Why messages to your MLA still matter

Question: Once again, I’m being asked by the Association to contact my MLA to explain how deteriorating classroom conditions are undermining my ability to teach. I’m sick of being asked to do this because I know nobody in this government is listening, so please stop! 

Answer: Before I joined the Association, I was employed as a senior official in the ministry of education. One of my jobs was to draft correspondence for Minister Gary Mar, and later, Minister of Learning Lyle Oberg. Most of the letters I wrote were to constituents and others expressing concern about a situation or attempting to advance their cause.

In the vast majority of cases, my job was to make the problem, and the correspondent, go away. For example, I frequently used a template that started “Thank you for your letter about X. Issues such as X are best addressed by your elected school board. I suggest that you contact your trustee to share your views.” In those instances where I couldn’t hive off the issue to a school board, my objective was to, very politely, suck the oxygen out of issue with a noncommittal response that thanked the correspondent, but which offered little, if any, promise of any specific action. I would also make use of boilerplate responses on specific issues.
I’m not terribly proud of this work, but I was very good at it. What I was helping the government of the day to do was practice “repressive tolerance.” By not seriously engaging with the correspondent, I denied them any sense of reward for their efforts and encouraged them to simply give up. 

Ultimately, the way teachers will win improvements ... is to make democracy work.

Here’s the thing though—every one of the letters to which I replied landed on the minister’s desk and he signed every one of my milquetoast replies. Furthermore, we would track trends and report them to the minister’s political and communications staff. What our demoralized correspondents couldn’t realize was that their letters were having a real effect, far greater than what they would have believed. Sometimes, that was sufficient to shift government policy.

Although time has passed and technology has changed, the reality of how government bureaucracies behave has remained largely constant. The ease of creating and sending an email has greatly lowered barriers to communication but also diminished its impact. Still, every contact made with an MLA or minister is logged and trends are reported.

Sending an email, then, is not a worthless undertaking. However, if you want to improve the impact of your message, I recommend going old school and mailing off a letter (handwritten with a quill pen is a nice touch) to your MLA, cc’ing the minister. Better yet, place a phone call to the MLA at their constituency office—even if you only get to talk to their assistant, the substance of your call will be passed up the chain. The last thing a minister wants to deal with is an angry MLA. 

Furthermore, there is not a great deal of additional value to be gained by spending a lot of time on the content of your communication. Some teachers may believe that they need to win their case by providing that one convincing statistic or fact. The real world doesn’t work like that. It is sufficient to simply state your concern and make your ask. It helps if you can provide an illustrative personal anecdote. Be polite, professional and genuine. 

Finally, you can up your game by asking in writing for actual, factual information—typically this will result in some poor civil servant having to chase down an answer and then generate a custom reply to you, which will itself be noticed as it is sent through the system.

Ultimately, the way teachers will win improvements in their classroom conditions and compensation is to make democracy work. We do that by encouraging parents and other allies to support the work that we must do ourselves to exert continuing pressure on our elected representatives, even if the entire system is designed to discourage such engagement. 

Questions for consideration in this ­column are welcome. Please address them to Dennis Theobald at dennis.theobald@ata.ab.ca.