out there, and I doubt Hamilton will truly see a mass/popular organizing campaign until we're given a really compelling reason to do so. These school closures might be that issue, but even if they aren't, they'll feed a general sense that more input is needed." 

So while I applaud the 'S.O.S.' movement and all manifestations of reaction to the HWDSB situation, I'm compelled to bring up two pieces published this year. The first is an op-ed I posted here almost a month ago, dealing with what our 'starting point' seems to be regarding 'civic engagement'. Anger. Wrath. Rage. 


The second was featured on the Spec 'Opinions' page, originally entitled 'The 8-Ball and The Curve: Why Are We Always Behind One or The Other?'


And I'll leave it at that. For now. 

M Adrian Brassington

Today's edition of 'There's Three Sides to Every Story'

Poster by Graham Crawford, 'Dissident' Primoris

vs

DRESCHEL: Trustees uses province as ‘bogeyman’

Liberal cabinet minister Ted McMeekin says the education ministry put “absolutely no pressure” on the public school board to abandon the option of building its new headquarters downtown.

McMeekin says fears the province might pull its support for the headquarters stem not from government coercion but the “skittishness” of trustees.

“This board tends to be risk averse and fairly conservative,” said McMeekin, minister of agriculture and MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale.

“It’s unfortunate they terminated the process they agreed to.”

McMeekin was responding to the suggestion that the board prematurely bailed on the proposal to build at the historic Cannon Knitting Mills in the heart of Beasley neighbourhood out of fear the ministry might change its mind about the $31.6 million headquarters

(The Spec article can be found here.)

A little bit of clarity, please.

Poster by Graham Crawford, 'Dissident' Primoris

Um...

The proposed lower city 'super school' is going to have an enrolment capacity of...wait for it...

Not 5,000. 

Not 4,000. 

Not 3,000, not 2,500, not 2,000, not 1,750, not 1500...

...but 1,250. 

The same size as Sir John A. MacDonald. 

And smaller than Westdale. 

The conversations that comprise the overall one regarding 'What's going on with our high school closings?' are all valid, ones I've always encouraged we be having, including the merits and implications of busing students on themselves and on neighbourhoods. But surely we can at least follow Daniel Patrick Moynihan's admonition?

"You're entitled to your own opinion. But you're not entitled to your own facts."

Here's a few more facts, courtesy of the HWDSB:

"In 2009/2010, there were approximately 2,600 extra spaces within Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board secondary schools. This number is expected to increase to nearly 6,000 extra places by 2020."

M Adrian Brassington

What's goin' on...?

"...the absurdly poor approach to engagement and governance..."


"This idea must get beyond the 'preaching to the choir' that can happen on RTH. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- it is (an) important step in thinking about and clarifying the debate -- but (the) message needs to get out there more widely."


"You're conflating different concepts here."

In the past 48 hours, two facebook groups have been set up to 'oust' the two Board of Education trustees (and Board chairman) from Wards 1&2 and 3. 

We've also seen these contributions from Graham Crawford, Dissident Primoris:

If you go to Raise the Hammer right now, even if you just peruse the relevant articles and just focus on their comments, the refrain is the same: 'We need to do something about this.' A local version of 'We're as mad as Hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!'

But more than this, at least to my earnestly optimistic eyes, a door seems to be opening. 

On the other side? Um... Everything I've been yammering on about for the past 18 months, everything that Town Halls Hamilton is predicated on, and everything I've been pretty pointedly strident about this year: that we need to accept that it's not that something is 'broken' in our system, what with the feelings of powerlessness and nitrous-fuelled cynicism...but that we simply haven't been playing our part in our own local governance properly. 

We haven't taken our rightful seat at the table with Council, City Staff and developers. Even though we've believed we had. 

Changing this is actually quite simple. 

Not easy...but simple. 

And I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see people finally pushing open that door a crack and considering what's visible. 'Fresh eyes' can be a wonderful thing. Or...

'People remain where they are until they're uncomfortable enough to move.'

M Adrian Brassington

Some Unsettling Truths...And a Broken Record's Refrain

Photo: Raise The Hammer

This week has seen several developments on the education-in-Hamilton front. Decisions on school closings. The disbanding of the City-HWDSB task force to find another downtown location for the Board's headquarters. And as a result, Spec and RTH articles, and endless comments, observations and...and...vilifications.

I've pretty much stood back on this issue, wanting to see how it would unfold, rather than offering up an unqualified opinion.

Wanting to see how far the outrage would go. What might result. Whether or not it would grow into a 'movement' worthy of joining, or whether it would be the civic activism equivalent of a bottle-rocket's stoppered pyrotechnics.

In a way, it's been hard to watch. There are some notable participants in the general brouhaha, people of high intelligence, of 'community leader' status (or at least 'potential'), who have articulated their thoughts admirably. (Some of these thoughts have included being heartbrokenly gobsmacked at, in the end, the inarguable lack of interest/engagement/participation on the parts of affected residents, and Hamiltonians-at-large.)

From my vantage point, my feelings have been that a) certain elements in the discussion have been wilfully ignored, or downright denied. Here's a post I put up in February about this. And b) that we need to begin discussing the merits of this notion as it applies to all aspects of decisions being made by publicly-installed entities.

However, for the time being, here is a list of 'truths' that have been germane to the 'education' situation.