A series of moving and inspiring events in the last few weeks led me me to reflect on teachers and teaching. Some of these things are personal and others are public—or provincial.

First there was PECI’s high school Spring Arts Recital. Yes, of course we were there to see our daughter in her dramatic scenes. But there were two other drama classes performing, as well as a music class whose band had a full repertoire, and art classes with works on display.

The skills and enthusiasm of the young performers who played, spoke, sang, and danced were all their own, but brought together by their motivating and organizing teachers, the admirable, inspiring and hard-working adults who put in the hours in the weeks and months before, and then, as always, step back to give the spotlight to the kids.

The very next morning, bright and early, I handed over our two younger children to their teachers, who were corralling a group of very excited students for a field trip to Ottawa. They were in Brockville by the time the first bell rang, and returned happy and exhausted long after the school was closed.

These special events get our attention, for sure, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Day in and day out, teachers patiently work through the curriculum with our kids, just as our own teachers did with us. The curriculum is new to the students, but their teachers have been there before, usually many times before. The patience and dedication required of a teacher are inspired by each year’s new sets of eyes and ears and minds. The students deliver the challenges and rewards that define a career.

Where would we be without our teachers?  How can we support these people who, in many cases, from Monday to Friday spend more waking hours with our kids than we do?

One way is personal: saying thanks does a lot.

Every now and then a teacher will get a message of gratitude from a student. These are really important to a teacher.

On the same day as the Spring Arts Recital, I received an email from a Queen’s University student who had taken my introductory course four years ago. “As I prepare to graduate,” she wrote, “I was reflecting, and I wanted to reach out to express how much your classroom truly changed me as a student. … A change happened to me that first semester, because when I sat in your classroom, I felt intelligent. I sat down in your class and felt seen.” I was flattered, of course. There were 200 students in that lecture, and it’s hard to tell what effect you’re having.

But then I went to the PECI show and heard the MCs—two graduating students—close the evening with a shout-out to their teachers and what their day-in and day-out classes have meant to them. To have two accomplished young people with so much potential call you out and raise applause to celebrate your work is very rewarding.

And I thought of my dad, a long-retired high school teacher, who to this day still reports chance meetings in the street with students he had forty years ago. Not only do they recognize him, which is compliment enough, but they are excited to see him and remind him that they were in his class. His pride in sharing these moments is merited. He has had an effect.

These kinds of moments happen generation after generation, cohort after cohort. Gratitude is a fundamental element of human nature. But it is the role of society, and in the modern democratic world, our governments, to enable and sustain the best of human nature.

Here in Ontario, we could be doing a lot better.

Next year’s education budget is $30.6 billion, which seems like a lot. Upon its announcement earlier this month, the Province bragged that it was more than ever before. But it is not enough. It offers a 1 percent funding increase, which is below the rate of inflation. And within this “increase” are cuts, such as $56.2 million to the Classroom Staffing Fund, and an insufficient 0.1 percent increase to Special Education, which is a growing category. School boards spend approximately $400 million more than they are fun-ded for on Special Education—that is the tip of the iceberg in terms of things that are being compromised.

Furthermore, Ontario, the economic engine of the nation, has been underfunding education for a long time.

The Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) suggests that since Doug Ford’s first election, Ontario has underfunded public education by $6.3 billion (citing the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives). It notes, “student-to-staff ratios have failed to improve since 2018, and in some classifications have gotten much worse.” As of 2025, the Ford government had cut some 3,400 teachers and 1,500 education staff.

Until this year, when the province announced a new funding model, Ontario’s funding for post-secondary education had not increased for more than a decade. The underlying grants to colleges remained unchanged in real dollars since 2015. Ontario’s support for community colleges has hitherto been an incredible 44 cents to every dollar spent in other Canadian provinces. Additionally, in 2019 the Ford government reduced domestic tuition rates by 10 percent and froze tuition at that level until just this year, when a 2 percent increase was allowed.

A sentimental fixation (much like what I have offered here) on the individual teachers who make a difference, the Mr. and Ms. Chipses in our lives, ignores our government’s systemic neglect at our peril. Our teachers are heroic in bringing out the best in their students despite this neglect. But just imagine what they could do if properly funded!

While we’re pretty good at thanking our individual teachers, the system in which they work needs more attention. A lot more.