A is for anxiety

The schoolchildren attending classes across Atlantic Canada today are experiencing a very different introduction to reading, writing and 'rithmetic than their parents — or even older siblings — did in years past.

These days, an Apple left on a teacher's desk is more likely to be a smartphone placed in a lockbox and notes passed between students are

someone's done so electronically where videos of awkward encounter reach everyone in the class in seconds. That's on the low end of what's changed.

While taunting, bullying and school fights are not new, I think we can agree that violence — and the threat of crisis — has reached a new level across the region.

VIOLENCE COMMON

In a survey of 1,936 Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) members in Octowber, 84 per cent of teachers and specialists said the province is not taking appropriate action to keep schools safe.

One respondent wrote, “Violence is

common so in schools, I'm not sure we're recognizing it

Emotional, anymore. mental and physical abuse ‘student to student' and ‘student to teacher' is relentless.

Our culture has shifted, not for the better, and schools just don't

While taunting, bullying and school fights are not new, I think we can agree that violence — and the threat of crisis — has reached a new level across the region.

feel as safe as they used to.”

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a mother has begun a Facebook group against school violence at Corner Brook Intermediate School where two teens were recently charged with assault.

“Children are … witnessing things that is far beyond what we would expect our children at this age to be witnessing,” Sabrina Ellsworth told SaltWire.

SCHOOL LOCKDOWNS

Ellsworth noted lockdowns are common at the school and, when it's over, the students are told to resume normal classroom activities.

“There's no follow-up either to help these children cope with the fear that was just the lockdown,” she said.

Parents and students in Sussex, N.B., likewise reported feeling anxiety and confusion during a lockdown where RCMP were called earlier this month. RCMP deemed the threats that led to the lockdown “unfounded,” but it's pretty hard to get back to studying ancient history when you're worried about what the future may hold.

The alphabet and multiplication tables may not have changed over the years, but the environment in which they are being taught and learned certainly has.

CRISES AND EPIDEMICS

Today's students are growing up amid affordability and housing crises, an opioid epidemic, a shifting climate and a school life that was already disrupted by a global pandemic.

NSTU members are at the negotiating table with the N.S. government after voting 98 per cent in favour of a strike mandate on April 11. The mental and physical health of students and the safety of their schools should be foremost in the minds of those on either side of negotiations, as they should for those responsible for education across the region.

Children should consider school to be a refuge from the cruelty of the world, as well as a place that gives them the knowledge and tools to make it better.

Times have changed and it is beholden upon governments, educators and school systems to catch up.