A Modern Story

A man, bleeding heavily, lay on the downtown sidewalk of a busy city.  To any casual observer he appeared to be the victim of a mugging. People hurried by him, careful to avoid the spreading blood, on their way to their businesses.

The first to pause was a self-made millionaire who addressed the man as follows: I am sorry for your plight and am in personal pain to see you suffer. However, I am a self-made man who, by hard work and determination, has made my way through life so that I wouldn’t end up where you are. It is unfortunate that you made some bad decisions along the way, but, you have no one to blame for your plight but yourself.

The next to pause was a middle-aged well-dressed woman who said: Poor man! I wish I could help you, but, I have heard about the dangers of blood-born disease and so cannot touch you for fear of catching a deadly disease myself. You will have to help yourself.

A parson happened by who immediately knelt on the ground next to the man and said quietly: Such are the wages of sin. However, our God is a loving God who, if you sincerely repent, will forgive you and welcome you into his heavenly kingdom. I will pray for you.

A conservative politician was next to address the man: I am so, so sorry to see you in such a state. We must all work together to make our streets safer so that this type of thing doesn’t happen to others. I will build more prisons and dictate harsher sentences so that others will not become victims like yourself.

A liberal politician said: We must launch a Royal Commission to examine the root causes of what has happened to you. The Commission will hear from witnesses and experts who will explain why you and others like you are on our streets bleeding. They will make recommendations so that we can better understand what has led to your fate.

  

A holy man, freshly returned from years of meditation, said to him: Do not focus on your pain. It is a transitory illusion. Look only to the present and seek inner peace.

Finally, a police officer saw the man and approached him. He examined the man’s wounds and then used his cell phone to call for an ambulance.  However, due to cutbacks needed to finance additional prisons and Royal Commissions, emergency services had been reduced to one ambulance for the entire city and it was busy attending to others in need of urgent help.

After the man died, the city coroner held an inquest and recommended that emergency services should, in future, guarantee a response time of ten minutes and that police officers be given more training in first aid.

Maniwaki and me....

Yesterday I noticed a small story in the Ottawa Citizen about an apparent murder that occurred in Maniwaki. For those who don't know, Maniwaki is a town in Quebec about a two hour drive north of Ottawa. It is situated on land that legally belongs to the Algonquins of the Kitigan Zibi Reserve, one of the largest Algonquin settlements in existence. I taught at the secondary school in Maniwaki from 1975 to 1982. About half of my students were from Kitigan Zibi and the rest a mixture of French Canadian and Irish. The secondary school was built in the late 1960's when the Quebec government invested heavily in education, believing that all students living anywhere in the province should have access to the same opportunities. Large "polyvalent" ("many streams") secondary schools were built across the province, complemented by CEGEPs (collèges d'enseignement général et professionnel ) at the post-secondary level.


Secondary school ran from grades 7 to 11, followed by two years in an academic program at the CEGEP level to prepare for university entrance, making pre-university education about the same number of years as in other provinces. (Ontario high schools at the time ran from grades 9 to 13.) At the ends of both grades 10 and 11 were provincial examinations in each subject. Generally the exams were set at two levels: the higher one for CEGEP-bound students, and the lower for those who simply wanted a secondary school leaving certificate. As there was no such thing as a province-wide curriculum teachers at individual school geared their own curriculums towards the expected examinations. As the senior English teacher, I set the curriculum for all English courses from grades 7 to 11. 


As in many smaller Quebec communities, the predominant language of instruction was in French, though, if numbers warranted a secteur anglais could be set up. Education, at the time, was divided along religious lines. The predominate religion being Roman Catholic, though the Quebec government, under the terms of the British North America Act of 1867, offered education programs for Protestants, along the lines of Ontario's commitments to its Roman Catholic minority. By the time I started teaching in Maniwaki, the religious lines were blurring because the language issue was taking on much more significance. Public education was formally "deconfessionalized" in 2000. When I was teaching in the 1970's and 80's the eventuality of realigning school boards along language rather than religious lines was becoming apparent. Though most of my students were nominally Protestant, a large number were Roman Catholic. Without the English-speaking Catholics there would not have been enough English-speaking students to justify the existence of the secteur anglais. Students requiring an English secondary school education would have had to travel an hour by bus to the small English secondary school in Low, or, two hours to a secondary school in Hull.


The big change in Maniwaki since I was there was the creation of a native-run secondary school, situated on the reserve. I knew many of the people involved in the planning for this school. In fact, I knew many of the people of Maniwaki and Kitigan Zibi whose names I saw in news stories over the years since I left. One has become a police chief. Another, head of surgery at a large hospital. And yet another was a Member of Parliament for a session. Many entered the teaching profession, some returning to Kitigan Zibi to work in the school there. A few, perhaps a half dozen in all, have died violently, either in auto accidents, or, in one case, murder.


That is the background to the story I read in yesterday's Citizen.  No names were given in the initial story, though the street were it happened was named. I knew that street well. Today's Citizen named both the victim and the suspect. The victim, an 85 year old man, taught auto shop in the polyvalent for the first two years I was there. He nursed my wreaks of cars through crisis after crisis, accepting only a bottle of Scotch at Christmas as payment. The suspect, the man's 50-year-old son, was in my classes for the first two years I taught. I remember him particularly well because he was a bully with a sullen and hostile attitude. On one occasion when I had dragged him to the principal's office by the ear because he had torn up a note book belonging to another student, the principal literally kicked him in the ass. It did no good. Even his father appeared to have no influence on him. Eventually, he disappeared from the school's life before completing grade 8. I've known students like him all my life; they were in my elementary school classes, and I've run into their adult counterparts in my professional careers since. 


I don't know where they come from or why they adopt the attitude that the world is their enemy when they are about 12 years old. But, once set into a pattern of defiance, they seem to get stuck there. Of course, the more they act out, the harder the adults around them are on them. It's likely a self-perpetuating cycle. What I know for certain is that with 35 students in my classes there was no way that I could adopt a plan of action for reaching this kid. He was disruptive, so I had to get him out of the way so I could teach the other 34 students. Life does not resemble a Hollywood movie at all. It might have been nice if some deeply compassionate and understanding teacher took this kid under their wing and set him on the road to redemption, but, this doesn't happen in real life. We try to deal with the problems quickly and get on with the rest of the job.


When I reflect back on my time in Maniwaki, I feel both pride and sadness.  There were some successes, but there were also failures. I don't know how this balances out. But, once when I was in a conflict with the Algonquin counsellor in the school, many of my students approached him to support me (and he eventually apologized), and, at one graduation party a small group of Algonquin students told me that I was the only white teacher they had ever encountered who did not have a trace of prejudice in his body. They laughed and said they knew that all I cared about was getting them through those god-damned provincial exams.