Teachers and the Big Picture

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 03:37 AM

If you can just step back for a moment and forget about who is in whose shoe politically in the teacher dispute, you have to say the teachers have a very legitimate beef on their hands.

$35,000 to $66,000 dollars a year is not a large salary and surely the government knows that.

However, Government seems bent on trying to arm twist the teachers into some sort of submission hold without letting the facts in the matter get in the way.

I am no authority on the matter of class sizes, I leave that to the better judgment of those who teach the kids, you do however hear from the heads of the districts that the classes are at the outer limits and surely they should receive some consideration?

We of course do hear from former politicians like Bruce Strachan who seems to think that he has something to add to the discussion not knowing that the bulk of the people don’t even want Strachan to add milk to their breakfast cereal. He is the man who can lay claim to being an education minister when? 1980 you say, the students that we are talking about (along with some of the teachers) weren’t even born. But then if you are receiving a government pension that is equal to what the teachers are being paid you really don’t have to worry now do you?

All that aside,the bigger picture is, how do the teachers make their point that they need a raise? I happen to think that if you polled the general population you would find they are in agreement with me on this one. If we want high quality education and dedicated people we need to reward them.

Forced employment is not the way to get there.

I'm Meisner and that is one man's opinion.
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Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 03:37 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: Big_B on September 28 2005 8:49 AM

Ben you hit it just right.

Teachers are very underpaid people indeed.

I think I live a very comfortable life and make a decent wage, because somewhere along the line, I had people who pushed me when I needed it and helped when I needed support. Those people were teachers.

I didn't know that Mr. Strachan was a MLA in 1980, but I do know that my teacher that year was Mr. Peterson, and he certainly shaped my life more than any politician, including Mr. Strachan, ever did or will.

Posted by: gypsy on September 28 2005 11:12 AM

Bully for those who are overpaid!!
Bully for those who are well paid!!!
Bully for those who eke out a survival on $8.00 an hour, bringing home in the area of $15,000.00 a year.
Many of these people are not stupid either-probably higher I Q's than many high paid professionals.
They pay the same for a pound of butter as the $66,000.00 a year teacher.
They pay the same rate for gas, hydro, utilities, property taxes, insurance-plus plus plus!!!!
Guess they have to do without some of the amenities in life, and don't buy butter.
Giving a lot of teachers a substantial raise does not improve their ability as a teacher.
A good teacher is a good teacher-period.
An ill equipped teacher's ability does not increase with dollars.
What is this so called "reward" system??
The quality and dedication is there or it isn't.
The government cannot make teachers any better with the bucks.
We do not have a stellar record for producing highly educated pupils in our northern school system.
Must be all the kids are just stupid???
For heaven's sake-do not lay any of the blame on the teachers.
Just give them more money and those kids will all get a lot smarter???
Wow, that does sound stupid!!!!
And to think I said it!!!!

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on September 30 2005 7:21 AM

Why do people keep saying teacher are forced to work for low wages? Are they slaves, of course not! They choose a mid level paying job, with two months off a year and a very secure pension plan. The teaching profession is appealing to some, but that doesn't mean they have to do that job. Those that can do, those that can't, teach.
I couldn't wait to get out of school and never went back. The highest wages I made in one year was $240K.

Posted by: owl on October 1 2005 6:52 AM

YDPC

You must be one of those plumbers who charges $100 to fix a shut off valve on a sink for 30 minutes of work and then charges again when that did not fix the problem.

Then you go home and do nothing, instead of marking 30 homework assignments and preparing the new lessons for the next day.

Posted by: acrider54 on October 1 2005 8:54 AM

Yes let's become a dictatorship. The governments of the day can pay everyone $8.00 an hour no matter what they do for a living and we will just keep filling the rich and the politicians pockets with our hard earned dollar. No one should need a raise in this day and age, after all the cost of living has not gone up in the last 20 years.

Posted by: owl on October 2 2005 2:15 AM

One of my favourite nonsensical sayings has always been: "Those that can do, those that can't, teach."

So, at our wonderful new medical program at UNBC we have a bunch of medical doctors who are there teaching future doctors all about the practice of medicine because they cannot practice medicine themselves.

No wonder we have such poor doctors in this country.

Hey, wait a minute..... I forgot that the other countries all work the same way .... hmmm