Some Teaching Experience

I have written a lot of negative things about secondary school teachers. Those remarks are based on my observations of: 1) the teachers I had in secondary school; 2) the teachers I worked with while I was a teacher; 3) the teachers responsible for the education of my children; and 4) my fellow students in the education department at McGill University (and university students in general that I knew).

For the most part, university professors are not guilty of the sins of secondary school teachers—and, generally, elementary teachers are not a bad lot, mainly because  they are—or, rather, should be—preoccupied with teaching basic skills. It’s when you get into secondary school that you run into problems because that’s where you encounter a lot of “opinion” subjects that do not require much in the way of professional preparation. Many English teachers, for example (and, yes, there are many good and some exceptional English teachers), are there because they don’t know what else to do with their general arts BA. The attitude of many principals and administrators is that, if you graduated from university you must know something about English. Makes sense—maybe. Except, many university grads have taken only one introductory course in literature and, just what the heck is “English” as an academic subject anyway?

Though I was an “English teacher,” I really had two main subjects that I taught: English grammar and writing skills (composition); and English literature. My academic background for teaching English grammar: my secondary school grammar classes. I never heard of an English grammar class at the university level. The closest I came was a mandatory first year course (which no longer exists, as far as I know) on how to prepare and write research papers. In other words, I really didn't know any more than what I remembered from my own grade eight grammar classes taught by someone educated in a secondary school twenty or so years earlier, by a teacher with a similar background. I probably barely passed that subject myself and now I was the “expert.” You gotta be kidding me.

At least I had more credible qualifications when it came to teaching literature. I had taken several courses in English lit in university and I had an abiding interest in literature, especially Canadian literature. Not only did I take two separate courses in Canadian poetry, but I actively followed the careers of several Canadian poets, especially the Montreal school of Louis Dudek, Irving Layton, and F. R. Scott. (In fact, one of my professors was Michael Gnawroski, the foremost expert on Canadian poetry at the time.)

Because of resignations, in my second years teaching I was the effective head of the English department in our school and set about creating a curriculum that I thought best addressed the needs of young people soon to graduate from the formal education part of their lives. Class time was split fairly evenly between literature and composition. (I recall arguing passionately with a young teacher who thought that teaching writing skills was a waste of time; her argument was that most adults do not need to write formal expository essays; my argument was that most adults need to be able to think in an orderly manner. I recommended against keeping her on staff.) I divided the literature part into four divisions: poetry, short stories, a major novel, and a Shakespearean play; one term each.

Why each? Poetry represents a way of symbolic thinking and encourages analytical thinking on several simultaneous and apparently disparate levels. It can draw connections to the world that would otherwise be inexpressible in our daily language. Short stories can sum up life experiences in a few well-thought out and constructed pages. Studying novels was a way of exploring large structural forms and ideas that could be looked at from several angles, as well as exposing the student to different worlds and world-views.

Shakespeare? That should be self-explanatory. In my senior classes I taught George Orwell’s 1984 and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Each addresses the corruption and abuse of power and examines the nature of reality—both topics that any adult should at least think about and be cognisant of the fact that governments lie and manipulate, and that what might seem obvious to you is not quite so obvious to someone else. I also taught an extra course (for which I was not paid but students could get provincial credit for) on Canadian literature. We read lots of Canadian poetry as well as novels like Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman and Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel. One young woman who went on to become head of surgery of a major hospital was entranced by the images of strong women prevalent in so much Canadian writing and kept asking me for more recommendations of novels by Canadians.

I did enjoy teaching. Nothing quite like a day in early spring saying to a class of 17- and 18-year-olds, “So, it’s next year and you’re away at CEGEP when you get a letter saying your father just died and, by the way, your mother just married your uncle. How do you react?” “I’d kill the mother-f**ker” was a response I often got. That was probably pretty close to what Hamlet’s first reaction was—though his language would have been a little more Elizabethan. Some things never change.

But, I don’t get it. Why was studying English so boring for me, my kids, and many students in other English classes? English lit, especially, is about everything—and who can be bored by that?

That's my money; not hers!

One thing that surfaces in my wandering mind occasionally is: why can’t there be a better system for determining the income tax payable by couples? If you are single, you pay tax calculated on the basis that you are an individual. If you are married or living common law, the rules change and now you pay taxes based on your combined income. The idea behind it is left over from the earliest days of income tax (federal income tax was introduced “temporarily” in 1917 in Canada, by the Conservatives) when a spouse, by definition, was a married woman who stayed home and looked after the running of the household. Thus, basic living expenses were higher for a married man than for a single man who did not have a wife to support. Taxes were adjusted on that basis; if they were not then it would make better economic sense for people not to marry, something that the clergy-ruled ruling classes could not allow. So, the spousal deduction was created.

These days what that means is that if someone has less reportable income than the basic personal deduction (about $11,000 currently), then his partner can deduct the difference from her taxable income. In the case of a single parent, one can treat a child in the same manner, and, as young children are not likely to have much, if anything, in the way of income, it amounts to a, roughly, $11,000 tax deduction. (And, no this “equivalent-to-spouse deduction” did not come about because politicians realized that there are a lot of single parents who can use a break; it came about because a widowed male would have to hire nannies and housekeepers to take the place of the deceased wife. Widowed women were not a concern of the income tax people because they had no income to begin with.)

In any case, the disenfranchised classes, who represent a significant proportion of single-family homes, can spot the flaw here. There is a significant financial gain to be realized if one can forget to mention that there is an adult partner in the household. In the absence of a state-recorded marriage license, who’s to say otherwise? What this translates to in reality is that a woman comes in to prepare her taxes accompanied by a male;  they explain that they are simply good friends and can we please overlook that the fact that the two-year old is crawling on the male’s lap and calling him “Daddy?” Tax preparers cannot knowingly file a tax return with incorrect information; but, on the other hand, cannot ask clients for proof of their marital status or call them liars. All we can do is point out the techniques that the Canada Revenue Agency sometimes employs to catch non-declared couples. Just saying, you know. Invariably, the male who did not have his return prepared—and who is just a friend of the family—reaches for the refund cheque.

I made it a habit to keep the refund cheque firmly in hand while the final documents were signed and then I would give the cheque to the woman. If a male partner objected I’d smile and say, “Women know what their family needs; men just know what they want.” That often got a laugh, sometimes a rueful one from the woman. I did this even with people who were preparing returns as a couple—and for the same reason. It was rare that a man raised a serious objection, but, it did happen. In that case, I’d shrug. By that time the woman already had the cheque and, if she was smart, had stuck it in her purse—or bra.

One unexpected situation I ran into though was when pension income splitting was introduced. This was a god-send for older couples living on a single pension, or a lop-sided situation where the man had a much larger pension than the wife. What pension splitting meant was that a couple could treat a retirement pension as if it were payable to both of them. They could combine the amount and then divvy it up for reporting purposes in whatever way was most beneficial for them. For many couples this meant a tax refund of between two and three thousand dollars, assuming they had taxes deducted at source at the standard rate. I could hardly believe it when pensioner after pensioner refused to let me treat their taxes in this way. I’d show them the benefits—and how much of a refund they’d receive—and they’d shake their heads stubbornly. “That’s my money, not hers.” I’d try to convince them that I was not giving their money to their spouse—it was only a paper transaction that did not mean that the pension company would now start making out the cheques to their wives. In some cases that made it worse because they started to suspect that I was trying to pull some sort of accounting trick that the government was sure to catch on to and they would be the ones to pay the price for my deception. Eventually, though, a few years after its introduction most pensioners had dropped their objections. Their friends were getting multi-thousand dollar refunds and had not gone to jail and the wives were just as financially dependent as they always had been. Given that fewer companies these days are paying into pension plans for their employees, this will eventually become a moot point—with the possible exception of government employees.

But, it is interesting that so many males apparently have the attitude that a marriage (or common-law arrangement) is for their sole benefit and have trouble getting the idea that it is supposed to be a partnership through their heads. I had my fair share of older female clients whose husbands had up and died on them who had no clue what financial situation they were in. Many had no idea what Old Age Security is—that was something they left up to the husband to look after. Many did not know that they were entitled to collect on the Canada Pension Plan and, even if they had not worked outside the home, they were still entitled to a survivor benefit. To be fair, I had a few recently-widowed males who were in a similar situation. But, I rarely saw the kinds of outright self-centred displays that I saw in many males being displayed by women. Yes, there was the occasional one who was of the opinion that her income tax refund was so she could buy a new I-Pod even though her children were wearing rags, but those were exceptional.

Now, back to my opening remarks. I sometimes wonder if there can’t be a better way to give families a tax break, yet not get tangled up in situations that encourage people to lie or to grasp avariciously at what they see as belonging to them and not to the partnership. Maybe a system where every member of a household is entitled to a tax credit that can be transferred to any other member of the household would work. So, a household with two adults and three children would have five tax credits to divvy up between those with income. Or, what about a household with three adults and two children? Or, how, when you get down to it, would you define a household? It’s one thing to include the maiden aunt, but what about the roomer who shares meals with you? Or the exchange student? I’m sure there are answers that would work, but, no one is likely to listen to me when it comes to changing basic tax law.

A Reflection on Mensa

A very old friend—old in the sense that I have known her for a long time (we first met in 1965)—writes a blog for the Toronto chapter of Mensa. Today’s entry was entitled: “Creativity Unbound: How Does a Mensan Think?” My friend has been a member of Mensa for as long as I can remember. I joined, met Ann, and then dropped out because of an offensive racist article in the national newsletter that the editors refused to take responsibility for. Anyhow… the point is, I think I know a little bit about how a Mensan thinks, having been one myself for a very long time, being married to one, and some of my life-long (if you count from about age 20 onwards as “life-long”) friends are, or have been, members of that organization. They say like attracts like, though, in the case of members of Mensa the only “like” I recognize is the deep-seated shared sense of alienation that people with brains that work well have living a society that appears to value willful ignorance as a virtue. Oh, the stories I could tell…wait a minute, I do tell stories. J

Anyhow… as I frequently say.

I certainly did not recognize my mode of thinking in my friend’s article. Don’t get me wrong, I cherish my friend as one cherishes old friends—which means I recognize and accept her eccentricities as being part of what makes her who she is—but my thinking process, well, it is nothing like hers. While she focuses on detail, I see mainly the big picture (and frequently screw up in the details). She makes notes and assembles her art works with precision and planning; I charge in all guns blazing and figure out what I am doing when I am already well into it. I've known people like my friend all my life. They usually drive me nuts. Come on, let’s get on with it! I think as they painstakingly work their way through each step of a process. I am done, brushing my hands of the task while they are still midway. They produce a near-perfect result while my careless errors start appearing. Ever since I can remember I've missed important little details, like: I know I’m supposed to be at Joe’s place on Friday, but damned if I can remember what time I’m supposed to be there. Okay, there’s an assignment due next class, but, what was the assignment again? You know, the little things.

I was once asked during a job interview what it is like to be a member of Mensa. I answered: It’s whatever you want it to be. (Yes, I got the job.) Because, if truth be known, there is no such thing as a “Mensan mind.” I once tried to explain it this way to a newspaper reporter doing a story on local Mensans: It’s like having a talent for athletics. It doesn't mean that you are going to been a member of an Olympic team, or that you are good at all athletic events, or even that you are better at some events than other non-talented people. It just means that some events are going to be easier for you to master than others and you will likely pick them up faster than most non-talented people. The article, by the way, was a disaster, with the writer misquoting me extensively in an apparent effort to make Mensans look like arrogant fools—which is how many “normal” people react when they meet people whose brains work a little better than theirs do in some areas—apparently thinking that they benefit by tearing down those who they think (with little or no justification) are superior to them.

I never met a member of Mensa (well, there was one, but he was exceptional) who considered themselves to be in any way superior to anyone else. If anything, they are often envious of those who seem to fit into the world with ease. One very clear advantage that I do enjoy, though, is that people I've met who have difficulty with tasks we consider to be intellectual (I am trying very hard not to be politically incorrect here) seem to be instinctively drawn to me and trusting. It’s as if they can see an alienation from “normal” in me similar to what they experience. When I worked as a tax preparer I had many clients who confided that I was the only one they trusted with their accounts—and the one thing that many of them had in common is that they were “challenged” (to use the polite word). When they admitted to me that they could not write their own names—or spell them—they got empathy and patience from me. I had all the time in the world for a woman who could not remember what I had just asked her less than ten seconds ago. On the other hand, I get very impatient, very quickly, with people who consider themselves to be “normal” when they are just being plain stupid. (An aside, people with low IQ’s can never be stupid in my book; only “normal” people can be stupid; and only people with high IQ’s can be idiots. Something you should keep in mind if I should ever target you with one of those words.)

So, my friend’s article, while it did tell me something of how she thinks, told me nothing about the thinking of Mensa members in general. One of the aspects of Mensa membership I appreciated was the existence of many special interest groups (called, for some odd reason, SIGs). There are SIGs for just about any topic or activity you can dream up—and, in my early membership, I joined several. I especially enjoyed the puzzle-solving SIG. Each month members would get a killer of a puzzle and the first ones in with solutions won—well, they won; there were no prizes except for an acknowledgement in the newsletter. I did quite well in that SIG, as working with piles of graph paper was a pleasant-enough way to pass an evening before the home computer was invented and invaded our homes. The SciFi SIG was an interesting one: all the members were the same misfit nerds that any non-Mensan group would attract. They probably are the same people, as nerdiness and high IQs tend to go together. Let’s not generalize too much though: there are mountain-climbing SIGs, capital investment SIGs, and there might even be a Conservative Party SIG for all I know.

About thirty years ago a newspaper reporter in New York discovered the world’s smartest person. It was a woman with an IQ measured at over 240 (if I recall that detail correctly). The article, widely published, was a gushing description of this woman’s attractiveness, making the point that one can be smart and attractive—or, perhaps more realistically— marveling over this unique exception to the inverse relationship between sexual attractiveness and brains (writers seem to have difficulty determining definitively if brains are sexy). In any case, the reporter wanted to know what the smartest person in the world thought about a number of different topics. Guess what? They were the same kinds of answers you’d expect from any uneducated lout who never reads newspapers and rarely watches TV news or reads books. And, why should we expect anything different? Having a few well-oiled circuits in one’s head does not mean you have an open conduit to the world’s knowledge (though, sometimes I suspect Hollywood writers think that’s how it works; you know: teenage genius takes less than 30 seconds to guess a password in a top secret computer installation and immediately locates and gains access to the key file, in plaintext, of a document that will cause the collapse of Western Civilization; or boy genius builds a fully-functional space ship out of scrap metal and discarded computer parts).

So, how does a Mensan think? I don’t know. Don’t ask me. I haven’t a clue.

Taxing Students Taxing Me

I told some stories in the past about troubles I sometimes ran into while preparing tax returns, but I did omit one very common source of problems: student returns.

First, the parents sometimes presented me with headaches, mainly because they did not grasp the basic concept behind students and income tax to begin with. Some parents figured that because they paid for their son or daughter to go to university that they should be able to deduct any and all expenses relating to the child's education.  So, I'd be facing an aggressive parent veering into anger when I told them the expenses belong to the child, not to the parent. The child can claim the expenses; the parent cannot. Period. I do not make the rules, so please stop yelling at me about how you paid for everything god-damn-it with your own hard-earned sweat. The child has to prepare a return and then can transfer part of the resulting deduction--up to $5,000--to the parent, if the child wishes. It is their money even if it originally came from the parent.

Once that issue has been faced and the parent has ordered their child to prepare an income tax return immediately so they can transfer the money to them (did I dare inform them that they could not be present while I prepared their child's return unless the child gave explicit permission for them to be present?), they haul out a huge pile of receipts for text books–and it falls to me to tell them that the cost of textbooks is not deductible.  What do I mean? Do I not realize that it cost over $600 just for one year? etc., etc. Yes, I realize that, but please stop hitting me–go hit your member of parliament instead. That was modified somewhat a few years ago when an amount for textbooks was added onto the basic student deduction of $400/month for full-time study. The government allowed that students can claim $65/month enrolled full time for textbooks--and yes, I know that that doesn't nearly cover the real cost. And, I don't want the receipts.

Okay, next hurtle: residence fees. By now any experienced tax preparer is hiding under his or her desk, knowing what comes next. The deduction for residence fees is set at $25. For the year. That's it. Sorry you spent several thousands of dollars, but the deduction is $25.

It's a entirely different set of problems when dealing with a student without parents. Many of them have no idea what income taxes are about. All they know is they were told to come to my office and I'd give them some money. After we'd get through the preliminaries, like name, address, social insurance number (which often resulted in a panicky phone call to a parent to get this number this old guy was bugging them about), we'd get to the hard part: "Do you have your T2202?" "What's that?" "The official receipt from the university." Blank stare.

"Okay," I'd ask, "Do you have an online account at the university?" (They all do.)  "Log into your account and go to 'billing,' 'receipts,' 'account details' or whatever they call it at that institution and search for 'T2202.' Print it and bring it with you next time you come in." "Can I get my money today?"

I then have to explain that because they had not worked--and so had no deductions at source that could be refunded--all they were likely to get would be a GST refund, but, it was very important that they file a return because of the education credit. They never heard of it. I'd have to explain carefully. Tuition fees plus the education amount (total $465 month, including the amount for textbooks, while enrolled full-time) together make up the education credit--which is non-refundable. Here's where many lose interest, because "non-refundable" means no money in their pocket today. I try very hard to stress that this amount is worth a fortune to them because any unused amounts are carried forward from one year's taxes to the next and so, in the future after they've graduated and start making some real money, they get to deduct it from their taxable income--which could mean they'd not have to pay any income taxes at all for a couple of years after they graduate. I can see their eyes glaze over: the future is boring. They came to me because their friends told them I'd give them some money, not a lecture about the future.

Next: spouses. "That's MY money, not hers!"