Normally we have an
aversion to hostage-taking: except when it is teachers holding the
future of students hostage to their greed. What do they care about
students who will not get scholarships and lose the advantages of a
degree for the rest of their lives; or that special needs students
who need routine are in a state of anguish; or that children are
learning by example to harass, abuse and scream to get their own
way.
Certainly, these highly-paid, richly-pensioned, job-for-life,
teachers for nine months each year, are utterly indifferent to the
future of their students: and their children’s children who will be
paying off the provincial debt created by their greed.
The province needs to be moving to more on-line teaching for
students: that is where the future lies. Imagine the best history
teachers being recorded making our past come to life. Teachers who
love math and science making it exciting for students instead of by
a drone who took only the one compulsory course to get their BA. Why
such programmes aren’t available already is a mystery. Classroom
teachers would become a resource and tutor . . . actually preparing
students for the real world.
And there would no longer be such nonsense as grade 12 students
utterly unprepared for the classes ranging from 100 to 1000 that
will be their first year university survey courses experience! By
grade 12 class sizes should be at least 60 to enable students to
experience what it is to work independently, be responsible for
their own attendance, homework, projects, presentations . . . come
September they will be in residence without Mother to get them to
school on time. Come September the professor won’t know their name
or care if they are in their seat.
Adulthood comes with responsibility. We need to help students
prepare for it: not cater to teachers whose demands come down to
working conditions and money. Allowing children to be held hostage
is old news. Time to move into the new world of computers and
searches that provide a better learning experience than the sign
waving protesters demanding a deal that no tax payer should be able
to stomach. |