My Letter to the Editor of The Globe and Mail (dated August 4, 2015) -- by Anne Shier

c/o Natasha Hassan, Comment Editor

RE:  Teacher Performance Appraisals (TPA)

Dear Ms. Hassan,

I need to make the point that the Government’s Teacher Performance Appraisal (TPA) process seems completely worthless.  Its emphasis seems to be, not on the teacher’s performance of a lesson plan, but rather on the external contributions to the community and school made by that teacher.  Such things as school-to-home communications and the reporting process are deemed much more important than the teacher’s ability to impart knowledge to his/her students and to ensure that those students learn such knowledge.  If students come to school, attend all of their classes every day, and do their homework assignments in a timely manner, there would be no need for a TPA process because the main responsibility for student achievement would be put back onto the students’ shoulders where it belongs.  Teachers are there to guide their students toward a learning goal and, to ensure that they are successful, students must study and learn the required material on their own; a teacher’s role should be a facilitator of learning. 

          Most parents of school children realize this fact - the best teachers are the ones who are both willing and able to help their children learn; they will do what they need to do to accomplish that fact.  The Government should definitely stay out of classrooms as much as possible.  It is not the one facilitating the valuable relationships that teachers must build with their students to make a solid education possible for them.

          I retired as a teacher this year because teachers need to have good health most of the time to fulfill their education mandate.  Because my health was declining this year, I finally decided that my students would best be served if I started looking after myself better.  I’ve always wanted to do my best for them as a teacher.  It was only when I physically could no longer keep up that I decided I had to retire.  From now on, my authoring efforts will be receiving much more attention from me.  I can only hope that I can make a world-wide contribution via my books in order to make a real difference.

Yours truly,

Anne Shier

My Comments about My Teacher Evaluation (during April 2015) -- by Anne Shier

To our OSSTF District 12 Executive Officer, Mike Platt (NOTE: The VP’s name at my school has been changed here to protect her anonymity).

December 2015

Mike,

For the last 8 months or so, since April 2015, I've been thinking about Ms. Saperstein’s summative report about me that was later thrown out due to your actions.  And, while I'm grateful that this event happened, at the same time, it bugs me that it had to happen at all.  Was I so bad a teacher that Ms. S. wanted to get rid of me?  Because I'm positive that was on her mind during my evaluation.

I truly did my best for my students in the whole 12 years I was at Albert Campbell and the 3 years before that that I spent at Don Mills, yet I left the board feeling that I was under a cloud and not appreciated for what I had accomplished.  For example, I taught approximately 16 different courses, not including course code changes, over the 15 years I taught full-time, yet I was passed over for promotion for the position of ACL twice at Campbell, simply because I did not have a B.Sc. in computer science from some university somewhere.  And, the worst thing was that the teacher that the administration team later hired for the ACL position after interviewing me was 5 years my junior in terms of teaching computer science.

Then, this same female teacher was declared surplus a couple of years later during her maternity leave and finally had to leave the school and her ACL position.  But, by that time, I was determined never to apply for an ACL position ever again, and there was actually a significant amount of time in which we did not even have an ACL in the computer science department.  Instead, during that time, I volunteered to do the work of the ACL for our CS department without any remuneration or a job title - I just wanted to do the responsibilities of the job purely for the leadership experience.

So, for once in my teaching career, I would like to feel appreciated for what I've done for Albert Campbell and Don Mills and, most of all, I want to feel that I didn't retire simply because I felt I was being forced out.  Instead, I want to feel that I left of my own free choice - namely, for health reasons as stated in my resignation letter - and that, if I hadn't retired on June 30, 2015, my health would have deteriorated even further than it had already up till that time. For example, I believe I took something like 25 sick days in 2014-2015, mostly during the winter and again in the spring of 2015 in which I took 18 of those sick days.  I needed every one of those sick days and I had doctor's notes for all the sick leaves that were over 2 days long, as required by my employer.  The sick days I took in April just happened to coincide with my Teacher Performance Appraisal, which was supposed to take place during April.  But, I suddenly got violently ill with the flu, despite having had a flu shot earlier in the year.  It lasted 5 full days and nights, and it took me another 3 full days and nights to build up enough strength to come back to school.  By this time, the report card marks were due and my students still had no clue about how I was going to be able to help them finish their work on time.

If this note sounds like I'm venting to you Mike, well I am, but I needed to write this note to you so that you would know what the real story is.  If anybody would understand it, you would. I'm fairly positive that most teachers who retire wouldn't tell anyone their true reason for leaving when they did, so I am telling you now.  Thanks for taking the time to read this and to understand my point of view.  I appreciate your support at a time like this.

Anne Shier

(Retired teacher, June 2015,

TDSB, Albert Campbell C.I.)

P.S. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Mike!

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)

The "Boss" - by Anne Shier

Do you like your boss?  Do you respect your boss, or does he/she have an agenda all his/her own?  Is he/she considerate of his/her subordinates, or is he/she only interested in merely stepping on them during his/her ruthless climb to the top?  I’ve had bosses of all kinds during my working life.  Most of them were male shitheads who did not have the slightest concern for anyone else, except possibly their own bosses.  However, I’d be wrong to limit the number of shitheads out there to only men; women can be just as ruthless.

You know that saying:  “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians”?  The bosses I had were only interested in being the chief.  The way I see it though, you can act like a boss without actually being one, only, why would anyone do that?  Usually, people who apply for “boss” roles tell their colleagues that they want the extra money that goes with the job as well as the job title.  No one has ever said to me that they want the extra job responsibility as well, though.  That part is usually specified in a contract that must be signed in an agreement between the applicant and the organization he/she works for.

Once, about five years ago, I applied for the headship of the computer science (CS) department of my home school at which I worked as a full-time teacher.  The job title was better known as the Assistant Curriculum Leader (ACL) position, which meant that the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), my employer, could now pay less money to the ACL as head of a single department.  If a teacher applied for a job to become head of more than one department, he/she had a different and more responsible job title:  Curriculum Leader (CL) and that translated to more money for the applicant.

You’ll never guess what happened.   I was the only one applying for this particular ACL position at our school – the same position was open to other teachers at other schools at the same time.  Even though I was a CS specialist with ten years of documented full-time teaching experience in computer science, they turned me down flat.  That’s right - the school’s administration team would not consider me to become head of their computer science department.  To rationalize their decision, they told me that they wanted to interview other teachers before they made a decision, and that’s what they did.  I asked myself why they turned me down just like that, but I could never come up with an answer that satisfied me.

Next thing I knew, a more junior teacher with only five years of documented full-time teaching experience in computer science applied for and got the job!  I could not believe it!  It was then that I started to seriously doubt the school’s leadership, which happened to be a mixed-gender team headed by my male boss, the principal.  There was an anti-discrimination policy in force at the TDSB, but apparently, this was not a factor when it came to assessing me as a female candidate for the ACL position.  I believe that they just didn’t like me, and that I did not have that cherished B.Sc. degree in computer science – my own educational background consisted of a community college diploma in computer science.  It was an advanced, three-year diploma, which I’d earned with honours, but it wasn’t ever going to be worth as much as a bachelor’s degree to this school’s leadership team.

How could my principal (I’ll call him Conrad) hire a more junior teacher than me for the headship of the computer science department?  I had worked hard towards a high level of direct teaching experience in this subject; I was a very competent CS teacher.  Other teachers I’d worked with who were heads of CS departments in other schools would have cheerfully vouched for me, but they weren’t part of the equation in this case.  Eventually, though I remained resentful and bitter at this turn of events, I did my very best to get along with our new ACL (I’ll call her Paula) and continued to do the best job of teaching computer science that I’d always been doing. 

Then, in a quirk of fate a year later, Paula who was married announced that she was pregnant and intent on going on maternity leave close to the time of childbirth.  Just before she was to go on her “mat” leave, she was declared surplus to our school, and because of that event, discovered she would have to leave her ACL position.  In other words, she would not be returning here as our ACL after her maternity leave was over and that was just fine with me.

It was at that point that I decided I would never again apply for a headship (also known as a Position of Responsibility) anywhere in the TDSB.  Instead, I would perform the job of an ACL for our department voluntarily, gaining the valuable leadership experience that I craved so much.  I knew I wouldn’t be paid for doing that job or get any recognition for it, but that didn’t matter to me.  I’d done a lot of administrative jobs in the past before I ever became a full-time teacher, so I knew that I could do the ACL job.  I told myself that I didn’t need the extra money, which wasn’t all that much anyway, nor did I need the job title.  I only wanted the extra responsibility and leadership experience.  There was no contract that obligated me to perform these extra duties, but that also did not matter.  Not having the official job title meant I did not have to attend boring obligatory leadership meetings involving all the departments’ leaders and the school’s leadership. 

So, I obtained the cooperation and agreement of my other two colleagues in the CS department as to what I planned to do.  They wholeheartedly supported my proposal – mostly, I think because they didn’t trust the school’s leadership team any more than I did.  From that point on, I ordered all the department’s office and computer supplies, arranged to fix or replace as many of the broken computers as I could in our two computer labs, and called a few, very brief CS meetings only when the three of us needed to communicate and exchange information. The only two things I did not do were going to the monthly POR meetings or ordering brand new computers from time to time when necessary.  The Technology department’s CL was now responsible for this function for the CS department; the money for brand new computers had to come out of his budget.

Things have since changed overall, for the better I think.  Ron is our CL whose job function includes running the CS department as well as the Technology department.  That happened due to the TDSB’s continual efforts to cut costs and save money.  I got along with Ron very well.  I do know that he appreciated my efforts to help run the CS department and, indirectly, help him too. 

In my entire working life, I estimate I’ve had maybe 40 to 50 bosses.  Of these, only a very few of them were really great – all female, as I recall.  Most of the male bosses I had were true-to-their-name pricks that did not care at all for their subordinates.  Only a couple of these male bosses were absolutely terrific – but they were pathetically rare and very far and few between.  In this story, it is my premise, based on my own teaching and non-teaching work experience over a 44-year period that women usually make better bosses than men, though not always.  They tend to listen better and care more, and they usually work harder to keep their staff happy and productive.  It may seem biased on my part, but real-life work experience for me has not lied.  I proved to myself that I had what it took to do the job of a boss and did it well and if I get the chance to do the “boss” role again, I won’t hesitate.

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)

Sex Addict III -- The Womanizer -- by Anne Shier

Lance is a man I used to work with at Robert Borden Collegiate Institute (RBCI) where we were co-workers.  He teaches drama there and for his main extra-curricular activities, manages the light-and-sound tech crew made up of technology students, for public performances at the school.  Although I am no longer working at Borden due to my early retirement this year, Lance is a man I won’t likely forget.  He’s always been very nice to me and he freely shows his appreciation of my writing efforts.  This story is for him.  It’s a story that is meant to be true-to-life, but like any good story, a certain amount of fantasy is woven into its fabric.

Lance is tall, dark and attractive to the opposite sex.  Like most married men, he gets bored with married life from time to time.  However, that fact does not mean his wife, Nina, is to blame; he loves her very much.  It’s just a fact of life:  all men, married or single, are polygamous by nature and Lance is no exception.

For example, he has several girlfriends whom he sees regularly.  Most are very casual – the kind he’d contact for a “booty call” – fuck and run, in a manner of speaking.  His current favourite, Joann, is a woman he can drop by to see with little or no notice whatsoever.  The last time Lance saw Joann, she greeted him at her door with a big smile, covered in nothing but whipped cream.  She is definitely the adventurous type, which appeals to him greatly.

His second favourite, Becky, loves doing it with him in rather public places – like a mall washroom, for instance.  The fun lies in the real possibility of getting caught and thrown out by the mall’s security guards.  Lance and Becky love to play with fire; they like living dangerously.

Another one he likes to see regularly is Natalie who is also married.  Her husband, Will, knows Lance, having met him and his wife, Nina, at a school function a couple of times.  Something about the close “friendship” between Lance and Natalie continues to rankle with Will.  Perhaps he’s jealous?  Natalie, who is also a teacher at Borden (and my ex-coworker), never takes her husband’s endless complaints (or him for that matter) seriously.  She likes Lance a lot and isn’t about to give up their fly-by-night liaisons, which often take place after school in Lance’s private office.  Actually, the office is not private during the school day – only after the drama staff has left for home. Yes, Lance loves to live his life “on the edge”.

If Nina ever finds out about Lance’s sexual predilections, she will not hesitate to “Bobbitt” him and hang his genitals out in public to dry:  fuck him and his womanizing ways!  Lance, whose genius knows no bounds, however, is always on the lookout for “fresh meat”.  He can’t afford to get caught screwing some luscious young thing and thus lose his home, access to his two kids (a son and a daughter), and forever have an ex-wife whose rage and scorn know no bounds.

But, as with most people (or should I say men), habits are hard to break; Lance knows that.  He is on the constant lookout for a fling with a very attractive and available female who has no ties to his school life or his family, but he knows he’s flirting with the impossible; still, he is very determined.

One day, Lance met his “perfect” mistress.  Her name is Jenna.  He met her at his bank where she works as a counter officer.  She is a beautiful blonde with an hour-glass figure who’s made it clear she finds Lance very attractive.  The bait was now set – all he had to do was bite, and bite he did.

Lance and Jenna get together regularly at a local motel called “The Lonesome Dove” at least once a week to screw.  They do it in all kinds of ways – oral, vaginal and anal – in various sexual positions – you name it, they do it.  They use coloured and flavoured condoms to play it safe – ribbed, sensei, lubricated, glow-in-the-dark, all types.  And, they use various sex toys, like vibrators and crotchless panties, to enhance their sexual highs. 

But, the real fun for them is in not planning ahead of time when they’ll see each other and what, exactly, they’ll do when they get together.  Eventually, Lance has had to admit that, as much as he loves his wife and family, he could never give up Jenna.  She is the one woman who can give him his zest for life.  She, alone, is worth any risk he has to take to keep seeing her.  Although he does not want to admit it, he loves Jenna, but at the same time, he also knows he can never give her a long-term commitment.  It isn’t in his DNA to go that far.  

The fun they have together is in being impulsive, expressive, and open with each other.  They give each other freedom to be themselves, never forcing anything on the other.  The real question  now is this:  how is Lance going to keep Jenna sexually happy without his wife finding out about their affair and castrating him?  He doesn’t know the answer to that one, and he probably doesn’t want to know.  Lance is sure of only one thing:  life is far too short for him to spend it being sexually unhappy for any reason.

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)

My Letter to the Editor of the Toronto Star (dated July 2, 2015) -- by Anne Shier

RE:  Teachers are Employees with Rights too

Dear Editor,

I am a teacher who has recently retired from the Toronto District School Board after having been employed full-time for over fifteen years.  During that time, as usually happens during a career, there have been setbacks and disappointments, as well as good times.  I loved teaching high school students and I felt that my success as a teacher was directly linked to their success as students in my classes.  You’d think that my employer would be overjoyed with such successes and that the Government would take credit for this, as well.  Alas, such is not the case.

           The recent bargaining sessions that have been going on between the Toronto District School Board, among others (collectively referred to as the Government) and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) has led me to believe that teachers are no longer considered professionals who make a valuable contribution to society, but employees whose rights no longer matter.  Truth to tell, if the Government could have its way in these “bargaining” sessions, there would be no bargaining at all.  The Government would simply bully the OSSTF’s members into working in totally unacceptable working conditions.  Those conditions would include the ability of administration to dictate every single minute of what teachers do with their non-teaching time.  Instead of being allowed to properly prepare their lesson plans and mark student work, teachers would have to do things like hallway supervision and covering absent colleagues’ classes whenever scheduled.  Ultimately, teachers would no longer be teachers per se; they would be doing the school’s administrative duties, which are designed to take them away from their professional work, making their true function obsolete.  It is imperative that the public be informed of the truth.

Yours truly,

Anne Shier

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Too -- by Anne Shier

 (Inspired by an article from Toronto Metro News – Life section,

May 8-10, 2015, by Richard Crouse)

Byline:  Hollywood has been slow to make female bonding fodder for comedy

This weekend, Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara play a by-the-book cop and the widow of a drug boss on the comedy Hot Pursuit.  The unlikely duo hit the road, teaming up to outrun crooked cops and a murderous cartel.  “Right now, we can’t trust anyone but each other,” says Witherspoon as they wise-crack and dodge bullets.

It’s a movie that follows in the long tradition of Hollywood buddy comedies.

There’s an argument to be made that Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy originated buddy comedies long before Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis donned dresses and camped it up in 1959’s Some Like It Hot.

For my (the author’s) money, however, the Billy Wilder film about two musicians who witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and flee the state disguised as women set the template for the modern buddy movie.

The basic formula is there – colliding personalities, gibes, and comic conflict between the two actors – but, more important than any of that is the chemistry between Lemmon and Curtis.  Even though every buddy picture relies on tension between the leads, sparks also have to fly between them or the whole thing will fall flat.

Brett Ratner, director of Rush Hour 1, 2 and 3, which paired Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan to great effect – calls interesting chemistry between actors “an explosion in a battle” and says it’s crucial to the success of any buddy pic.

Since Some Like It Hot, producers have paired up a laundry list of actors, searching for the perfect mix.  Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were the journeymen of the genre, co-starring in six buddy pictures, ranging from the sublime – The Odd Couple, which features the classic buddy picture one-liner:  “I’m a neurotic nut, but you’re crazy,” – to the ridiculous – Grumpier Old Men.

The female buddy comedy is a more elusive beast.  Recently, Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock teamed up as a tough-talking street cop and an up-tight, lone-wolf FBI agent to bring down a murderous drug dealer in The Heat.  And, in the 1980s, Bette Midler was the Queen of the form, pairing off with Shelley Long for Outrageous Fortune and with Lily Tomlin for Big Business in which both stars played dual roles, making it a buddy comedy times two.  “Two’s company, Four’s a riot,” read the movie tagline.

There are others, dating back to 1937’s Stage Door, but there is no debating that Hollywood has been slow to feature female bonding as a subject of buddy movies.  It’s wild that there are two man-and-his-dog buddy movies – Turner and Hooch and K9 – but, so few featuring women.  Despite the box office success of several female buddy comedies, sequels have been as rare as hen’s teeth.  For instance, Vulture.com points out that the dueling buddy comedies released on April 25, 2008 – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar’s Escape from Guantanamo Bay – Fey and company grossed $60 million, while Harold and friends made only $38 million - and yet, the guys laughed all the way to another sequel while Baby Mama remains a one-off.

Hollywood is finally warming to the idea of female-driven comedies, so perhaps this weekend, Witherspoon and the highest paid woman on television can generate enough dough to warrant another team-up in the movies.

In the movie biz, money usually speaks louder than anything, including gender.

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)