All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.
Samantha Power (Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations)
We’re trying something new.
Since its inception in 1997, The Learning Team has been published under the sole purview of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA). This year, in an attempt to reach more parents, we’re producing the publication in partnership with the Alberta School Councils’ Association (ASCA). This is the first issue created under that partnership — the focus is advocacy and how it can be accomplished at various levels.
Advocacy on the part of the ATA is rooted in the desire to improve public education for students, teachers, schools and school communities. The mission of advocacy is defined within the Teaching Profession Act, which outlines four main pillars that guide the ATA’s work. The first pillar specifies that the ATA is obligated to advance the cause of education in Alberta. The second pillar is to improve the teaching profession, the third is to generate public interest and support for the aims of education, and the final pillar stipulates that the ATA must co-operate with other education stakeholders and organizations in Canada that hold similar goals.
As a result of these objects, the ATA works carefully to advance the interests of public education at many levels and with the vision that all students will have equitable opportunities for success in their public education journey. The Learning Team publication emphasizes that, when parents and teachers work together, outcomes for students are better. The mission of this publication is to demonstrate how partnership between parents and teachers can work while also helping readers understand different aspects of education.
The articles we’ve assembled for this issue of The Learning Team explore the idea that advocacy is about understanding each other and identifying what needs to happen to build an education system that reflects equitable opportunity for students regardless of their socio-economic standing, their race, their gender and so on. Advocacy can occur in multiple ways, with the goal of supporting public education and those who teach and learn in schools.