Ummmm, I don't know too many people that head into salary negotiations asking for a pay cut Working Man. Perhaps they're just following the example of those captains of industry who always seem to make more, more, more, whether their company does well or not.

Where did Chudnovsky say exactly what you've quoted him as saying? Give us the quote if you please.

I always have to laugh when the true blue "wealth creators" complain about wages, when dead beat CEOs "earn" millions.

One of the funniest stories was when Nortel went almost bellyup some years ago and so they kicked out their CEO, by the name of Roth, with a golden handshake of $70. million.

Never heard a beep of protest from the faithful, but when workers get a few cents more, they wet their pants in horror.

Now, while the city schools are overcrowded, the neocon/neoclassical policy makers are working their asses off to depopulate rural areas and jam everybody into cities t jack up the GDP.

We just had a so called "Trillium report" by some consulting outfit of miseducated and brainwashed, but politically correct economists, advising School District 27, to close 8 schools in the next 5 years and bus and jam kids into schools of 400 and more, because small schools are not
"fiscally efficient".

In other words, the multinational mafia who are paying our governments demand more taxbreaks so they can steal more of our wealth that should and could more than pay for education and health.

Funny thing, that before this beautiful market capitalist, free trade, globalized economic theory took over, we had lots of schools and no doctors' waiting lists, but now we have a "booming economy" that can't feed and house people and jam kids into overcrowded classrooms, but everything is A-OK.

Well, according to the faithful anyway, because "it is written that this is the way to prosperity".

Keep the diaper supply handy, faithful! One of these days people may just wake up to the fact that they're being taken to the cleaners by con-artists.

Ed Deak.

"Vancouver school superintendent Chris Kelly refuted the suggestion that secondary school teachers were being unduly pressured. 'They have every right to say no,' Kelly said. 'And if they say no, it's our responsibility as an administration to respond to that.'"

The secondary teachers do not have a right to say no. The reason why elementary teachers in Vancouver do not have any classes over the 30 student limit is because they do have a right to say no. Either Kelly was misquoted or he was very misleading. In practical terms, no teacher would agree to more than 30 students if they had the right to refuse it. Consult is not the same as consent.

Fiat Lux wrote:

...and before enforced schooling, in and industrial model setting we had one room school houses where 1 teacher might handle 30-100 children with loads of support from the local community.

NO administrators
NO school principles
NO school vice-principles
NO interference from 'government' fat-heads that continue to bugger-up the work for that one teacher!

The entire piece is based on a report by The Vancouver Secondary Teachers' Association, we must keep their bias in mind when interpreting any of the findings in the report. Such an 'association' would be led by the most activist teachers that would want to do one thing...reduce their workload while increasing their benefits. The smokescreens of 'doing things better for the children' is crap. Were these 'teachers' really interested in doing things better for the children they would be in a hurry to get the young persons out of the stifiling classrooms, into the world and busy making that happen! The easiest way is to ensure that the children get good basic learning from their parents, then connected to a larger community willing to share their knowledge and abilities (you know like we all did before 1850!).

"principals"

Too many kids in yr grade skool English klass Murdock?

murdock, you KNOW that's a non-sequitur. There is no necessary causal conjunction between the two items you've linked with activism. And besides, that’s TWO things.

"The smokescreens of 'doing things better for the children' is crap."

On behalf of my Mom, who spent decades in the classroom giving kids the absolute best she could, who probably spent thousands of dollars of her own money on learning materials, ... [EDITED FOR LANGUAGE] your lame attempt to slander teachers.

How can the children get basic learning from their parents, when there are no parents at home, many parents speak no English and they have use schools as babysitting services, while they work to make ends meet?

English was my 5th language, never had an English lesson, and speak with an accent......When our son was going to elementary in Vancover, he started coming home with double and triple negatives. So we asked him, whether they're being corrected at school? No.

At the next parent-teacher meeting I asked his teacher, why they don't correct
such obvious errors? Never mind about "anyways"? She replied that they correct their writings, but they feel that it is the parents' responsibility to teach them correct speech.

I reminded her, that half the parents had difficulty in asking for a glass of water in English.

That was when most households had one breadwinner, but now the situation is out of hand, because in our "booming economy" both parents must have "careers" to make ends meet.

Ed Deak.

Vancouver school superintendent Chris Kelly "said there are three options facing the overcrowded schools: shifting students to new teachers, adding supports such as teaching assistants, or, in extraordinary situations, hiring new teachers."

No, Mr. Kelly, there are actually at least six options that I can think of.

The fourth is to simply deny students with special needs access to courses that they need because those classrooms are already overcrowded. That's exactly what's happening to many special needs students in Vancouver right now -- left out in the cold & denied their basic rights to access education like everyone else, just to make classrooms more comfortable for everyone else.

The fifth option is to lay off teaching assistants because there aren't enough to go round in the first place, which, astonishingly, is exactly what Mr. Kelly is trying to do right now, even though the number of special needs students in Vancouver has actually increased significantly this year. (And this is after Denike and Kelly have already laid off/redistributed 37 support teachers for Vancouver this year to maintain Bill 33's elementary class size limits in the face of declining overall enrolment. These are the critical staff who help regular classroom teachers cope with the extra challenges of Vancouver's ESL and special needs students, and who have been cut almost out of existence in repeated rounds over the last 10 years. These losses explain why the same classrooms with their diverse student composition that were manageable 10 years ago are suddenly a big problem for everyone today.

The sixth option--the one that Denike and Kelly should be looking at if they seriously wanted to solve anything, is to sit down and make a credible case for adequate provincial funding to meet the educational expectations set out in the School Act, in Ministry policy and in the Premier's "Golden Decade" goals. If Kelly and Denike can't make such a case, then they need to hire some competent money managers to help them figure out how to spend their existing budgets more effectively.

Stump,

on behalf of your mother, I am disappointed that she chose to spend so much of her own money, when time from those children's parents or community was what was really needed.

Your mother was trapped as but a tiny cog in a gigantic machine. A machine that cares not a whit for the actual outcome of any real learning by the children that enter it. A machine that cares even less about the parts within it, so long as it continues to grind out subservient and obedient little tax-payers that consume as they are told to by the advertising industry.

Take this example:

you have a dog, the dog is not sick, not injured or in any way unpleasant.

tomorrow a government agent arrives saying that all dogs must attend 'obedience' classes, that are state mandated and you will get a new tax bill attached to your property to pay for this. Also you must bring your dog to the class starting the next day, if you do not bring the dog you will still pay the new tax and continuing to not bring the dog will cause the police to come out to you and ask why the dog is not in 'obedience' classes. Warning you that the new laws also include either fines or confiscation of the dogs that do not attend 'obedience' classes.

THIS IS WHAT THE DOUKHOBORS EXPERIENCED WITH THEIR CHILDREN, SO DO NOT TELL ME THAT SUCH A THING CANNOT, DID NOT, OR WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!

Now your dog is sent of for instruction by a state accepted 'teacher'.

After two weeks the dog has wounds, bites (from the other dogs), and walks with a limp. The poor animal is also nasty and must be kept away from the rest of the family because of the behaviour change. Sadly you are now considering having the dog put down since it has become a hazard and a burden to the family (since the extra taxes are not helping with the finances of the family either).

I know that a dog is not a child, but if you would resist having to send your dog to a state-sponsored 'obedience' class, then why do you accept the situation of having to send off your own children to these stupidity factories?!?!

Truer words were never spoken Ed. Crystallizes my thinking too.

Stump,

ok, you are the spelling bee winner!

.

murdock, were you bullied a lot in school?

Anyway, kids eventually run our society so we've come to think educating them might be a cool idea. Dogs not so much.

Murdock:

It's called home-schooling, and is available to anyone who so chooses. Look into it.

And yes, I'm the spelling bee champion, at least for today. Frankly, given the competition around here, it's not the highest of accolades.

Murdock, respectfully, the picture you paint is that of a fantasy world.

Learning expectations in 1850 or even 1950 weren't even close to what we demand of kids today. Half the kids in those one-room schoolhouses never finished school, and it wasn't a problem--how much education did you really need to harvest hay or milk cows on the family farm, or to get a job at the general store in town? No one can live on the salaries paid by such jobs today, far less even think about raising a family. This is the information age, the knowledge economy and that old model won't get you further than a counter job at McDonalds.

Plus those schoolhouses never (or rarely) had ESL kids. No one bothered to educate kids with special needs -- which was OK because the community was willing to shelter & care for them for life. No one wants to do that any more. They'll need to stand on their own two feet like everyone else after school or else just go & do themselves in on the DTES.

As for communities supporting schools, that's the real joke. Our parents and grandparents understood the value of education. Poor as they were, they cared enough to invest in universal public education that would allow equal opportunity for all. Not today! A handful of parents at each school spend their lives fundraising to try to keep the local schools hobbling along--most parents don't have the time and the rest of the community generally doesn't give a hoot, apart from grumbling about schools eating up their precious tax dollars. Kids in West Van thrive thanks to their families' fundraising clout, while their fellow students in Prince Rupert scrape the bottom in the Fraser Institute's annual public school bashing. Many kids spend their whole school life in crumbling 100-year old buildings that will fall down and kill them all in the first little tremor, sharing textbooks, walking by locked libraries and the ESL/special needs kids left outside sitting in the hallways so that they can learn nothing without disrupting the rest of the classroom.

This is the generation we'll be relying on in our old age, that will be taking BC forward to tackle the challenges of the 21st century. I sincerely hope they turn out to be more compassionate than we've been, though I see absolutely no reason for them to do so.

G West posted:

murdock, you KNOW that's a non-sequitur. There is no necessary causal conjunction between the two items you've linked with activism. And besides, that’s TWO things.

It is logical (therefore sequitur),

1 the VSTA is a part (a local of) the BCTF.

2 The BCTF is a lobby group that has a mandate to 'represent teachers' to the employer (government). As a group part of thier action plan must be to increase both the benefits ($$$) to their members (otherwise the leadership would be fired) and to get more members (more teachers into the union which means more union dues in the coffers).

3 This 'worker increase' demand is covered in the smokescreen of needing to have smaller class sizes (for this argument many and varied studies are applied to the function).

Therefore:

benefit increase (more $$$ into the system) and reduction in workload are linked.

As far as 'most activist', in any human organization about 1/3 are really involved, connected, organizing things and generally 'running the show'; about 1/3 are 'doing their part'; and about 1/3 are really disinterested in anything more than collecting a paycheck.

This study was organized, conducted and put out into the media by that 'most activist' 1/3.

"Stump,

on behalf of your mother, I am disappointed that she chose to spend so much of her own money, when time from those children's parents or community was what was really needed."

Don't you dare to say anything on behalf of my mother. She busted her ass for years to give kids the foundations of a good education. If she'd been your teacher you'd probably know the difference between principle and principal.

Once more for emphasis. I can mention my Mom and what she's accomplished. You cannot.

Capisce?

Hmmm.

I seem to recall it was reported earlier in the school year that the Vancouver School District was short approx. 1000+ students than were originally projected prior to the start of the school year.

The Vancouver School District Superintendent also comes from a school district that is quite historically " bang -on" in its projections. What gives?

Regardless.....This, a-politically speaking, suggests Staff lay-offs if there are not enough edu-clientele.

Hence , their advocacy-lobbyists ie BCTF Union, move onto Plan B, which is to claim that the work load in SOME classes is higher. In plainer English, that means to create High School class limits. YET it appears that via the past Teachers' contract agreed to by the BCTF that in the High School setting this greater -than -30 -student class size IS LEGAL , (.....as opposed to the Elementary School setting)..and that as VSB Chair Ken Denike says, it is not a violation of the law ....ie this is not violating the previously negotiated contract.

Of course, what is often ASSUMED is that all classes are at the 30 student mark versus more the REALITY there are very likely many High School classes also BELOW the 30 student mark.

Figures Lie and Liars figure, perhaps a review of the E-N-T-I-R-E Bell curve SVP ?

It appears the BCTF wants its cake and eat it too. Is a Deal A Deal ....or a Contract a Contract ...or not? Isn't it also Province wide...? If they want to re - negotiate...then does that not potentially void the last contract agreement ?

Seems this is simply an ass - covering move by the BCTF to deflect attention from so-called bad bargaining, or more to the point, more and more detached from the real world.

Fiat lux

At the next parent-teacher meeting I asked his teacher, why they don't correct
such obvious errors? Never mind about "anyways"? She replied that they correct their writings, but they feel that it is the parents' responsibility to teach them correct speech.

Ed, this is part of the madness that is the modern school system.

Before the 'big-box school' we had many immigrants from all over the world, before that the french came to Canada and learned Iroquois, or Mic-mak -> were there any organized classrooms then?

No.

Just a willingness or need to learn to communicate.

As you encountered Ed, that communication is not being even slightly taught, even at its most basic level.

I do not know when this encounter was, but I suspect that it could have been 20 years ago or last month and the results would have been the same.

Stump,

We, my wife and I, have been doing home-schooling for two years with our oldest, and will do so for our other two children.

Now before you dismiss me because I do not have my children in the system and so have no right to comment about it. First I have to pay those self-same taxes for schools that everyone else has to, therefore I get a say about how they are wasted. Second I am a part of this society, and I am unhappy with the direction we are going in BECAUSE of the school system and how it breaks the mental and physical spirits of children.

Look into the bios of people like Einstein and Hawking and see what sort of 'schooling' and education they have.

After doing that, think back to your own 'high school' days and think about how much of that material you are actually using now.

Name wrote:

Sure how about those competent money managers called parents?

Too many hate the word 'vouchers' but in the end if we must pay into the system, then how about putting the parents in charge of where the money goes and cutting out all these middle-men that eat up the money before the teachers, librarians or special assistants get it?

The encounter was about 35 years ago in the Killarney area of Vancouver.

On a silghtly different subject. We had 2 children go through to grade 12 in Killarney, and one to grade 9 and 3 more in Williams Lake, graduating in 1982.

Neither of our kids has had a single hour of Canadian history in all those years and many of their books were from the USA. Geography wasn't much better.

I don't know who decided the curriculumns then, or now, but if it is still the case, it is no wonder people know more about the USA than Canada, or even care about Canada?

I was a home student for one year in my native Hungary, when I switched from one system to another at the age of 12. We had to travel to a city for examns and I'll never forget one of my geography questions: "Name the mountain ranges on the West Coast of the Americas from Alaska down to Terra del Fuego" . And I could do it.

How many kids, in Canada know where the Rockies are? Most people in the USA don't even know where Canada is, but most of them could name at least 100 rock'n roll screechers and their "albums".

Ed Deak.

Stump,

you brought your mother into this conversation, I did not.

stick with the spelling flames as that is the sum total of what you have brought to this conversation - when your mother is taken out from it as you have requested.

If you want to enter your mothers accomplishments then I can comment upon them, otherwise do not count on those accomplishments to be a part of the discussion.

Maybe you can enter your own thoughts and abilities rather than your mothers?

The "limit" of 30 per class is a good number for schools to aim for, even under current funding. Still, some classes such as band need to be over 30 and possibly wouldn't be able to be offered at all, in some schools, if they weren't.

I do think this article is a bit misleading, though, when it counts classes with more than 3 special needs students as being "overcrowded." First, special needs students on Individual Education Plans account for a very wide range of educational needs, and some actually cause very little challenge to the classroom learning environment. In many cases teachers will say their most disruptive students are the "grey area" kids who don't qualify for IEPs.

So, while a class of 25 students with 4 IEPs may be a healthy learning environment for everyone involved, it would've been included in the VSTA's report, and labelled "overcrowded" by this article.

The implication that classes with over 3 IEPs are undesirable and unruly troubles me deeply. For one, it is a denial of reality: a significant number of students have special needs. Most BC adults educated prior to the IEP system probably associate "special needs" as the students with severe mental disabilities who were typically segregated from the regular classroom. That isn't really who we're talking about here. I can think of at least three people from my family who have become highly functioning (and literate) adults but struggled through the school system because they had learning disabilities in reading and writing. These students were left to sink or tread water 30 and 20 years ago but today a system exists to try to identify and help them as early as possible. And not surprisingly, graduation rates are much higher today than they were before.

These are positive developments, yet the interpretations of Bill 33 as suggesting "more than 3 IEPs is too many" are threatening to set us back again. Thinking back to my own educational experience, I was regularly in classes of around 25 students that would have likely had 5-10 on IEPs had the system existed in those days. Class composition was an issue, and teaching couldn't have been easy (is it ever?), but those of us without any special educational needs did receive a great education and the rest either dropped out or eked through without learning anything except that there wasn't really a place for them. We had moved forward from this in recent years but interpretations of Bill 33 like the one presented in this article drop us back again. Working with kids to overcome certain challenges and obstacles to learning is called teaching. It's never been or isn't supposed to be easy, and it definitely shouldn't be viewed as some undue and out-of-place impediment on the system.

The IEP system was supposed to make it easier on students, parents, teachers and support staff to identify individual needs and work together to address them; yet now it is being used to label certain students (who have always been there, IEP system or not) as being undesirable in the classroom. The BCTF and its locals should be very careful to be sure the positions they take on class composition are fully aligned and consistent with its dedicated commitment to social justice.

Frank wrote:

We did educate ourselves, from the 1700's onwards.

We were working on going somewhere that the rest of the world was not. We were educating independant minds and the potential 'chaos' from so many independant people was threatening to the budding industrialists in the 1850's.

Waves of immigrants then brought in more fears on the part of the 'great leaders' and they hit upon a prussian model of schooling as a means of central control.

We are now living the results of the last 150 years or so of this 'experiment' in mass schooling.

Experiment? Yes.

Where else in human history has anyone run mass compulsion (not now but it was in the early part of the last century until at least the 1950's - so those students are the ones IN CHARGE now) schooling?

I'd rather see a system or methodology that encourages a life-long desire to learn, for that is what we are all like as children. Let them absorb, perhaps guide them in to new (related) directions, but NOT the way it is being done within the mass-schooling system as it has been since the 1850's.

The generations that have come before may not like what they see at first from such children whom are permitted to dissent, to argue and to explore the world that is from such early ages as 8, yet people like Einstien did just that.

Why would such a place be so bad?

Re: a redistribution of existing dollars in the present system--how about the growing disparity between teacher salaries and principal salaries (often well into six figures). The BCTF can't really complain because they are paying their own employees principal level salaries. One teacher I know observed that his district has a 16:1 student-teacher ratio, but he still has four classes of 30. He blames an excess of "coordinators" and resource teachers, who he feels would be better placed in classrooms to lower the workload for everyone else.

murdock, the system does encourage a lifelong desire to learn. And I see teachers as being part of the community so I do think the "community" is educating them. but like everything modern we think those who specialize in an area should be the ones doing it. I don't get the "community" to fix my car, I get a licensed mechanic that is part of the community.

In my daughter's school her primary grades had 20-22 students in them. Now that she's in grade 4 the gov't doesn't care how many kids are in her class so now its 32. 32 9 year olds? The teacher is lucky if she can herd them let alone teach them. Campbell is an idiot, apologies in advance to idiots who might be offended.

Interesting point dolphin, the ratio you mention is consistent with the Provinvial average, about 600,000 kids and 40,000 teachers. What are all those bodies up to?

Name wrote:

Yes I agree that we are into the Information Age.

so what are the schools teaching that is more in-line with the information age or knowledge economy?

in my mind, nothing.

they are still teaching to an economy that is dieing, or may already be dead and simply hooked up to life support.

How much better would the children be prepared if they were capable of 'self-educating' and therefore become 'self-actualized', needing neither government nor clergy, nor commerce to tell them what to or how to think?

Not a fantasy world, it is the one that existed for a few decades during the start-up of the USofA, then was squashed after their 'civil war'.

Name, respectfully, the picture you paint is that of a nightmare world.

How much better could it be if the parents could direct the 'school tax' monies towards the things that their children need, based on the individual child, not some think tank 'average'?

Fiat lux:

So can children as young as 8 whom are home-schooled! (provided they have some 'interest' in geography or maps)

The reason so many are 'schooled' in USofA materials is that is where all the books come from! Even the Canadian Editions are almost all published in either NY or Boston or NJ.

Ed, you may find some interesting reading with:

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

Cheers

Frank:

YOU get to choose that mechanic.
YOU can sue that mechanic if the car is not fixed properly.

YOU do not get to choose the teacher that gets to influence your child!
YOU can NEVER sue your child's teacher for malpractice (like a doctor)! The only others that cannot be sued like this are clergy...makes you wonder whom the teachers really are?

Frank posted:

Sorry, you cannot blame the Premier for this.

WE, collectively, have permitted the School System (as it presently exists) to come into being and to continue to exist.

Premier Campbell, as any provincial Premier is only able to do what WE empower him to do.

WE have not empowered him to dismantle this make-work project known as modern public schooling, nor will such powers be given until enough parents (or taxpaying voters) decide that our young are being messed around with and that our 'society' would be better off without compulsion PUBLIC schooling, under the Chautauqua model at least.

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/5m.htm

Frank:

If I demanded you give up your car to an anonymous, itinerant repairman who needed work you’d think I was crazy; if I came with a policeman who forced you to pay that repairman even after he broke your car, you would be outraged. Why are you so docile when you give up your child to a government agent called a schoolteacher?

Before you hire a company to build a house, you would, I expect, insist on detailed plans showing what the finished structure was going to look like. Building a child’s mind and character is what public schools do, their justification for prematurely breaking family and neighborhood learning. Where is documentary evidence to prove this assumption that trained and certified professionals do it better than people who know and love them can? There isn’t any.

Law courts and legislatures have totally absolved school people from liability. You can sue a doctor for malpractice, not a schoolteacher. Every homebuilder is accountable to customers years after the home is built; not schoolteachers, though. You can’t sue a priest, minister, or rabbi either; that should be a clue.

[appologies to JTG, but the material is totally relevant]

Okay, I won't blame the premier, I blame the idiots who voted for him.

So you think I should be able to pick my teacher? Where does that happen? Have you considered the logistics of it? Don't say vouchers, where voucher systems are used people don't pick their teachers.

Also, how would you know in advance if someone is a good teacher? Just as how do I know in advance if someone is a good mechanic? Trial and error. Not too good when you need a new teacher every year. Or should you go by someone else saying so and so was a good teacher? What if that was because their daughter happened to like her and so did well in the class but your daughter may not like her?

Do you want to be able to pull your kid out of a class after 6 months and get your money back?

The system would be chaos. Would make the current system look like an island of reason.

So back to the article and your libertarian bent aside, do you support more than 30 kids in a classroom?

We have that already, the teacher isn't "winging it", they have a curriculm.

What family and neighbourhood learning? I don't see that option anywhere.

Because I went through the system myself and have come to trust it?

Anyway murdock, you've hijacked previous school threads to deliver your attack on public institutions. Back to the article, do you support what is happening within the school system?

Not sure what we teachers did to inspire such dismissiveness and hatred from some of you, but I invite any of you non-teachers to try it out for a while (you know, walk a mile in someone else`s shoes before knocking what they do). No doubt you find the same range of excellence to mediocrity amongst us as you do in any other profession, but last time I checked, perfection in all aspects of all things at all times seemed pretty unattainable. If you are interested in curriculum, you can check it out online (and yes, kids learn Canadian geography). To those of you who have already decided that we have a cushy job and no right to advocate for improvements (and yes, that includes class size limits which WE DO NOT HAVE in secondary - consultation means we cannot refuse classes unlike consent in elementary - and admin is in a hard place too as they do not have the funds to employ more teachers) - I won`t add anymore to the thread. And to those of you who who realize we are human and doing our best to give kids an education, I thank you!

sounds like the BCTF is gearing up for some government bashing, pre-election version.

Wanna bet ginny jumps ship & goes after an NDP seat. She probably really sees herself as a capable future NDP leader.

She's be a dream candidate.

For the Liberals.

Frank:

good thank you for showing that 'the Premier' is not solely responsible for 'the system'.

Music.
Theatre.
Loads of the Arts and Sciences, including computer sciences.

Yes and Yes.

School Taxes are collected by some 'authority' level of governance. For example, the city from property taxes.

A certain %age is set aside for capital expenditures (buildings, sports fields etc), and MINIMAL administration.

The rest is then broken into amounts equal to the last enrolled population, with a reserve held for expected immigrations during the coming year.

Each parent then has a 'voucher' of value for their child in the current school year (possibly scaled with less for early years and more for later ones - but that is debateable as the books cost more at the upper grades along with supplying science labs or woodshops or whathaveyou, but the number of children need to be less in the lower grades, meaning more teachers).

This 'voucher' can then be presented for the full value to 'approved' schools or 'teaching systems' or paid out (at a lower value) to 'non-approved' schools (such as homeschooling parents or independant schools).

It breaks the monopoly of the current system. YES IT IS A MONOPOLY! Even though I can home-school I must still pay into the system even though I will never use it!

At the start this would be hard, but in time information systems and word of mouth about certain teachers, schools etc would solve the problem of whom to choose. Just as now we have the French Immersion classes with waiting lists?

You do that now with the school system as it is!

With a system I envision, ratings, open and accountable like those in eBay can be used for crying out loud!

These are the choices that parents should want for their children.

This is going on all the time in the pubilc system, only there is no solution short of moving the whole family away.

Vouchers could be organized as monthly, thirdly, quarterly or annually. We live in a wired world where accounting can be handled at the speed of light and accurate to the 1000'th of a penny!

Nope. Only in your mind.

For those whom could not make the mental shift, then they could simply take the annual voucher option and continue as is. I am certain that the change-over would not be 'all at once' anyway.

I DO NOT SUPPORT THE CURRENT SCHOOL SYSTEM AS IT EXISTS.

IN ITS ENTIRITY, FROM THE EDUCATION MINISTRY TO THE BCTF.

I WANT THEM ALL GONE.

I SUPPORT 0 STUDENTS IN A CLASSROOM.

Frank posted:

Much of those 'curricula' are under development all the time!

They use special TEXT books, why not REAL Books?

Why are there pressures to close school libraries, yet maintain Principals and numerous vice-P's and other non-teaching 'councellors'?

What family and neighbourhood learning? I don't see that option anywhere.

You are not looking in the right places.

Start here:
http://www.homeschoolcentral.com/support/countries/canada.htm
http://www.flora.org/homeschool-ca/bc/index.html
or Homeschool Yahoo Groups in your area for the 'human' interaction connection.

Get out of the house once in a while, talk to your neighbors, share with local children. These are the start of community education.

Because I went through the system myself and have come to trust it?

... or have been 'brainwashed' by it?

all authority must be questioned, lest that authority become a dictatorship.

The youth of today, were they permitted to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield to the dictates of the established order, would find 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

francofille,

imagine, if you will, a situation where you would have 100% control over your class size, curriculum and content, and expect total support from the parents of the children you are teaching.

This is more than possible in a voucher-system.

Currently we are spending $20,000 per student per year.

From a voucher system you could see $10,000 per student per year.

With 20 students in a class that amounts to $200,000 per year.

With a $200,000 annual income you could easily afford to lease a space for teaching for the year, do the improvements, and still have a $25,000 to $80,000 per year 'salary' to pay yourself!

No one to answer to other than the 20 parents and pupils!

I do not 'bash' teachers.

I do 'bash' the system and the governance, thus ourselves for allowing such a monstrously bad thing to be done to so many young people, and the unions for perpetuating this thing called Public Education.

Logjam 603:

Good chuckle ...and good insight.

What often amazes me on how some "intelligent types" look at these types of issues( especially motherhood type issues ) only at the surface and ignore the peek at the depth beneath, either via choice or self - induced ignorance.

Declining enrollment is a GIVEN all over. I sat through a presentation by our local School District and they projected an enrollment decline for the then next 10-15 YEARS, and have already closed 6 local schools. One well established local school in what is a high growth and lower income area has 5 empty classrooms.

Coquitlam recently announced the potential closure of 6 -8 schools.

As a lifelong BC citizen, I have never seen before what we are seeing now with this phenomenon.

I think Vancouver is becoming $$$$OOOO expensive that what happened this fall with the enrollment projections being off was that many are fed up , pulling up stakes and moving...and the BCTF war room is sensing this in Vancouver and being Pro-Astive for its members , which is fine, but not doing a very good PR job.

ALSO: Yes, BCTF has blessed us with Ex BCTF Executives who move onto elected positions , and for some strange reason not often end up as "B.C. Liberal MLA's " .

The only Roswellian/Loch Ness thing I can think of to explain this strange phenomenon is that they, the BCTF know the NDP won't aquiesce to their $$$ demands, for typical self serving NDP survival at the Polls reasons... but the NDP did apparently reduce class sizes so as to "coincidentally" buff up BCTF membership, which is strangely proportional to MORE Union dues. .....so that they can create an even larger war chest, ....and BCTF instead " whip " the non -NDP ie BC Liberal Gov't into paying them more...after the NDP reduced class sizes...just a juicy BCTF Catch 22.

1 + 1 = 16% + $4000 signing bonus...."the New Math"

Yep...Jinny's delusions of grandeur running for public office wouldn't suprise me, she' probably worn out her welcome at BCTF HQ.....and I'm sure Chudnovsky (and Gordo) can't wait to have her join him.

Cynic??? Moi???

Murdock: "It breaks the monopoly of the current system. YES IT IS A MONOPOLY! Even though I can home-school I must still pay into the system even though I will never use it!"

What about independent/private schools? They get a large chunk of money from the provincial government. It would be way better for teachers if we privatized the whole system. I would make way more money! Unfortunately, for those that couldn't afford it ... too bad. As for the home schooled kids, just make sure that your unsocialized children stay off my kid's sports teams. I know I don't want to coach them!

Murdock:

I can speak on behalf of my mother. You cannot, because you don't know the woman, what she has or hasn't done, or what her general take on the education system might be.

"We, my wife and I, have been doing home-schooling for two years with our oldest, and will do so for our other two children."

It's always the children that suffer. Send 'em to my house and I'll teach 'em how to spell and punctuate. In my job, it's considered important, as is basic history, geography, some math and science. You know... the stuff they teach in high school.

Chris H

the truly PRIVATE ones which get 0 funding from the public have no impact upon my tax contributions and therefore I have only the Chautauqua observation to make about them.

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/5m.htm

For those 'private' schools that get $$$ from the Education Ministry, thus my taxes. I say that the funding should stop.

Great, I do not think that the total private system is ideal. Do not put me in the 'privatize' everything camp.

You would never know, unless you are a coach that only does his work thru a school board, whether you are coaching home-schooled children or not.

My son has been on a competitive soccer team for three years and the coaches love working with him, since he is interested in getting better at the skills.

My children are not being 'socialized' with their age-cohort, they are being 'civilized' with an entire community and aware of many of its constituent parts.

Yeah, right. Let's see what you HAVEN'T factored in.

Textbooks
Liability insurance
Bussing (if necessary)
Specialized equipment and supplies for subjects like science and shop (woodworking, metalwork, etc)
Art supplies and equipment
Replacement teachers for when you get sick
Specialized instruction for subjects you know little about (spelling and grammar for instance... OK, I'm just yanking your chain with that one).

The funny thing is Murdock, I agree with you that our current schools are designed to churn out consumer automatons to some degree. But thinking that home-schooling is the answer for everyone is as ridiculous as thinking that the current system meets everyone's needs.

Stump.

If I cannot comment about your mother, then you cannot comment about my children.

fair, equal.

you are not the power or authority here

were you to start acting more like it then I would be attacking your and your opinions with more voracity.

stick with spelling flames.

Stump:

Textbooks

NEVER USE THEM, this is what the LIBRARY IS FOR. Use REAL books, not TEXT books.

$5000 bond for $20 million in liability for medical proceedures - do you think you need more?

Never, you buss around prisoners, not learners.

I put that in the original discussion above, for the 'stand alone' school they can apply to get the funding for such things from the capital budget.

You are kidding about this one right?

I cast used lead soldiers and paint them with materials I make myself from other scraps or discards or natural plants.

The student made items could then be sold etc... (this is where the real fears come from -> so much cheap locally made stuff!)

doctors get locums?
Lawyers have agreements?

when your mechanic is sick, then what?

keep on trying to yank, this is a blog site that does not allow editing and I am not going to type into a word processor then post after the fact.

spelling flame away all you like, in the end it will only belittle your own arguments.

For the funding situation an income of $200,000 per year could be capitalized to a value of over $2 million within 7 years. All it would take is the efforts of the teacher (or group of them whom see the long-term benefits).

Skipping the business model even if only $7000 were to go to the parents for the education of the children (tested even if you like) then those funds would go a long way to solving the need to have both parents leave the home to work and allow 'families' to re-connect. Something that SKOOOL has dones its level best to wreck.

Do you understand what the phrase "on behalf of" means?

I didn't speak on behalf of your kids, I commented on their learning environment.

The student made items could then be sold etc... (this is where the real fears come from -> so much cheap locally made stuff!)

Awesome, you mean I can send my kids to your mythical school where they get to be workers to pay your bills? With molten lead no less! What's in the playground? Old fridges leaking freon?

As to spelling... measure twice, cut once as they say. Or use refdesk.com for quick and easy spell-checking.

Also, I think it should be student-made and locally-made. Both need a hyphen AFAIK.

If I owned a car, I'd hope it wasn't in the shop every day. A poor analogy IMO.

Oh dear. I think you mean "diminish".

Since we're debating schooling, I'm going to go out on a limb and say grammar, punctuation, and spelling count to some degree in this thread, esp. if you're promoting the idea that one should be teaching their own children these topics.

Stump,

yes, and Frank started using it, so I continued in that vein.

Yes and why not? These are not the 'top of the line' skills and I know that the shop teachers in schools all over North America have teachers bring in their personal vehicles for service - regularly! Why not expand this to more persons?

When you are working with art materials they come from where and when you need them. Clay pots do not 'spring into being' from the ether!

If you are doing 'junkyard art' then I suppose there is not really a playground then is there?

You asked about art materials, I suspect you were thinking of Wal-Mart crafts or something...the world of art is much bigger than that.

Let's not. Let's pick it to pieces for its questionable logic and poorly thought-out details.

I'll be generous to your idea and suggest you there's only ten people willing to put their kids in your school. Now assign them "Great Expectations" for English class. Now you have to find ten copies of the book. Guess what, a quick search of the VPL site shows me eight copies. I hope they are all in. Oops, only two. I guess English class will have to wait till next week, or the week after.

"suggest to you"

In my haste to poke fun I forgot a preposition.

Stump

your limb is as long as your moniker, a stump.

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/leadership/archives/thoughts-on-blogging-etiquette-4575

if you do not like to read past the little spelling or grammar mistakes go back to your essays that need marking professor!

I would 'read past' them if you weren't portraying yourself as qualified to teach the subject.

Also, how would you know in advance if someone is a good teacher?

Just ask the Fraser Institute, they know everything about schools.

Hey, old timers. It's Cuinn here, though now O'Leary. Couldn't get my old moniker to work with the new email....

I would have thought some of those hashing it out above would have worked themselves up to a heart attack by now, but they're still here I see. No need to mention names.

Just a friendly reminder from the east coast, having now had some headfirst or sideways involvement in the public education systems of five provinces, that B.C.'s is among the finest in the world. That is, in my humble estimation, due to the clout of the BCTF and the hard work of teachers to make sure working and learning conditions are kept front and center. Or centre.

Running for cover now....

Aahhh! Sorry, I was just dreaming about that Utopian world where all parents are able and willing to provide an amazing educational experience for their children.

In reality, my children are in classes of 25 – 35 students where, at most, 5 or 6 of those children’s parents are motivated enough to check their homework or ask them about their school day. Most parents don’t have any idea where the library is, let alone what it stocks and sadly, a large number of them don’t even care. If this is the case for a largely middle-class neighbourhood I’d hate to see what is happening at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum. As for community support … in many places the school IS the community or the glue that holds the community together.

The majority of the teachers my children and I have encountered have done a good job, and sometimes an amazing job, with a rapidly expanding curriculum, an increasingly diverse and undisciplined clientele, and diminishing resources. And no … neither I nor my relatives are teachers, so no agenda to push here. Betanko - I would be hard pressed to describe the classrooms I’ve seen with 3 IEP students as “healthy” environments. While there may be only 3 labeled IEP students, there are quite often many more with “pending” IEPs. You are right that they are not all disruptive to the class, some may add more than they take, but many are extremely problematic, and all require a different teaching style and/or greater attention and time from the teacher. Which leaves the regular students with … less!

Classroom composition is a huge issue in most Vancouver area schools, especially those with large numbers of ESL students, and needs to be dealt with NOW before we return to the times where those kids that weren’t able to cope were just left behind (to milk the cows apparently in Utopia land). Do you know what the “good” students in many classrooms across B.C. do when they have finished their assignments? They act as miniature teaching assistants helping out the ESL & learning challenged students. It might teach them responsibility, build character, etc., but I would much prefer that the resources were there in terms of trained support workers.

As for improving the existing situation – besides chasing the Fraser Institute and all their negativity & privatization theology out of the province , I think we need to look beyond the schools. Too many “education dollars” are shifting into the non-teaching, management, ministry, board and administrative positions when they are desperately needed in the schools, in terms of support workers and teachers. I’d like to see a few of those Education ministry staff in the trenches, reading to the autistic, ADHD, ESL student from a 20 year old book … oh wait, that’s my kid’s job!

A classroom in a public school is somewhere between 60 and 75 square meters. Get in a few cupboards and a bunch of desks, a few students and a teacher and there isn't too much moving around room. Sometimes I figure that the physical environment pretty well decides how the curriculum is presented.

Consider,...take yr own home community and have the municipal council, the table officers of yr chamber of commerce and the local labour council, throw in some religious leaders, until you have about 30 of them, many there against their will. Then teach them each day for the usual school hours, for a few months. Be sure to keep them in the room and under control so that the whole class has a chance to learn.
So...do you foresee any problems?

With different numbers of kids you can do different things. teh more more kids, usually the fewer 'learning situations'you can set up. A teacher could still teach a class of 60 or 70 (as when I was a youngie) if the desks are bolted down in rows and the kids are kept in them...same one every day. In that situation there would be just presentations by the teacher.

It's public education, so the public has to choose.
I would disagree with the tendency the past couple of decades to say that the parents should be in charge, or that the parents are the real stakeholders in the public school. We all are. The kids are all ours, all of us, and we are the adults who all choose what we are going to provide for them.

Besides class size a person might consider school size....it could be that optimum for elementary kids is about 200, and for secondary kids about 400...otherwise the student becomes just a cipher, and they begin to form their own extreme groups that get in the way of safety and paticipation in what the school is supposed to be doing for them.

Allow me to descend into sarcastic bitterness picking up on what two or three commentators above have touched on.
Back in the 1970s when Universities were being urged to reachout, one of the places they reached out to was professional development funds for teachers. So people wanting out of the classroom got their masters in ed admin or in working with one kid at a time. Once out of the classroom, they never come back. Rather, like asexual reproduction, they proliferate. The school board office becomes the school board offices and these one time teachers, now educators, all have their own spaces (from which they produce a heck of a mountain of paper and advice for classroom teachers). This happens all across the continent, and so these educators spend many ed dollars flying about to conferences and glad handing each other. Our public ed system has this growing mushroom head of these educators weighing down on the students and tachers.
This is the group whose knees leap fastest and hardest when anyone mentions charter schools with ministry money going directly to the school, rather than through the board offices.They know what butters their bread.
Some accounting changes almost a couple of decades ago in the BC ministry made it very difficult for not only the public, but even school board members, to figure out what goes to admin, and what goes to instruction.

So, having an open look at the number of people making a living from a teaching ticket, and not teaching anyone, might be a place to start if one wants to improve the efficiency in our public school system.
You know,... put the money into where the rubber hits the road.

To clarify some misconceptions ...

Bill 33 is a piece of legislation governing class size and composition written in response to our strike last Oct. Please do not blame teachers for Bill 33! It is a bill which provided a smoke screen to make the public think the problem was being addressed and it is not funded. The BCTF is pointing out that Bill 33 is not solving the problems of class size and composition. If the BCTF wasn't trying to make the Ministry of Education accountable, who would?

IEP students, as defined by Bill 33, are those students who are identified by the Ministry standards and receive targetted funding. These include students with an IQ below 79, Chronic Health issues, etc. Any child that receives funding must have an IEP.

An IEP is a legal document which outlines modifications in a child's school program. It is written for ANY student who is not working at grade level. Please don't insult teachers by insinuating that an IEP is not written if the child doesn't receive funding. It is based on need not money.

Parents can choose their child's teacher. In fact, principals welcome parent input and those requests often take precedence over teachers' decisions.

Curriculum is written by folks in Victoria. In BC, the guides are called IRPs (Integrated Resource Packages). Textbooks currently in use in BC schools (as long as the school could afford new books) are by Canadian publishers and based on the IRPs. My son is in Gr. 5 and has received instruction in Canadian history and geography since Gr. 1. In fact, his class is currently working on a Social Studies unit on Canadian geography.

On behalf of all of the non-enrolling teachers in BC, I am highly insulted to read that some of you think that we are a waste of education funds. We work very hard to support the students and teachers in our schools. It is difficult to provide the necessary supports, however, when your position is cut all the time due to insufficient funding. Contrary to popular belief, none of us became teachers because of the holidays or the salary. We became teachers because we wanted to make a difference. To quote the fellow who recites "What Teachers Make", I make a goddamn difference, how about you????

In Sept., the Ministry asked schools to provide the number of classes with more than 3 IEP students and those that were over the class size limits outlined in Bill 33. These numbers were also given to BCTF locals. I assume that is what VSTA is basing their report on so how do you figure their numbers are biased?

I could go on but I have marking to do because it's Dec. and I am FINALLY teaching after doing all that paperwork to make the Ministry and district officials happy. Ohhh and I need to phone my cousin who is now safe and sound at home and working on getting clean :-)

With the continuing demands of our universal healthcare thrown in with universal education demands, it's no wonder that the taxpayer is getting more concerned about where this is all going.
The left doesn't want to entertain any user fees for medical care, and they don't want any vouchers in education, I see that their agenda is to further ask for increased budgets and increased taxes.
This is such a tired and stupid argument. It's time we allow those that can afford to pay for these services, to be allowed to pay for these services, and free up the balance of the budget to do things that actually help those that need help.
This Public Sector Union elite need to know that they are no better than the so called private elite are.
In fact they are more hypocritical than I can take.
At least the private sector is responsible to a bottom line, whereas the Public Sector is only beholding to their mass of due paying members.
Can't you see the irony?

Just remember that folks like Working Man and Murdock, etc. are the result of the worst Baby Boomer greed. No trouble writing cheques for their own but don't tax me for others. And they have raised their children to be even more greedy. Why else are they so vindictive in their posts?

Working Man said, "Never forget, for the BCTF, there can never be a class small enough or a salary large enough. That is exactly what Chudnovsky said,

NO administrators
NO school principles
NO school vice-principles
NO interference from 'government' fat-heads that continue to bugger-up the work for that one teacher!

I don't know where you got those numbers but the other side of the coin looks at the completion rate, i.e.. how many graduated from high school? Not many! You can thank smaller class sizes and dedicated teachers for those students success.

Again Murdock wrote, "Yes I agree that we are into the Information Age. so what are the schools teaching that is more in-line with the information age or knowledge economy? in my mind, nothing. they are still teaching to an economy that is dieing, or may already be dead and simply hooked up to life support."
But they did teach spelling and grammar.
Again Murdock wrote,"Also, how would you know in advance if someone is a good teacher?"
The administration is supposed to evaluate teachersevery 5 years.
Murdock again wrote, "imagine, if you will, a situation where you would have 100% control over your class size, curriculum and content, and expect total support from the parents of the children you are teaching." If I want to hire that person who went through that system, I would have no idea what they learned. What science did the study? Where did the do thear experiments? Do they know safety rules? Was it algebra or arithmatic they learned? Can they write? Do they know the Rockies are not on the west coast of BC, but the coast range is? Is the coast range still growing? If they are not, will it be safe to explore for petroleum products off the west coast?
" I cast used lead soldiers..." This would be a safety concern.
"this is a blog site that does not allow editing and I am not going to type into a word processor then post after the fact." Then learn how to spell.

PS The voucher system does not work. Never has never will. It is a blatent ploy to 'rob' the public school system of funds and students for the benefit of 'private' schools.

What are you talking about Ron? Don't you pay BC Medical every month? What would you call that but a user fee in advance?

And adjusted according to ability to pay.

Too tough for you to understand I guess.

Perhaps you get full premium assistance.

Vouchers and charter schools are an enormous failure where they've been tried and their successess and failures analyzed.

If you call my office an book an hour of my time, at $150.00 per hour, I'll explain some more difficult concepts like the progressive income tax.

Anything else I can do for you Ron?

IMAC seems to think their are two types of taxpayers the greedy ones and others. Just what world do you really live in?

Part A
In the past, special needs students were often in special schools; or, at the very least, in specialized classrooms all day. In the past, children were allowed to fail and no blame was placed on the teacher. Now, we have laws requiring about 1/3 of all students' individual learning needs to be discovered and after being discovered, programs of instruction developed individually to meet those individual needs. In the past, we did not have crack babies nor crytal meth babies growing up to attend school. Teachers did not have to attend countless meetings with parents and community personnel in developing plans for dealing with these babies. In the past (the 60s and early 70s), even those smoking pot were smoking something that was only about 1/25th as strong as it is today. In the past, schools did not have 10% of students coming to school with asthma and similar medications. In the past, we had a much higher rate of infant mortality among pre-mature poorly functioning babies. In the past, kids did not live on junk food and drink pop to wash it down. In the past, there was usually a family member to greet children when they came home from school.

In the past, schools did not have rapidly ever-changing technology and software for teaching and admin. staff to constantly learn about in order to stay current. In the past, teachers did not have professional development because the curricula was fairly stable and so was the client group. In the past, children did not spend many of their out of school hours: watching crime scene investigators elbo deep in murders and rapes, playing games where they beat 'ho's and steal their money, pretending they are snipers trying to kill or be killed, nor going online to view every imaginable type of donkey, adult and child porn. In the past, children did not believe they had a right to be as rude and obtrusive as they want without consequences. In the past, children had chores. In the past, many children got moral and ethical values taught to them at home, by their neighbours, and at church.

In the past, students did not have to write government exams in Grades 4, 7, 10 and 12 - only Grade 12. In the past (the 60s and early 70s), only 50% of the students graduated instead of the 85% that do now; and that extra 35% are not the kind of kids that like sitting in a desk all day long while having to be still and quiet.

Continued:

I wouldn't pay you 2 cents an hour for your advice G or any of your friends.
If you think that you can convince any of us that continuing increased budgets and increased taxes are the idea to solve our problems by appeasing the alligator, then let me explain the problem for you for free.
We are not buying it.
You and your ilk are attempting to advance an argument we are not going to buy. That you and your ilk are credible about money, is laughable.
No, we want user fees and vouchers, so we can take care of ourselves, rather than turn our well being over to you leftist idiots.
Piss off, you are not helping anyone that actually needs help.

Part B (continued)

Before this government came along, BC schools had built themselves up to be the best in the world. It was done without the Frazier Institute's guidance/reports.

I forget who said it earlier, but someone said something to the effect that if you want to have kind and caring people taking care of you in your old age, you had better model that behaviour for the children today. The students of today are not feeling respected/cared for by this government. The quality of their educational environment is changing: the true curricula that they have is the sum total of their daily experience. Schools and teachers are doing a remarkable job considering the challenges they face and the cutting of supports that this government gives to those with needs. Those cuts include Social Services, Min. for Children and Family Dev't, and Ministry of the Attorney General services. Those were cuts that have also deeply effected education. Now that the government has been undermining the systems, it will take years for us to get back to where we were.

The client group (as a whole) is harder to teach, the class sizes are greater, the demands of technology and accountability are far greater, the supports are fewer and the government is playing games with our hope for the future. Why can't the richest 10% of British Columbians be allowed to keep only 20 times as much of after tax earnings as the poorest 10% (instead of 22%)? Why must we give tax breaks to foreign corporations that are in business to take our wealth out of our country for themselves? What's the deal? Why are the wealthy so bloody greedy? How have so few conned so many people into allowing that the wealthy have a greater right to the spoils/resources of the province?

You have to get in line behind the 2010 organizing committee for any extra gov't money these days.

Is Jean Drapeau still alive? I hope he visits G. Campbell in the maternity ward when the Aryan Nations slushfest is over.

Ed Deak:

And ya know, there ain't a single capitalist wannabe can answer this. Hilarious if it weren't so tragic.

PS:
I heard a rumour that Briann Day is going to offer to fund doctor training, so as to not be accused of feeding at the public trough, through subsidized university education.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/12/08/PrivateSurgery/
Oh darn! It was a rumour started by myself..........

As always, the NDP's union boss overlords fail to mention that motivation is far more important than opportunity in the area of education as well as in other areas. They also fail to mention that many NDP/union policies tend to completely destroy all traces of motivation.

In the electronics industry, some of the best engineers I have ever worked with were educated in India, China and Russia in classrooms with much higher student/teacher ratios than our classrooms. The cost per capita to run the education systems in these countries is a tiny fraction of what we pay here.

If we gave the BC Teachers' Featherbederation their wish by taxing working class homeowners into poverty in order to spend $100,000 per year per student, that wouldn't help at all as long as students are not motivated to learn, and they constantly show up at school stoned out of their minds on drugs.

Ron,
My, my, angry aren’t we. Not getting your own way enough of the time anymore

Who would it be YOU are helping with that attitude.

I wasn't offering advice, I charge $200 and hour for that. Just contact my assistant and we’ll set up a regular appointment for you.

I was offering to explain certain basic concepts that you apparently missed when you went to school.

Truth is Ron, I don't think you can take care of yourself; you certainly can't control your temper, can you?

I think you must have gone to school in Alberta. There have always been some problems with basic concepts in that province

I get so tired of hearing about the classrooms in Asian countries with 50, 60, whatever # of kids. Have you ever seen one of these classes in action? A lot of rote memorization and lecturing - not the kind of educational experience I want for my child. And where do you think they put the kids who can't handle learning with the other 60 or so? They don't - they are just "gone" from the system, which I'm sure makes it easier for the teacher. It's pretty hard to motivate a child to learn when they don't have an adequate grasp of English, can't hold a pencil and haven't eaten breakfast. That's what makes us different from those countries, they don't bother trying & we do, and I'd much rather live in a society that doesn't let our children fall through the cracks. We are a wealthy province and can afford to fund the system adequately, unfortunately, many including the present government have a different agenda (can you say 2010.)

Cycling commuter,

The BCTF wants the government to fund the quality of service the government and the people ask for. Further, the BCTF is reporting out to parents what the effect of the government's policies are costing the students. You don't get top quality service by overworking the staff and not providing them with the resources they need. You get what you pay for. You don't get 5-star service/food or atmosphere at McDonald's prices.

correction to Part B, above: "22%" should read "22 times".

can't believe it took you so long to jump on this one socialismisgood. how about another disgusting illegal job action to get the teachers on the news again? won't be long i figure. the new president (to be elected next spring) will be itching for a cause, and this is about the only thing they can find to complain about after getting 23.5% over 8 years from the libs. gee, i wonder what your beloved ndp gave teachers, was it 2% over 10 years. waaa, waaa, waaa... are those teachers crying in the background. it's what they do best, after all, especially the crappy ones.

Elliot

Stick to hockey dude.

Nobody, with the government we have in this province, has any right to criticize any action taken against a provincial administration that has forgotten why they are in government and tears up contracts as easily as they roll over in their beds in Maui.

you ought to get the waaaa, waaaa looked into - I hear it's sometimes very serious.

it was an illegal job action g. you can deny it and try to justify it all you want, but it was illegal, pure and simple. great example to set for their students, wasn't it? oh, by the way, what were they striking for anyway? in coquitlam class averages are way up since they 'won' their little confrontation with the gov't. face it g, it was politics. period. and they'll do it again in the next couple of years b/c they won't be able to sit through a five year deal w/o finding something to cry about.

I don't agree. Retroactive laws are illegal as far as i'm concerned and that's where it started, period. Great example for the government to set for its citizens.

As far as crying is concerned, teachers are hardly the only ones that do that, elliot

Funny how in most areas of life spending money gets you better results. Whether its a better car, a better restaurant meal, a better hockey team, whatever. But the Right somehow says this novel idea doesn't apply to education.

Cycling Commuter wants 300 kids in a classroom because the cheaper the education the better apparently.

As for the "illegal" strike, it had the widespread support of the community therefore it really wasn't illegal, the law was unjust. Par for the course in Lib-land.

GREAT post SharingIsGood!

show me two teachers and i'll show you one that's a whiner. classes are too large, benefits are too slim, wages are too low, stresses are too great. they never run out of gripes. and when they do they find more, like this special needs fiasco. this is an industry that was created by teachers. any kid who has a minor hearing problem or a touch of 'adhd' is a special needs student with an 'individualized education plan'. it's a joke g.

by the way, Gordon the drunk, in a moment of desperation, said he was going to have an education roundtable that would address issues like class size. How's that working out? Guess we didn't need teachers to go on strike after all, Gordo said he'd handle it and he did, he just made big class sizes legal. What a hero.

no time to read all the comments.
just enough to add one more:

teachers who spend their own money on other people's kids are saps. and those who later whine about it have 'martyr syndrome' issues. truly.

'As for the "illegal" strike, it had the widespread support of the community therefore it really wasn't illegal, the law was unjust.' now there's some good old lefty logic for you. holy cow frank, get a grip man.

Apparently the only laws that count are the ones that right-wingers like. International labour laws can be freely broken by our beloved Gordoites to the point where they're being compared with some of the most repressive regimes in the world. They have actually been offered help by the ILO! (Oh I know that's just a bunch of commie leftist (insert puerile name-calling here) and the fact that canada has signed these international conventions is just whining, crybabying (insert pejorative verb here to cover your lack of honou, or reasoned argument, for that matter.)
I'm sure you're great at whatever you do Elliot. Come and do my job for a day before you explain my universe to me...

Hey Elliot, did you happen to catch the report on the National where the journalist spent a week as a teacher? He didn't seem to think that teaching was such an easy job. And that was in an elementary school with smaller class sizes. Imagine if he'd had a crack in a secondary school where the class sizes are much larger. If you missed it, here's the link.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/media/seven.html

But maybe he's a whiner or mislead by the "evil BCTF" too???

Now assign them "Great Expectations" for English class. Now you have to find ten copies of the book.

A complete text file version of this title can be downloaded for free here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1400

A text file version is more useful than a printed version for numerous reasons.

amazon.ca sells the printed version of this book for C $3.36 per copy with free shipping on orders over $39. ( see http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140620168 ).

When municipal librarians went on strike for more money about 5 or 10 years ago, their union leader wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper explaining that a mere million dollars per year in municipal taxes was paying for 40,000 library visits. Do the math. That's $25 per visit. The cost to taxpayers for each library visit could have bought 7.44 copies of this book from amazon.ca.

says cc
baloney says I

I get so tired of hearing about the classrooms in Asian countries with 50, 60, whatever # of kids. Have you ever seen one of these classes in action?

As mentioned above, I have worked with many excellent engineers from Asia who acquired their education in crowded classrooms. They did well in this environment because they were highly-motivated and they didn't show up in class stoned out of their minds.

Hey, if you want a 1:1 student-teacher ratio for your unmotivated spoiled brat, YOU pay for it with your OWN money.

They mostly get unskilled jobs sweeping floors, mowing lawns, etc. Would you want to put your life in the hands of a doctor, nurse, medical technician, airline pilot etc. with an IQ of 65 who was granted an impressive-looking diploma or degree purely on the basis of political correctness?

In Canada, we have an obesity problem, not a starvation problem. The motivation problem is largely attributable to the fact that kids see unskilled, militantly unionized people who sweep floors getting paid more than skilled people such as nurses, so they ask themselves why bother going to all the trouble of acquiring skills?

As for English, one of the smartest engineers I've ever worked with was an immigrant with very poor English skills. When Jeh got worked up over something at staff meetings, we couldn't understand a thing he said. But we just smiled and waited until he calmed down a little because we knew that when he calmed down and his broken English was barely decipherable, he always had something brilliant to say.

In Canada, school kids are more likely to SMOKE crack, not fall through cracks. Blame that on lenient liberal-appointed judges and an idiotic immigration system.

Speak for yourself. Some of my elderly relatives are paying almost 100% of their pension income to property taxes after having already paid for the education of several generations of children. Property taxes have been increasing much faster than incomes for a long time. If this keeps up, in 20 years property taxes will consume the entire income of the average homeowner who is still in the workforce. And most of this money will be wasted trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, trying to turn someone with an IQ of 65 into a rocket scientist. It would be better to focus on preventing learning deficiencies to begin with by preventing fetal alcohol syndrome, eliminating mercury pollution, cutting back on junk food consumption etc.

That's a huge waste of money too. One boondoggle doesn't justify another boondoggle.

Congratulations Cycling Commuter, you've managed to miss the point entirely with my example of Great Expectations. It was about the problems of using the library as a source for learning texts (per Murdock's suggestion).You'll be burning through Murdocks $200k pretty fast if every kid has to have a computer either to read the book or order the book, and as usual, your anti-union sentiment shines right through.

Your elderly relatives have several generations of relatives? They must be pretty old. What's the secret of their longevity? I'll be charitable and say five generations equals several. What does that equate to... a great, great, great grandparent?

Not only should spelling and punctuation count in this thread, so should the accuracy of the words used.

Clarity of communication is important in the Information Age doncha know?

Yeah, I guess that's why the universities in this country are chock-a-block full. Not.

Thanks Frank,

Elliot: Teachers have not been whining about their pay, nor is this article about teacher pay. The article is about the lack of service and support being provided for children under this government. The article shows that the government gives lip serve to providing service because Bill 33 and the education roundtable are not fixes; they are but smoke and mirrors.

Now that you mentioned pay, Elliot, a 25.5% pay increase over eighteen years does not sound like too much when one considers that the cost of just about everything(except computers) in the private sector seems to have at least doubled during that time: gasoline, real estate, BC Hydro, a loaf of bread, a cup of coffee...you name it. Don't forget that most of that 25.5% is taxed at a much higher rate too; therefore, much of that money goes out of one government pocket and comes right back into another. My guess is that, in actual dollars that they have gotten to spend, the increase is more like 16%...but here, I am just making an educated guess. Note that I am not whining nor am I suggesting teachers whine.

Tell me, Elliot, has your pay increased more than 25.5% in 18 years? If not, then I suggest you look for a better career because most of the hard-core capitalists have found a way to boost their incomes much more than that. Why do you harbour so much disdain for people trying to do good work while at the same time trying to earn a reasonable living for doing that work?

Interesting that the photo accompanying this article is of a US classroom - not that in scheme and design it is very different than what one finds in BC. It would be nice if every BC classroom were fitted with a good digital projector and new lap-top like seen in the photo. That would be something that could enhace service delivery. The private schools in BC (that charge up to $30,000 per year per student) have these things.

jrb:

You are entirely correct! Teacher ought to work to rule. If the contract (all hail the almighty contract!) doesn't say put in an extra 20 hours in extra curricular, then by gosh, don't coach soccer, don't organize plays and concerts, don't supervise lunches, don't take work home to do.
Just to the job, go home, and leave all that to whinging parents.......

elliot:

Are you saying no laws should be broken at all, in any way, at any time?
http://www.raptureready.com/humor/hb435.html
Are you saying that ALL laws are just laws?
Or do you like to cherry pick?

Elliot,
Didn't the Nazis of Germany write laws for people to follow? Didn't the Stallinists write laws for people to follow? If education is so essential, why do they underfund it?

Murdock:

Apart from the long list of physical symptoms of lead poisoning, below are the cognitive and behavioural symptoms associated with even low levels of exposure to lead.

Cognitive
Decreased I.Q. levels
Cognitive function deficits
Verbal function and linguistic deficits
Learning difficulties
Decreased educational performance
Decreased reading, maths, non-verbal reasoning ability and short term memory
Autism

Behaviour
Aggression, violence, hostility, anti-social or delinquent behaviour
Attention problems; distractibility, restlessness
Externalising and internalizing behaviours
Hyperactive behaviours, difficult to manage
Inappropriate/uncontrolled behaviours similar to ADD behaviours
Irritability
Lethargy
Increased school absenteeism

You might want to reconsider the lead soldier projects Murdock.

H

In School District No. 35 (langley) of the $7000/year/student of funding given to the school board only $2800 is given to the school principal to run the school. Thsi includes all supplies. salaries, maintenance, textbooks, ass-wipe, etc. If that principal requires any building maintenance he/she must hire the worker from the board office at $60/hour.

The district budget allows for the clasrooms to be painted once every 22 years; the outside once every 10; and of the 900 classrooms with carpeting only 25 can be repacled every year ( i.e. once every 38 years). All of these figures are from a district health and safety meeting I attended last year.

The law firm of the spouse of one of Langley's Ass. superintendants got a retainer last year of $995,000 ; which surprisingly just happens to be $5000 under the amount necessary for a Ministry of Education review. My, My how did that happen?

It's the bureaucracy that is killing education. Get rid of the school boards or set them an Overhead limit of 15% ($1050/year/student) of the allocated funding and there just might be enough money.

DenisB

My understanding is that 92 cents of BC education dollars go towards the wages benefits etc. of those within the school system. The other 8 cents goes towards the operating costs, ie heat, light etc.

Capital costs, such as new schools, have your local Secretary Treasurer go to Victoria and plead their case for over -and -above funding for these often extravagant edu Taj Mahals .

Our School District has literally either torn down and rebuilt (or major renovated ) every high school, despite the fact their own projections see a decline in enrollment.

Check out your local Superintendents , Assistant Superintendents , Secretary Treasurers etc contracts. You will more than likely find they have recieved the same PERCENTAGE increases and likely same bonuses as the BCTF negotiated for its members, many such admin. contracts have such piggy-back clauses.

Re the conflict of interest you allude to...$995,000 is not chump change...perhaps a discussion with the school board or the media is in order, the optics do not look good. School Districts often have these sorts of professionally incestuous dealings, many of which simply slide under the radar screen. Check out how many recently retired school district employees are hired on to write studies and reports...the good old boys club emeritus.

The waste I see is appalling...

'Didn't the Nazis of Germany write laws for people to follow? Didn't the Stallinists write laws for people to follow?' now you're just talking like a whacked-out lefty socialismisgood. and get your facts straight, teachers have received 23.5% over 8 years under the libs. some kind of nazis eh?
stegosaurus; i have done your job. it was easy. and a gas.
sped; that was a great analogy. a reporter steps into a classroom and has a tough time handling the kids. how deep and meaningful.

Considerably more meaningful than anything you post dude, except when you're talking sports.

You've found your niche, go play there.

maestro, DenisB, and Cycling Commuter:

well written all of you!

I see a common point of too much admin and not enough front-line (you know that one-room schoolhouse element).

Cut out all the 'middle-men' stop taking the taxes away and end this immense make work project -> the school system.

Hughes,
seen the reports and read the details that the NY parents went bonkers over in teh late 1980's in getting lead out of all the toys stores. No study has been able to confirm that it was only the lead and not other elements in those peoples' lives that brought about the problems you have noted above.

I work only in very well ventillated conditions and do not eat my product.

Once sealed the final product has no exposed metal and is no more dangerous than all the plastic crap that is out there...slowly breaking down and leaving bits of polymer on the surface of the hands of anyone whom plays with them.

The point I was making about the toys is that I am re-cycling the used materials into artworks.

What re-cycling are you doing?
What re-cycling is mandated in any schooling?

So Elliott, you have done my job! Add omniscience to your list of attributes, along with the standard teacher-basher's name-calling (in place of reasoned argument), and studious ignoring of points that weaken yours.
Anyone who finds teaching easy isn't doing their job properly, period. (I can guarantee you that it wasn't my job you describe because no one could be that delusional, could they?)It is a "gas" only because of the students and colleagues one works with. I'd make a further comment about you and gas but that would be descending to your level of discourse. Why would you ever quit such an easy and "overpaid" job? The current increases follow many years of raises (or not) well below the inflation rate, as you studiously ignore, of course.
No comment on the Libs being condemned by the ILO for repeated violations ofinternational labour law? Here's a link for you: http://www.bctf.ca/NewsReleases.aspx?id=9350
Try to read it with an open mind, if possible. I'm sure you have the ability to admit weaknesses in the "rule of law" argument given the facts.
I have some sympathy for Murdock despite his many errors and misunderstandings. Certainly the continued erosion of public education by various forces makes it less appealing for parents. I hope you have the expertise and openness to ideas other than your own to home-school your children adequately. You might read some Ivan Ilich on the deschooling of society, Murdock.
OK teacher-bashers, please explain my world to me again, and let me know what you do for a living so I can explain to you your various shortcomings.

'Anyone who finds teaching easy isn't doing their job properly'. you've got it all wrong steg. should read: anyone who finds teaching difficult isn't doing their job properly. or, more pointedly, shouldn't be a teacher.

You ought not to stop just at teachers. One should include any and all jobs that are not imediately results-based. Any job at all where "I tried" is a good enough summation for continued salary.
As a self-employed person, I hold up the criteria that governs my remuneration as the standard by which I choose to measure all other jobs/trades/professions.

Forinstance, I contract with another party to saw a board and hammer a nail. If that party doesn't like it (for any reason whatsoever) my remuneration gets held up (in court if need be), long past the point where I must pay my suppliers if I want to continue in business. And I have no comeback in any real, practical sense.

I think all job holders should be required to explain to their "clients" why they are worth the contracted amount in any particular pay period -- just the way I must be prepared to explain to my customers why they should pay me.

Then maybe those who (quite arbitrarily) think others are overpaid might be forced to examine their own situations....

Someone 'pays' little Elliot?

But he's too young to have a job.

They should be charged with violating the laws on child labour.

I think he's home from school, 'cause he doesn't like the teacher, and he's using mom's computer on the sly.

SharingIsGood asked,
If education is so essential, why do they underfund it?

Good advice. Illich was a smart man with insights worthy of much consideration with regard to many of our sacred cows and cultural blind spots.

you've missed your calling g. i've never laughed so hard. can i catch your act at yuk-yuk's sometime?

Unlike many, perhaps they are looking a little further down the road than the next quarter?

sounds like district 43. out of 9 secondary's,5 new (10 years or less) and four newly renovated. but the lefties will have you believe that the libs are a bunch of nazis that want to destroy the public education system. they'd be more credible if they heeded fact rather than fiction. and when faced with the facts they bash and burn b/c they have no counter. it's all too boring and monotonous.

Stump

I was thinking the same thing about the situation here. Most of the schools in this district need seismic upgrades and they aren't getting those, let alone dealing with asbestos, which has been an identified threat forever. I can certainly affirm that.

New ones? Dream on.

Elliot – there’s a heavy cover charge. I doubt your mom would let you, some of the acts are considered ‘adult’ entertainment.

Stick to the Canucks, they’re funny enough this year.

Of all of the ugly posturing that teachers do this is one of the worst. Tens of thousands of British Columbians devote hundreds of hours a year in support of their schools and communities. It's called volunteering.

Teahcers are the only professional group that I know of that expect accolades, and compensation, for their time spent...sick, sick, sick.

i'm almost embarrassed to say it but i actually agree with rickw on this one. teachers should be compensated for their extracurricular efforts imo. the volunteers in the community are, for the most part, there b/c their kids are involved. not so in schools. many teachers spend hundreds of hours with other people's kids, often w/o any recognition and always without financial compensation.

i should add that often this is a way of equalizing the workload, i.e. p.e. teachers don't have marking or much prep to do, therefore they're expected to coach. most librarians, however, leave the school at 3;30 and coach nothing.

Sorry Elliot, that's just crackers. Who's going to compensate me for the 300-400 hours I put into the community each year?

I also spent more time helping in my kid's school than many of the teachers.

What's more, when I have a dispute with my boss I don't withhold my time from the community soccer team.

Oh, and I pay my own education, travel and incedental expenses related to my volunteer time as well.

are your kids on the teams that you coach?

Elliot
There may be hope for you yet.

A few disinterested and semi-professional coaches - instead of the usual fanatic parents who can't see anything but their jill or johnny on the field does wonders for amateur athletics…and fair participation and real learning.

Personally, I've always felt a lot of the parental involvement in community events had nothing much to do with the kids and their needs and a lot to do with self-aggrandizement and showing off.

Suck it up nutter…your type isn't needed. If you feel that way you should stay at home and polish your Bimmer.

Cycling commuter & other proponents of the return to the one-room schoolhouse: I could now trot out my many over-taxed pensioner relatives, highly motivated, non-crack addicted children, & intelligent, albeit non-English speaking friends, etc., as could others I'm sure, but I won’t bother. The fact is that the children challenged by physical/mental/societal problems are already in the school system here & they are not going away. These kids are not an issue in the Asian schools with the 1:60 teacher to student ratio, or in most of the private schools in BC for that matter, because they are just not welcome there. So as a society, what do we do with them? I’d like to think that we try to educate them to the best of their ability and that requires adequate funding in the classroom and not the smoke & mirrors of Bill 33. No one is suggesting that they all become “silk purse surgeons", but if they enter the lawn mowing profession without the skills to read a manual, write an advertisement for their business, produce an invoice for services rendered or keep track of their taxes, then we are doing both them & society (including all those pensioners who need young people to start earning & paying taxes) a disservice. If we don’t bother trying then we end up with the Asian solution, where the “problem” children are kept locked up in back rooms and out of the public’s way … the ones that actually survive childhood that is. Who wants that for Canada?

North of Hope: I just read the “Christy Clark on homework” article – Will this woman never go away? She’s like some recurring nightmare. But while her name is out there, I thought SharingIsGood might appreciate knowing that there is at least one new state-of-the-art school filled with technogoodies and shiny, new laptops in BC - that would be the Port Moody high school built literally in Christy’s old backyard back in 2003/4 when she had a little pull in the Education Ministry (in a district with declining enrolments & school closure issues). I wonder what the class sizes are there?

that would be heritage woods secondary. class sizes are the same as everywhere else. the difference in vancouver is that they call every third student a 'special needs' student. it's a joke and a scam. politics at its best. nothing to complain about so let's manufacture something so the union hacks can justify their existence. nobody's listening anymore though, the bctf shot all of their blanks during the illegal job action. people are finally on to them. watch for a revigoration next spring.

Ohhhh Elliot, you had my hopes up with the comments about coaching and then you blew it when you tried to pretend you knew something about how a child qualifies for special education funding. The Vancouver school district (or any other district) has to follow strict guidelines in order for a child to be designated as "special needs". Check out the Ministry's website anytime to check out the criteria for the various designations. It almost always requires a school psychologist administering an IQ test (there's a waiting list for that), the school has to demonstrate that the child's education is affected by the disability, and a lot of paperwork has to be on file in order to retain that funding. Students who are the "gray area" students are those who are working 2-3 grade levels below and this is typically determined by diagnostic testing completed by the special education teacher at the school. They don't receive extra funding (even though they are often functioning at or near the same level as many students labelled as special needs students) because their IQ is too high. That means schools use their school-based resources to help these children. Personally, I don't like the labels and prefer to teach to the children's strengths and needs rather than their IQ scores. I wish that the Ministry felt the same way. I don't know of any school or teacher who would want to label a child as "special needs" unless the criteria fit. If you had ever been to a meeting where a parent has to hear "your child is mentally handicapped" you would know what I mean.

In regards to coaching, in the US people are paid to coach in their schools. I have coached volleyball at my school for almost 20 years. Next year will be the only year that I get to coach one of my own children. I also volunteer in my community so I'm no different from the rest of you other than the fact that people expect me to volunteer my time at school. I coach because I love the game and because it gives me the chance to get to know the older students better and to encourage special needs students to participate. Most teachers aren't whining when they point out that coaching is a voluntary activity. They are just trying to point out that it isn't in our job descriptions nor are we compensated for the time it takes away from our families.

NLN:

Do you work overtime with no compensation? Why should teachers be expected to "volunteer"? Whereas I would fully expect, and in fact (were I dictator for a day), I would require parents and guardians to "volunteer", instead of getting into the sauce, just 'cause they had a hard day at work, and let teachers keep the brats for a couple of hours while parents "unwind". You want kids? Then step up to the plate, and don't foist them off on someone else. Too many people regards schools as babysitting services.

PS

Hey! Did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to have kids? Suck it up!

PS PS:
Like G West says..........

raingirl:

the only real challenge is physical, yet
Stephen Hawking managed to overcome this, as has the current mayor of Vancovuer. These problems can be solved, most of the time by loving parents -> not an impersonal, rigid and structured 'system' like school.

The mental aspects have their own challenges, but not the ones labelled ADHD, as this is only a problem for the crowded school rooms, not for those with patience and the ability to get boys (mostly diagnosed with this) to focus -> something that 6-13 year old boys have trouble with, unless they get a chance to exercise more.

The social problems are totally invented by the 'system' that treats the children more like prisoners in a day-prison than they do living breathing persons whom have a spirit and will of their own each different and not all suited to sitting in a desk nailed down in a row (yes I know that these are not all the classes, but when there are 25+ in the small rooms that are classrooms I think that doing anything more than a lecture-style approach is impossible.)

NLN said."Teahcers are the only professional group that I know of that expect accolades, and compensation, for their time spent"
and
spedteacher said, "Most teachers aren't whining when they point out that coaching is a voluntary activity. They are just trying to point out that it isn't in our job descriptions nor are we compensated for the time it takes away from our families."
This is the reason why work to rule does not work for teachers. Too many teachers have a commitment to their students, whether it is inside the class or out on the field or gym.

RickW:

Fine, I will do just that and take on all the needed financial requirements also.

JUST NEVER TAX ME EVER AGAIN TO PAY SOME ONE ELSE TO DO THIS 'TEACHING' TO ANY OTHER CHILDREN.

All school taxes should be stopped in your view of the world; this suits me just fine.

couldn't agree more re; the coaching debate sped, but completely disagree re; the special needs issues. this is an industry that the bctf and cupe absolutely love b/c they get to put more people in the schools because of it. integration at the level we're seeing it in the schools now is not necessary or productive, but if we put these kids in 'special schools' we don't need as many 'special handlers' to deal with them. bottom line is that the unions have less activity in the education system.

North of Hope:

Perhaps,

I see the 80-20 rule coming into effect here; where 80% of the 'extracurricular' efforts are being done by an active 20% of the teachers.

My own observations from my years in school (especially after the 1983 strike), where I noted which teachers 'broke ranks' with the work-to-rule crowd and which did not and simply came in to the school, ignored the admin, rattled thru their lesson plans, then walked out at precisely 3:15. The larger number was the bunch that did not stop the work-to-rule long after the 'solidarity' action plan had been called off. Some continued into 1985!

The entire concept of modern compulsion public schooling is flawed, so much so from my perspective that the only way out is OUT.

Elliot, you know damn well this is not the creation of teachers. You need to get up to date with:
1) civil rights and human rights legislation, and,
2) the activist parents' groups who've been pushing the agenda of putting 'special needs' kids into regular classrooms.

Have you been unconscious for the last 25 years?

I assume murdock and the charter schoolers will also be 'forced' to integrate their classrooms too.

Oh, please don't assume that I'm against integration - or special classes to meet ESL needs either.

I just refuse to buy into the pretense that it doesn't have both costs and effects.

Elliot wrote: if we put these kids in 'special schools' we don't need as many 'special handlers' to deal with them. bottom line is that the unions have less activity in the education system.

Ohhhh Elliot, I swear you say these things just to get attention!! I decided that I wanted to become a special education teacher when I was 10 years old. I'd never even heard of the BCTF then so, obviously, the union had nothing to do with my choice of careers. To call special education teachers and teacher assistants "special handlers" is not only insulting to our students but to us. What do you think we are? Animal trainers? How dare you!! My students are wonderful human beings who deserve the same rights (if not more) than you do. Yes, inclusion is more expensive than segregated classes but it has so many benefits. Besides the obvious social ones (for the special and "regular" ed. students), there is the fact that the supports which have always been in place for the special ed. kids benefit even more students now.

OK murdock, so you admit that we have crowded classrooms. If I recall, isn't that a contradiction of your earlier posts in this thread? Surely, the "evil BCTF and those nasty teachers" haven't changed your way of thinking?? Yes, I have seen students diagnosed with ADHD (by a pediatrician, not school personnel) do just fine outside of the classroom. But I have also seen them have problems concentrating during hockey practices or even in the job market. Check out some of the websites concerned with ADHD and you will see that there are adults who continue to struggle with attentional difficulties. I have seen school teams come up with some very creative ways to help children with ADHD cope at school. It certainly doesn't involve having them chained to a desk lol.

murdock:

Huh? Howzat egzacly? Not that I disagree with you, but you made a bit of a leap from parents volunteering to supervise extracurricular to throwing out teachers all together. Now as to school taxes, you are right in that there shouldn't autta be such a thing. But then, there shouldn't autta be gasoline taxes either.

Rather, ALL taxpayer funded services should autta come out of one big tax, a flat rate tax as a matter of fact.

RickW, GW, Elliot - To the misguided cheap shots about my community involvement, the time I spend is in activites that my kids aren't involved in........how about you?

As usual you're too caught up in your intellecual posing to understnd the dialogue. I don't feel that way which is why I volunteer.

Apparently, many teachers and posters believe that teachers deserve special consideration for volunteering, I happen to disagree.

Staying home, critisizing and polishing bimmers is for socialist millionaires like you.....and that's why my type is a lot more beneficial to the community than yours.

If this:

Isn't a plea for special consideration, I've never seen one.

I don't think you're even a benefit to your own kids because you're probably the interfering type I frequently see in the classroom.

You'd be better off, and so would the kids, if you stayed at home.

It's absolutely necessary, unless you'd like to argue that smart individuals deserve more from society than the challenged.

It's absolutely productive, in that it teaches children to offer the same amount or respect and consideration to everyone, regardless of the amount of ability they are handed out in the birth lottery.

Segregating people based on intelligence requires an arbitrary decision as to who goes and who stays. It perpetuates the idea that the physically or mentally challenged aren't worth as much as others. It's a small step down the road to eugenics, which may be efficient, but it's wrong.

The small amount of exposure I've had to people with disabilities (esp. those born with mental challenges) really opened my eyes, both to what they were capable of, and how my childhood experiences (from when the special ed kids didn't get much of a chance to intermingle) gave me an erroneous impression that they weren't entitled to the same respect and compassion as anyone else.

School isn't about productivity. It's about learning. That's where Murdock has it totally right. Pumping out productive automatons does us all a disservice.

If productivity was the point, the only schools worth having would be some engineering and trades, some accounting, and some medical schools. Fortunately, the old idea that learning might encompass more than how-to isn't dead... yet.

'I don't think you're even a benefit to your own kids because you're probably the interfering type I frequently see in the classroom.
You'd be better off, and so would the kids, if you stayed at home.'
don't even know (or care) who you're insulting here g, but must say that this is one of the more ignorant and pathetic comments i've seen here. who the hell do you think you are to comment on someone's relationships with their children. get a life guy.

nutter; not sure which post you're referring to, but i'm sure i haven't made any cheap shots regarding your community involvement.

Of course they deserve special consideration. In most other workplaces they'd qualify for overtime. If someone put in unpaid overtime at their place of work do you really think they'd think their boss shouldn't recognize and reward that in some way?

Murdock:

You argue against 'by rote' learning in one breath and for a hundred kids in a class in another. The latter forces teachers into the former.

Elliott:

"Revigoration" isn't even a word. How many kids were in your English class? Too many apparently.

The fact that the teacher-bashers can only just manage to convey their thoughts in textual form speaks volumes to my mind.

Fair enough. Just never ask society to provide anything for you. Your own kids can provide you with all the medical expertise, civil engineering requirements, legal advice, and sundry other services usually provided by people educated within the public system right?

Elliot
I didn't think you were paying attention.

The statement was No left nutter's and he was initially responding to your point about teachers spending extra time out of class with coaching. (Aith which I heartily agreed)

Just slow down and read yesterday afternoon's posts and it will come into focus. Better game last night eh?

Check it out - and you'll see I was then responding to him this morning as well.

He thinks I have intellectual pretentions!
LOL

No more time. I'm busy today.

Elliot, reread the posts and apologise for including you as a misguided cheap shot artist. As for Garf, you said it best -

Perfect description Elliot. Thanks for helping me make sure the pass got to nutter, it's intended target.

Go wash your bimmer!

This was the Pathetic comment, by the way:

I also spent more time helping in my kid's school than many of the teachers.

What's more, when I have a dispute with my boss I don't withhold my time from the community soccer team.

Oh, and I pay my own education, travel and incedental expenses related to my volunteer time as well.

courtesy no left nutter.

Thank God this person isn't a teacher or she'd be in the classroom all the time.

Maybe one other of your posts ought to be brought down here for a little closer look:

Sounds a lot like special pleading to me!

Funny how folks don't like having their own stupidity turned against them.

Stump:

Never either, I argue that the entire modern school system with its 'industrial era' model that more resembles a day-prison or a stupidity factory should be scrapped in its entirity.

The only 'forcing' I saw was the demands placed upon parents to offer-up their children into this government works project.

The only forcing I see now is taxes being collected so that they may be paid out to lobby groups called BCTF and CUPE so that our children (thus future society) can continue as good little automatons and where broom pushers make $60 / hour!

Stump:

No, I do pay taxes for civil engineering, things such as water and road maintennance (they are called property taxes and fuel taxes). I do pay for MSP -> so not unlike anyone else in this system I say that I get to have the same access as anyone else.

yet here we have a school system that collects tribute, houses children for a few hours every day and claims that they are 'teaching', while the rest of their family is forced to work-work-work to pay these salaries, which never seem to end in their increases, demands for more teachers (while the admin continues to bloat-up until there are councellors for the councellors yet not a single librarian to keep the books accessable all day long!), and special ed assistants for problems that are the creation of the system itself, due to the prison-like atmosphere and 'fear-mongering' that goes on inside these places all the time.

'fear-mongering'? yes, things like you must pass this or that test in the current grade you are in or you will not get to go into the next grade and you will therefore not go on to the next one and therefore you will not get 'that good job' and therefore you will have wasted your life and become a bum on the DTES!

There are other examples but the total net effect is the same, yet how many of us reading and writing here on the Tyee are really using much of what was 'drilled' into us during grades 1-7?

Grades 8-12?

My answer is about 10% of the primary and 30% of the secondary schooling. Beyond learning to read and write much of the 'teaching' in the classroom has been of little long-term benefit.

This is why many now want to get the post-secondary degrees, because this is where the real learning has been moved to...yet some of the works or lives being studied were written by free thinkers that created their works at an age where they would still have been in 'high-school' and thus not permitted to be such 'high thinkers'. Many of the bios would not have been lived, because these "children" in their teens would not have been permitted to go off to join the Navy (like Farragut) or lead their nations (Alexander).

I say that we are 'dumbing down' our entire society, and the front-line soldiers in this war are the teachers, whom are stuck follow-marching along with orders from - our governments.

It is the system that is broke, time to fix it.

Sorry GW, you need a rectaloctomy to get your head outta that place where you can't see a thing.......

I've never been in favour of the factory model either, Murdock. I don't thank that BCTF teachers, in general, support the factory model - that's one of the main reasons they want smaller class sizes. One size fits all does little to help individuals maximize their potential. However, many parents aren't qualified to teach many of the skills now taught in Grades 8-12; and, those that can, do not often have the time to do that and work their full-time jobs. This is one of the realities of having a large share of an economy based upon service/hospitality industries. Motel cleaners, fast food restaurants, big box stores, and ski resorts don't pay their help enough for many of their employees to purchase a home on two (let alone one) salaries. We know that a pair of median wages in Vancouver cannot purchase a median-priced $500,000 home, so people are working really hard just trying to build some bit of financial security. Further, this is not the 50s and we don't have women wanting to be stay at home moms, they want high energy, high paying careers. Men don't want to stay home either, never did. When they are done working like this, they have little time nor patience for teaching their teen-agers chemistry, physics, metal fabrication, digital editing, English, web page development, saxophone, French, chemistry, calculus, etc. etc. etc. Many of the parents (not working as professionals) I run into have not had to keep many of their skills current, so they have trouble just adding fractions and writing a paragraph, let alone teaching these things to their children.

No left nutter
Apparently that's not the only part of your equipment missing.

gwest; either you misunderstood and you're a moron or you're intentionally manipulating the comments and you're an a-hole. in either case you need help. grow up.

AliCiabatta - you're as confused as Garffy, maybe you suffer from the same affliction.......

You missed my point. Someone has to be trained to provide those services. Someone has to teach people to perform those services. I put it to you that the average person does not have the expertise to teach their own children such things. Hence the need for teachers and schools.

As you've figured out on your own, home-schooling and/or private schools are available for those who choose to opt out of the current system. Nobody is forced to do squat.

Please provide some examples. I have a hard time thinking of too many besides perhaps Anne Frank.

I thought you wanted to scrap it altogether.

Speak for yourself. Some of my teachers and classes left an indelible imprint on me fare beyond just literacy, for which I am grateful.

No, those are unions. Representing their members is what they do. Highlighting member concerns and pushing for solutions to problems faced by their members is a part of that.

O rly? what percentage of your income goes to school taxes. If you think education is expensive, you should consider the alternative (uneducated, unskilled people who lack the skills to contribute to society and the economy).

Alexander (I assume you mean 'The Great') had the benefit of private tutors in a range of disciplines. Talk about the poster-child for smaller class sizes. Too funny.

"fare beyond just literacy"

far beyond.

Elliot
I'm not manipulating anything. GO read those posts again. No Left Nutter is guilty of the very sin he accuses teachers of committing. Manipulating isn't necessary when one posts nothing but self-serving nonsense.

Anyway - better you stick to sports. Although not having a leg to stand on - especially about how special needs kids end up in classrooms - may make it a little difficult.

Your prejudice is showing again. It’s also pretty revealing when your major form of argumentation amounts to screaming epithets from the sidelines. Pretty much like those parents who fancy themselves coaches and haven’t got a clue.

Murdock,

You say that children are identified as special needs because we (the school system) made them that way. You are so off-base it's almost funny. You have never checked the Ministry's web site for their definition, have you? Tell me, please, how I caused a child to have fetal alcohol or narcotics affected syndromes, apraxia, or autism? I can tell you that I certainly did NOT force booze and/or drugs into the mothers of the children diagnosed with FAS or NAS!! If you are still on your kick about kids diagnosed as having ADHD, you do know those kids typically don't receive extra funding so aren't included in Bill 33, right? And you remember that the article which started this conversation was about Bill 33, right?

And tell me, please ... was I creating factory workers today when I worked with students in a cooking lesson which allowed them to apply their reading and math skills to a "real life" situation?????

And it's "counsellor" or "counselor" if you prefer the American spelling. I've heard that Firefox has a built in spellcheck even for blogs. You might want to try it. I could teach you how to remediate your spelling problem but I'm just an overpaid, whining member of the evil BCTF who is only interested in creating factory workers, right??

You know, SpedTeacher, you are right on the mark with all of your posts. I have read Murdock for over half a year. He seems to have no interest in actually learning from the posters who are actually doing the work, in the trenches, with the kids. He has continually pumped his negative misinformation and poorly formed hypotheses out month after month. From my experience, he and Elliot seem to find joy in publishing lies about public school teachers every time an article about teachers comes forward in The Tyee.

If those two actually believe the negative comments they make about teachers, I believe it wise to urge them to get their thinking processes examined, perhaps take an IQ battery that spots learning difficulties. It seems they may have reading comprehension and abstract reasoning difficulties. They also seem to lack empathy - which is generally a frontal lobe deficiency.

Elliot, himself, said teachers got 2% for ten years and then 23.5% for 8 years. When I used basic facts to add these figures together to equal 25.5% for 18 years, he said I needed to get my facts right. I think he may have trouble adding, and/or reading, and/or remembering what he wrote just hours before. As a Spec. Ed. Teacher, you may be able to offer him some advice on how he might conduct himself so that he (at least) doesn't look so foolish in his posts, even if he has processing problems. Perhaps a calculator could help him.

Correction from post of 3 hours ago to Murdock. The word "thank" should read "think".

NLN:

Nope! No Kids! No obligation!
http://www.answers.com/volunteer

Cycling Commuter:

WOW! I didn't know the NDP was around 200 years ago, when (as Murdock says): "...yet here we have a school system that collects tribute, houses children for a few hours every day and claims that they are 'teaching'..."our present school system began........

nice try socialismisajoke. you know what my point was. you lefties cry your asses off about the libs being nazis, yet they grant a huge raise over 8 years, while your beloved ndp fools give 2% over 10 years b/c they haven't got a clue how to handle the province's finances. if you didn't understand that you're as daft as gwest. it's amazing how often you lefties manipulate the posts b/c when it comes to debating facts you haven't got a leg to stand on. the bctf has been playing politics with our students for years, and the campaign was stepped up when cubanovsky became president and it was evident that the ndp were toast for many years to come. they don't really have much to complain about now so they grasp at straws, which is what this article is doing. i guarantee you that there will be yet another illegal job action during the course of this latest five year contract b/c the freaks on the executive need to justify their existence. teachers are an easy mark when it comes to being manipulated by their union b/c most aren't very political. the good ones teach and work hard for their students and are too busy to get involved and the lazy crappy ones need the union to protect them b/c if they didn't have one they'd be working at zellers.

Elliot, stick to sports - you're looking stupider with every post - you haven't got a clue when you step out of the locker room.
Like I said - just like the know-nothings yelling from the sidelines. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. In fact, I'm beginning to think you and Ron Erwin are related.

When you haven't got anything sensible or logical to say you just start blubbering and calling people names. Your guarantees aren't worth even recording. Your skates are sharper than your mind.

LOL

it's official g. you're a complete idiot.

Like I said Elliot:

Keep posting nonsense like this:

And before long everyone will know it. Just like the fans at kids'sports events who see parents making fools of themselves every weekend.

Everytime you indulge in that kind of childishness it's coming right back at you. Time to grow up if you want to be treated like an adult.

you're delusional g. you spend far too much time here. sounds like you're addicted. get a job.

Thanks, elliot - more grist for the mill. Keep it up or grow up - choice is up to you.

elliot:

You got to remember that the NDP was in the process of pulling the province out of the mess the Socreds (nee Liberals) left it in. And you have to remember that the Liberals were and are the beneficaries of the O,G & M windfalls. of course the one couldn't offer but a pittance, while the other could be much more generous.

Well, I certainly glad we have that all straightened out.

'You got to remember that the NDP was in the process of pulling the province out of the mess the Socreds (nee Liberals) left it in.' now there's some good old lefty revisionist history for you. my god man, study some history before making such ridiculous statements or you'll sound as delusional as gwest, the fool of fools.

I'm starting to take issue with some of the above comments that are lumping ESL students in with learning-challenged kids, implying that all Asian countries are poor (??) and that education isn't as important as it is here. I have taught ESL in private schools and private homes for over a decade in both Asia and Canada and I can tell you this much:
- ESL students may not always speak fluent English, but they are far more aware of what is going on around them than it appears... and probably far more 'aware' in general than most of us are.
- They are often much more polite to and respectful of teachers than any of my peers were when we were growing up.
- The pressure they are under to achieve good marks and get into good schools in Asia would drive most Canadian students to the brink of insanity... or severe drug use, or violence.
- In my experience, Asian parents are far more interested in and dedicated to giving their children the best education possible than most parents in Western society. This may be a result of the fact that we have more options here and there is less competition, though that is quickly changing.

I agree completely with Cycling Commuter's comments, as well. I've thought about making the switch to the public system because I'm starting to realize what a huge bonus I would be to these ESL students- I speak Mandarin, I've been immersed in their culture for years, and I don't find teaching ESL students to be any more difficult than the tutoring I've done with native English speaking students. Then I read all these disrespectful comments some people make about public school teachers-and I think 'Why would I work in the public system??' I tutor privately one-on-one and the demand for such is not letting up any time soon. Why would I go into a mixed class of 30+ and deal with the politics of this system- when there is so much animosity toward these teachers?

Still screaming like an idiot from the bleachers.
Way to go Elliot, is see your stock around here is falling every day.

And I thought you were a half-decent guy!

Usually I'm a good judge of character.

Revisionist? Revisionist is crediting the Libs with O&G windfalls, calling it "smart management". Revisonism is ignoring the screwup the Socreds made of the Asian Implosion and it's affect on BC's economy. Revisionism is (in turn) denying the S&L fiasco and the effect it had on Asian markets.

The rightistas are very good at denying, short-sighted, short-term reactionaries that they are. History is not a series of stop-motion events. It flows, and it flows from crises after crises caused by the right, as it cuts-and-runs, when the slogging gets tough. Happens all the time. Get used to it!