POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL
They would succeed only in alienating a still larger portion
of the public.
You cannot play these kinds of games in private industry and
remain employed.
And extremely well-paid teachers should not be able to
either.
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I see several references to professionals in recent comments.
There is nothing about teaching that warrants the name
"professional."
Teaching is a talent, an art, a calling, but it is not a
profession unless you misuse language.
A profession is defined by a special body of knowledge – as
exists in medicine or law or architecture.
There is no such body of knowledge in teaching.
Elementary teachers do not even have to have any expertise
from their BA. Many of them do not know math or language or other subjects any
better than people on the streets.
Teachers' college serves up 8 or 9 months of unexamined
assumptions and tidbits of pop psychology. It is totally unscientific and
qualifies you for nothing beyond union membership.
Take any bright, motivated person - someone who actually
knows a subject - and put him or her into the classroom, and you will instantly
get results better than those of many of the "professionals,"
especially the thousands who are unmotivated and often know little worth giving
children.
We need expertise and motivation in our schools, and the
loose use of "professionals" does not give it to us, especially at
the elementary level.
The great teacher and scholar, Roger Ascham, tutor to the
young Queen Elizabeth I, said that it was the young who should get the very
best teaching, and we do precisely the opposite.
And he was right.
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"So the minister
thinks it's a "privilege" for teachers to be able to spend the day in
the classroom with students...
"What a crock.
That statement ncely [sic] encapsulates why people loathe politicians. It's a
job where people have to make ridiculous statements that conform to third-rate
p.r. strategies. And they have to do it with a straight face. This minister is
either delusional or a simpleton if she actually beleives [sic] that
statement."
True for politicians, often.
But equally true for teachers, often.
__________________________________________
"I'm out. I'm
using the time I spent doing extra curricular on my new additional part time
job. I have no choice. My hydro bill is going up 8 percent."
There is a perfect example of a pathetic and unthinking
pleading, seeming to come directly from the realms of Cloudcuckooland.
A teacher up in his scale, and it takes not many years to
reach that, earns more than $80 thousand plus unbelievable benefits for what
really is part-time work.
If you can't live comfortably on that, just try your next
best job opportunity.
Clerk at WalMart? Clerk at the post office? LCBO check-out?
Real estate sales? Whatever a general BA gets you, which isn't much.
Comments like yours only anger most people who earn a
fraction of what your schedule rewards you with, and they have exactly the same
costs of living.
And how about all the retired old folks, barely keeping
their homes with costs like real estate taxes, used to pay your salary?
Anyone who complains the way you do only exposes himself as
someone who should never have become a teacher.
___________________________________________
"Thinks it's very
sad that people devote so much time and effort to criticizing the professions
of others."
The only reason this happens is because we have to read and
hear the special pleadings of teachers regularly.
And you say people should "shadowing a teacher" to
see how difficult is the work?
Please, everyone with children has intimate exposure to
teachers, and that on top of their own experience growing up.
I've done both substitute teaching and tutoring as well as
university lecturing.
I do believe I have experience worth communicating, as do
many others.
Again, teaching is simply not a narrow field of specialized
knowledge, and that fact qualifies all thoughtful people to comment on what are
widely seen as abuses and excesses.
_________________________________________
"Many [teachers]
put their lives on hold for 10 months of the year. Spend some time shadowing a
teacher before posting a rant. That's how you can truly make an informed
opinion."
There is the special pleading of all time. While I don't
doubt that this might happen in a few extreme cases, I've never seen it, ever.
Spend a little time with teachers, and what you'll often, in
fact, hear are whining, special pleading, and just plain nonsense claims.
_____________________________________________
"It's time for
disgruntled teachers of the public system in Ontario to show us that they can
find better job opportunties elsewhere. Good luck!"
Yes, just a few examples would be interesting.
But, except in exceptional circumstances of course, it's an
impossible task.
General BAs get you absolutely nowhere on the job market.
And a teaching certificate has zero, or even negative, value
outside of the closed and privileged school system.
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"The last time
the teachers "worked to rule" my daughter was the high school year
book editor. Alone, and unaided, my daughter got the Principal to cut her a
cheque for $5K, bought the computer system she needed, taught herself
Photoshop, and produced the yearbook in time and under budget. She received no
acknowledgment for this accomplishment at her graduation the next year. The
next year the yearbook editor had the help of teachers and went back to the non
computer cut and paste method. Perhaps more student activities should be done
without teacher "help"."
Good example of the kind of stuff that goes on in so many
places and institutions.
Yet the whining teachers think an hour or two a week spent
on some activity makes them over into the image of Mother Teresa.
And your point on the use of a computer program versus
cut-and-paste is well taken. Many teachers cannot use a computer, and they are
under no pressure to learn. So students watch them doing tasks in totally
out-of-date ways, the teachers earning for themselves a great deal of respect
I’m sure.
And your anecdote is the precise measure of how bad the
situation has become and why the public has no respect for their special
pleadings.
Think of all the volunteers in schools, in public libraries,
in Sunday Schools, in food banks, and churches, in old age homes, etc, etc.
Tens and tens of thousands, week in-week out.
And no brownie points earned towards keeping up their status
in their work place.
It makes you want to puke that a teacher making more than
$80,000 with gold-plated benefits and impossible to dismiss for poor
performance thinks he or she deserves an Order of Canada for handling an
extra-curricular activity.
They are so out of it, they keep making these ridiculous
pleadings, only making people more unhappy with them.
_____________________________________________
"You all think
attacking teacher's [sic] is the solution but it is not..."
No one thinks that.
You are question-begging.
Everyone is tired of the whining and making a big deal out
of every tiny event.
Especially in light of the mediocre performance of many and
their guaranteed high remuneration.
_________________________________________
"When report card
season comes, she spends an extra 15-18 hours per week for 3 weeks at home
doing them."
Many teachers 'do" the report cards today in a matter
of a few hours.
They use a no-work-required, select-a-phrase computer
program to fill the forms.
The parents and kids learn nothing from it, and the teachers
put no work into it.
________________________________________________
"I know some
school boards in the US that pay teachers for extra-curriculrar [sic] activities,
such as track and field, debate, basketball, and mock trial.
"Either make it
part of a teacher's duties or pay for the benefit. Teachers are not
slaves."
Perhaps, but a lot of other variables are handled
differently in U.S. jurisdictions, and it is just dishonest to make a comment
which isolates one small fact of costs from all of the others.
First, in many poor jurisdictions in the U.S., teachers are
paid a fraction of what they are paid in Ontario. You would shocked by the pay
in many poor, rural states.
Second, in some U.S. jurisdictions, teachers are paid
according to the cost of living in various parts of the state with teachers in
rural places and small towns receiving substantially less than those in a city.
Third, in many jurisdictions in the U.S., substitutes only
are required to have a degree - BA for elementary, MA for high school - and
they are paid at a low fixed rate, as low as $50 a day.
In Ontario the union says they must all be grads of
teachers' college, and they are paid at beginning full-time rates.
There are many other such differences, and you cannot
compare one aspect without giving a more complete picture of all the financial
flows.
As to your "teachers are not slaves,' well, that really
does make you sound just silly.
_____________________________________________
"My mom is a
teacher - still working at 67. She loves her job and she's good at it. Has
banked over 350 sick days because she rarely takes a day off. She's only
getting paid for 200 of those banked days upon her retirement as they are still
being honoured. That means she's saved her employers paying her 150 sick days +
the 150 days they would have had to pay for a supply teacher."
I'm glad she is a good teacher, but you do not get to
"bank" days almost anywhere in private industry.
And did you know that in many companies and organizations in
the U.S. that each sick day taken subtracts from your annual vacation days?
It's legal, and it is done.
_________________________________________
"Teacher's [sic] have
to be in before 8:00, and if you think teachers are free after 5:00 when they
homework to mark, lesson plans to write weekly, and new curriculum to learn and
review, then you are silly. "
Please, maybe your mother believes that, but no one else
does.
The parking lots at schools empty quickly.
And many teachers do almost no marking today, planning their
assignments with just that in mind. Many use "group work" to cut the
assignments down by a factor of five, too.
As for lesson plans, I've substituted, I've seen their
books, and many are just bad jokes.
Finally, and most important for the quality of education,
there is no one, absolutely no one, assessing our teachers’ work or knowledge
or personality suitability.
Hired once, in for life.
It is impossible to have a high-quality system built on that
weak foundation.
