Pct2017

Michael, we do not complain to the District Superintendent simply because our kids are exceptionally smart. The system is set up for everyone to "pass" (whatever that means anymore), so kids who are smart can simply watch videos that the butt lazy teachers put on and still pass the exams later. We simply have a great laugh around the dinner table with the kids about which teachers are actually doing their job and which ones are gliding. And, quite frankly, we do not view it as our job to invoke changes at the school. That is the job of the administration. But, they are teachers also so..... Not sure if you have kids or grandkids in the school system, but if you do, ask them about videos they watch in school. It will be a very enlightening discussion. Inglorious Basterds was the low point for our kids, but our older kid also got Catch Me if You Can for Planning and Dances with Wolves for Canadian history. Now, when our son got to university, he got his world rocked pretty good. He was in no manner prepared for the reality of higher education, but he survived. The smart ones always do. The others flee to the Faculty of Education.

Well, see we do agree on this. I am far too old (and wise) to have had personal experience in school recently. But, alas, you seem to have forgotten that I still have one kid in school (the senior child is now at university where he was told by his cheque writing parents that he could go into any faculty except one - want to guess which one?). Currently in Socials they are studying WW2. So naturally, the hard working Socials teacher has them watching Inglorious Bastards. And, yes, he is on his cell phone during the video, but really what is the biggy there, he has already given himself the day off so checking his cell seems trivial. Then, onto English. There, the teachers gives the class an assignment, which is perfectly alright. But, she is not available for assistance because she spends the class surfing dating sites. Look, the kids are way more savvy than most teachers are aware. I suspect that you Young Socialist are still a student, so you should be aware of that. And our kids actually talk to us, so we hear about things like the above.

So, let us see if we have this right. In previous threads you have stated that all older teachers are useless. Now you are stating that all teachers in the private school system are unprofessional. And you have ascertained all of this in your alleged teaching career which you have stated commenced 7 months ago.

Your assumptions would seem valid if you were referring to any group other than teachers. Out here in BC, our beloved, hard working teachers walked away from their students about three weeks before the end of June. As June turned into July and July into August, nary a teacher could be found on picket duty. Contractors repaired school roofs, band camps were held, business at School Board offices was normal, well you get the picture. "I am on strike, but this is part of my bloated holiday schedule, so I will get back to it in September when I have students to hold hostage again." I have no reason to follow the upcoming teachers strike in Ontario, but I am sure that they will put forth the same tired old mantras about how it is all for the students blah blah blah. Then, when offered a raise, they will settle in a heartbeat. Hopefully your government will learn from BC that it is perfectly fine to say no to the teachers unions. And, maybe if Ontario were to learn that lesson, your province would take a giant step forward towards balancing the provincial budget ala BC.

So, yesterday Young Socialist commits to the idea that one group of teachers is fraudulently inflating grades,which would appear to be contradictorary to how I would define professionalism. Then today, he seems committed to the notion that all (100%) teachers are as virtuous as driven snow where professionalism is concerned. Hmmmmm

Hang on a second there young fellow, you just recently admitted that you lied all of last year about being a teacher, so what possible credibility do you have left that would let us believe that you are not continuing the lie? A man much wiser than myself once stated that it is far better to tell the truth simply because it is easier to remember. Maybe try it out. You may find it rather cleansing.

So, just pretending that you are actually a teacher for a minute here. By your own convoluted logic, you are saying that if a raving, bible thumping whack job had the misfortune to fail in her original faculty at university and had to flee to the Faculty of Education, then it would be perfectly righteous for her to teach the young children in her class according to what "social justice" means through the lens of her life. You would have to be ok with her teaching her young students that abortion is akin to murder and that anyone on welfare is there because they are too lazy to get a real job. Remember, it is not her job to be neutral when the topic of social justice (as she sees it) is being discussed. Or, is it more the case that you believe that teachers (real teachers, that is) should promote social justice so long as it aligns with your view on the subject.

So, having read the back and forth on the previous thread, I have no idea why you would sanctimoniously state that everyone agreed that teachers only work two weeks less per year than everyone else. First, you presented stats for the general working population that included part time workers and proceeded to compare those to full time teachers only. Then you tried to define a teacher's workday as 8 hours, implying that the 7.6 hours of overtime that they put in on average was above and beyond 8 hours. You did finally admit that for a teacher, overtime starts at 6.5 hours, but you did not adjust your numbers to reflect this. In reading what you and Moonbox wrote, I believe that it is very clear that teachers do work on average about 15 - 20% less than the general Canadian work force. I believe that number would skyrocket if you were to reduce the general population to white collar professionals only. OK?

But that is my point about the duration of the workday and workyear. The actual stress that a teacher may feel has to relate to being in front of her class. Now imagine that teacher waking up on the first day of classes in September. She knows that she will be teaching in a classroom for 38 out of the next 52 weeks. And each week, the source of her "stress" will be limited to about 25 hours per week, unless they are now claiming that marking papers is also a source of life threatening stress. So, they only have to "on" for a very limited number of hours, not "all the time".

If by achieving their goals you mean insisting on less work for more money, then you have made a very true representation. As the teachers strike out here in BC highlighted, it is very much about those matters and not about the students. The BCTF never wavered from that mantra through the entire strike.

OK, we will agree to disagree about the precise amount a teacher works less than other white collar workers as it is likely unprovable. But I believe we can all agree that teachers and their unions complain in a very public manner about their plight to a far, far greater extent than other groups. And, no, I do not have a website to reference, just a lifetime of experience.

Michael, I appreciate your unfaltering defence of all things teacher related, but the statement you made above is simply bumph. In essense, the core of your defence of teacher work hours must be that although they work about 37 less days per year than anyone else who gets four weeks vacation, you must presume that they work a great deal more hours per day than the average white collar employee. Sorry there partner, this is just simply not consistent with what I observe on the ground. If I am picking up my kid after school, I watch at least half of the teaching staff making their egress before my kid saunters out 20 minutes after the end of school. And, I am sorry but hours worked out of the workplace have to be diluted to no more than 50% of those spent on site. It is just human nature to watch some tube or check emails or surf the net whilst working at home. So, my friend, I would have to say that teachers work somewhere in the region of 18 - 20% less days or weeks or hours or nanoseconds or however you wish to measure it than other office related employees, but they complain somewhere in the region of 100% more often than those other workers.

So, here is what our poor, hard working teachers are having to endure at the school that one of my kids attends. After two plus weeks off for Christmas, they came back to work on January 5. In an almost inhumane manner, they had to work three straight weeks with only weekends off until this week. Then this Friday, Pro-ski day. Next week, the entire week is dedicated to something called Exam Week. So, in the five days, each teacher will have to be at school for a total of four hours plus of course, they will have to run the exams through the scantron for marking purposes. Then, like everyone else, they get Feb 9 off for Family Day. Then, the poor souls have to work six straight weeks at a full 5 days per week. How can this be, you ask. There must be relief from this. Well, wait, there is. After the six weeks, they get a two week Spring Break. So, let's summarize: Two weeks off for Christmas Work three weeks Work part week (Pro Ski Day) Basically get week off for Exam Week Work part week (Family Day) Work six weeks Get two weeks off for Spring Break Total of sixteen weeks in which they work 55 days out of the total of 76 workdays available (rendering out 4 stats), which the rest of us work. Yup, I would be pretty stressed if I had to admit to working that little.

Slight problem with your argument. If you are old enough to be buying counter tops for your home, then you are probably too old to have been taught basic arithmetic in grade four any other way but rote memorization.

At the end of the day, the argument for whatever style of education that students are provided by teachers, er educators, should always be results oriented. Does the current system produce young adults who are capable of performing basic math and are able to string together a cohesive sentence and paragraph. Unfortunately, teachers like Young Socialist (OK, let's pretend he is actually a teacher, er educator) are process driven. Results mean little to them. The other thing that is troubling about this entire argument regarding the style of arithmetic that is taught is that we are talking about a couple of months in the life of a grade 4 student. Why is it so inconceivable to some that if a teacher simply puts her head down and plugs through the times tables for a very short timespan, that she has set up her class for success in future math endeavours. Yes, it is numbingly boring to both teach and learn the times tables but I cannot see any other basic set of life skills that could have more impact on the future of the students than the simple learning of arithmetic at this age.

"The following Reports represent our Selection of Canadian Research into Teachers work lives...." Even the BCTF admits they went a cherry picking. C'mon there young fellow, you are challenged to provide a non-partial research piece to back up your loopy opinions and the best you can do is citing the most rabid out of touch public sector union in Canada?

OK, I'll bite. Young Socialist, did you not expressly state that 90% of the public supports teachers or educators or whatever you are currently calling them? Well, reading the comments below the very article that you cited would certainly lead one to believe otherwise. But, I guess if you say that there is that much support for teachers, that must be in the special world that you reside in. And while I am at it, I just have to ask how it is that you profess to work 70 hours per week and you are also in the process of getting your Masters, how is it that you have all of the time in the world to surf the net and post your special thoughts on this forum for seemingly hours each day. Oh, hang on, I just figured it out. A day is simply longer in your imaginary world. As for the actual oped piece, it was written 5 years ago. It would be interesting to challenge the author of the piece to provide a list of teachers, er educators, that he knows personally who have died or been toted off to the looney bin in the subsequent years since he penned his whinefest.

Our election in BC in 2013 was interesting to say the least. NDP absolutely had it in the bag but ultimately lost by a larger margin than the previous mandate. Much has been written on what occurred and the general consensus is that Dix was seen as weak by the voter. But also what came into play was a comment made by Susan Lambert, the head of the teachers union. She stated that CBristly Clarks goose was cooked. But, she could not stop there. She went on to say that the NDP would simply have to raise taxes in order to fund her union's demands. That got a ton of play out here. I am not saying it was the deciding factor, but it was one of the issues that ultimately cost the NDP the election. So, the bottom line is that any political party is very foolish to seek a block of votes from the teachers at the expense of the general electorate. Teachers are very polarizing which can work against politicians far more often than it benefits them. You only have to look at the comments section following any story about teachers and their unions to see just how split public opinion is.

It will be interesting to see what effect the BC settlement has on teacher contracts elsewhere in the country. Other governments should take note that it really is OK to say no to teachers, you are not entitled to more. And it is also OK to call the teachers bluff and let them hit the picket lines. Eventually they will settle for exactly what was offered to them months before they struck. Now, having said all of that, it is unlikely that other provincial governments will have the advantage of dealing with an inept, bumbling set of negotiators on the teachers side of the table like they did here in BC. Interesting days ahead for teachers and their unions.

Ash and Moonbox, you are just now discovering what we endured on the thread about our teacher strike out here in BC earlier this year. And that is Socialist is perhaps not what he pretends to be. There was even a bit of a pool going about who or what he actually is. My guess was a high school student with something of a boy-crush on one of his teachers while others guessed that he is a caricature created by another contributor or simply someone who loves to throw outlandish crap out there to get a rise. The only choice that was never taken was that he is actually a teacher. He is kind of fun to bat around, but in a guilty sort of way. If I ever find out that he is as mentally deranged as he appears to be in his writing, I will feel very guilty for taking him to task routinely. He is all over the map on pretty much everything he writes about. There are four "c"'s in modern education. No, there are three "c"'s. He is against oil consumption yet he claims to have travelled all the way out here to BC to check out the picket lines. It goes on and on. The only thing that you can be truly sure of is that he spends an inordinate amount of time on the Internet looking at loopy left wing sites and that he rarely actually answers questions when challenged.

Young Socialist, I am so happy for you that you have added an imaginary Masters degree to your imaginary BEd and your imaginary teaching job. Well done there young fellow. What was your thesis on? "Are there four "C"'s in modern education or three. Cuz I keep getting mixed up". And on behalf of all of the contributors in the forum, congratulations on your future imaginary PhD. But back to the subject of this thread. The problem in school today is twofold. First, the actual process of educating students has become just that, a process. Results are now secondary to fulfilling the process. But the larger problem is the change of attitude of the teachers of today. No longer is it a proud profession where a teacher would take pride in actually teaching both academic and life skills to her students. Teachers today are pretty much singularly in it for a paycheque and minimal days/hours worked. The recent strike here in BC put a big exclamation mark beside that irrefutable statement, and in all likelyhood, the teachers of Ontario will do the same. Sad.

Feel free to point out any.

In my dissection of winners/losers of the whiny teachers strike, I said the BCTF did alright because they got about $80 million of new money to hire members. Well, I am here to say I was wrong. Dead wrong. I had made the incorrect assumption that this money was all new and would be an increment to the existing Learning Improvement Fund. Now it comes to light that this fund replaces the LIF. So, the LIF was $75 million per year vs the new funding at $80 million per tear. Yup, the BCTF gained $5 million per year or about 50 new members. That is less than one teacher per school district. So, with that in mind, I have to adjust the score for the BCTF as the biggest losers of all.

Teachers have voted 86% yes. Kids back in school Monday. Now what do we talk about? I will kind of miss this.

Please enlighten me (get the pun?) and give me the details on how the NDP gained any political points in their role in this debacle.