Train fellow employee like a puppy

Manitoba’s students are settling into a new school year. Whether you graduated in 1986 or 2006, today’s classrooms look very different from the ones you remember.

Students reflect the changing makeup of our communities — differences in social, emotional, physical and cognitive abilities and socioeconomic stresses are all increasingly present and adding to the complexity of our classrooms.

Meeting these differing individual needs is no easy feat. It requires manageable class sizes, school counsellors, social workers, specialized resource teachers and investment in the systems that can help students thrive. But when those supports aren’t available, students’ needs don’t disappear. Increasingly, it falls to classroom teachers to try to fill the gaps.

When I started working as a teacher more than 30 years ago, we had budgets for resources when we needed them. Today, the needs of students have diversified and increased, but the funding for our public schools is failing to meet them.

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Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I have a situation at work where one of the upper management people will not acknowledge me. I am one of three office assistants. He will say good morning, good night, etc., to the other two women and completely ignore me like I'm invisible. What the heck? I have no animosity with this person and really don't have much to do with him, so I see no reason why he should dislike me, as I am well-liked by the rest of the office. We work in a professional setting and I think his treatment toward me is very rude and unprofessional. What happened to common manners?

What is bothering me is that I am actually letting this bother me! I'm feeling uncomfortable every time I see him and somewhat embarrassed by being treated like this. I never mention his rudeness to my co-workers, as I think that is unprofessional, but how can they not notice how differently I am treated? We work six metres away from each other. I am uncomfortable every time I see him. I have even thought of talking to my supervisor about his disrespectful treatment to me. But, there it is again — he is upper management and I'm a lowly secretary, and things would likely get worse. What do you suggest?

— Feeling Uncomfortable at Work, Manitoba