It's Too Bad It's Come To This

[TimG]

Clarify please.

As long as teachers refuse to allow their performance to be judged by their employer they have no business complaining because they don't get paid to do necessary work.

[Fletch 27]

These so called "Teachers" completely forget that the TAXPAYER is thier employer! Or they simply thimb thier noses at the Taxpayer as they are protected by the unions...

[Guest]

Seems Canada has the highest rate of young adults with post-secondary educations in all the industrialized nations. Uneducated?

Yeah, it was a joke. I didn't count them and compare.

[GostHacked]

So what? Are teachers professionals or hired hands? If they are professionals then they are paid to do a job and hours of work are a secondary concern.

I have a huge problem with that in which the line between personal and professional lives is becoming a blur, and in some cases non existent. I understand being on salary means you have essentially been abused with the work load.

Hours are a major concern. Overworked means you have people burning out faster and the potential for a major conflict in the workplace.

Yes they are professionals, but they are also moms and dads for their own family.

[Fletch 27]

Lots of assumptions there... other than they may have Families of their own.

3 months of time off must be very stressfull

I have a huge problem with that in which the line between personal and professional lives is becoming a blur, and in some cases non existent. I understand being on salary means you have essentially been abused with the work load.

Hours are a major concern. Overworked means you have people burning out faster and the potential for a major conflict in the workplace.

Yes they are professionals, but they are also moms and dads for their own family.

[TimG]

I have a huge problem with that in which the line between personal and professional lives is becoming a blur, and in some cases non existent. I understand being on salary means you have essentially been abused with the work load.

Salaried people are paid to do a job. If they don't like the hours that it takes to do that job they can quit and find a job with lower expectations. Most professional people will never do that because #1 a less demanding job would not pay anything close to what they get paid and #2 they like the work. Employers also don't want qualified people quitting so they have an incentive to moderate expectations.

If teachers don't like the extra unpaid hours they should quit. There is no shortage of people willing to do the job.

Edited October 19, 2012 by TimG

[Argus]

Oh they're doing the job, and they take report cards very seriously.

It's just a matter that might be of interest to the public that there isn't time provided in the work day for teachers to do a critical function like report cards.

Except that the unions are now telling teachers to do the absolute minimum. Just check off the boxes and say nothing.

[Argus]

Seems Canada has the highest rate of young adults with post-secondary educations in all the industrialized nations. Uneducated?

How many of them can actually express themselves in writing without multiple grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors?

The actual literacy rate in Canada, when you get into the data, is not impressive.

[Argus]

I have a huge problem with that in which the line between personal and professional lives is becoming a blur, and in some cases non existent. I understand being on salary means you have essentially been abused with the work load.

Hours are a major concern. Overworked means you have people burning out faster and the potential for a major conflict in the workplace.

Yes they are professionals, but they are also moms and dads for their own family.

My understanding is they trade off the extra hours for those long summer vacations.

[g_bambino]

Oh they're doing the job, and they take report cards very seriously.

It's just a matter that might be of interest to the public that there isn't time provided in the work day for teachers to do a critical function like report cards.

My teachers in school did that and helped struggling students after class and oversaw clubs and ran the exra-curricular drama programme and coached sports teams and they didn't belong to a union.

[DFCaper]

How are they looking bad at it? I don't share your point-of-view, so I'm interested in why you think so.

First, I don't think this is much about wages. The Teachers I know were expecting a less than good contract. So for arguments sake, let’s assume that it is only about right violations resulting from Bill 115.

Therefor, this is a moral/legal fight between the union (or all unions) and the McGuinty government.

I have seen the teachers take 2 approaches to this. One was to disrupt McGuinty's power by working to ensure that he did not win the KW by-election. And likely any legal battles that will come of this.

The second is these action this action and with extra-curricular activities. This one attacks students and parents. This does not directly go after the government, but attack parents so that they can be intimidated into joining their cause. "If you don't join us, we will make your children pay for it!" Thus my Thugs comment. It hurts the cause in my eyes. It is almost like they are trying what CUPE did during their strikes in TO and Windsor a few years back, which back fired. And is the equivalent of back in the ’70 when autoworkers threw bolts in doors of the cars they used to build, which they matured from.

I think they would be better off trying to educate the population in a more non-abrasive manner. Like maybe another multi-million dollar campaign, like they did so that McGuinty was the leader they got to do this contract with. Can’t all organized labour come up with a way to fight this without taking actions against the population??

Edited October 19, 2012 by DFCaper

[Signals.Cpl]

I have a huge problem with that in which the line between personal and professional lives is becoming a blur, and in some cases non existent. I understand being on salary means you have essentially been abused with the work load.

Hours are a major concern. Overworked means you have people burning out faster and the potential for a major conflict in the workplace.

Yes they are professionals, but they are also moms and dads for their own family.

Yes they are, but at the same time they are also professionals who knew what was expected of them before they applied for the job. So if a teacher is not getting paid to mark assignments and tests on their own time should they cut back on that work in order to fit the marking in their work day? Or should they stop doing parent teacher interviews because they might not receive payment for the preparation that they have to put in before they meet the parents? People are turning against the teachers and their cause because it seems that they are trying to hold children hostage in order to have their demands met... give us x or we will not do after school clubs or sports, give us y or we will give you some indication of how your child is doing but if they are struggling in school we will not tell you why or in what area they are facing difficulties. Whats next? They will show up to work but will stop teaching or will they stop report cards altogether?

[jacee]

Working to code.

Comments are one sentence minimum, at teacher's discretion.

[Signals.Cpl]

Working to code.

Comments are one sentence minimum, at teacher's discretion.

One line is not enough, the whole point of a report card is to make sure that the parents are kept up to day on the progress of their children, getting a report card that is full of useless generic comments like: "Grade: 58% Needs to spend more time on homework. Pay Attention in class." does not help either the parents or children.

[socialist]

How many of them can actually express themselves in writing without multiple grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors?

The actual literacy rate in Canada, when you get into the data, is not impressive.

I would like to see this data. Please provide some evidence. canada has among the highest literacy and math rates in the world.

[Signals.Cpl]

I would like to see this data. Please provide some evidence. canada has among the highest literacy and math rates in the world.

I would like to see evidence of your claims as well...

[socialist]

I would like to see evidence of your claims as well...

again you make a useless post. what claims would you like me to verify?

[Signals.Cpl]

again you make a useless post. what claims would you like me to verify?

It's so cute when you try to act smart...

canada has among the highest literacy and math rates in the world.

Please provide a source for that, what is the evidence for that claim how is it compared to other nations. Do we use the same standard to measure our "literacy and math rates" as the rest of the world? etc...

[MiddleClassCentrist]

give us x or we will not do after school clubs or sports, give us y or we will give you some indication of how your child is doing but if they are struggling in school we will not tell you why or in what area they are facing difficulties. Whats next? They will show up to work but will stop teaching or will they stop report cards altogether?

And just what ridiculous "demands" are the teachers making?

[MiddleClassCentrist]

One line is not enough, the whole point of a report card is to make sure that the parents are kept up to day on the progress of their children, getting a report card that is full of useless generic comments like: "Grade: 58% Needs to spend more time on homework. Pay Attention in class." does not help either the parents or children.

And from what I read, parents who actually give a rats buttocks about their child can still call and talk to the teacher about progress. Or go to parent teacher interviews... This report card comment fiasco is assuming that all parents are lazy and don't care about their child's progress.

[Signals.Cpl]

And just what ridiculous "demands" are the teachers making?

At this point their demands are irrelevant, if they end up holding children hostage in their dispute with the government nobody cares wether they have legitimate grievances or not.

[Signals.Cpl]

And from what I read, parents who actually give a rats buttocks about their child can still call and talk to the teacher about progress. Or go to parent teacher interviews... This report card comment fiasco is assuming that all parents are lazy and don't care about their child's progress.

In that case why don't we get rid of report cards in any case? If report cards have a stated purpose and the union is trying to remove that purpose then might as well remove the report cards altogether. And how long before parent teacher interviews are scrapped to put more pressure on the government?

[jacee]

holding children hostage

Oh please.

Dial down the rhetoric just a bit, eh?

We're only talking about comments on report cards.

There will be a further communication before the hostage-taking begins.

[Signals.Cpl]

Oh please.

Dial down the rhetoric just a bit, eh?

We're only talking about comments on report cards.

There will be a further communication before the hostage-taking begins.

Oh gee the government screwed us...guess what no after school programs. Wait not enough pressure so now union is suggesting that report cards should be cut down in content. It seems to me that the union is going after the children in order to pressure the government and I wonder how much the government cares about those children and their report cards and after school activities.

Also whats next? Are they going to eliminate everything that causes them to have to work outside of the school such as marking assignment/tests at home?

[MiddleClassCentrist]

At this point their demands are irrelevant, if they end up holding children hostage in their dispute with the government nobody cares wether they have legitimate grievances or not.

OK. So... someone standing up for believing that the Government should not make laws that put them above the constitution, above court challenge, and above labour laws is irrelevant. Right. Conservative dream fulfilled. Let's just bring slavery back.

Section 14 and 15 of "Putting Students First" Legislation puts Government above the constitution, charter of rights, challenge of courts and labour laws. You want this to become common place? I don't.