We Have An Education System?

I thought I'd weigh in on the current teacher issue in BC. It's happening in Alberta also.

It seems to me that parent inconvenience is the only real power teachers have. So it also seems expected that they’d use what little political power available to address conditions. The fact that parents are inconvenienced is probably a good thing if finally it prompts authentic discussion and a new – les adversarial - way for the future.

It seems to me that the teaching profession has always been an easy target of the government. Over the years we’ve seen that it's an easy place to make small cuts in wages or funding that produces a correspondingly enormous difference in terms of the public purse. Also, as teachers generally have a helping, caring nature they are more susceptible to letting their desire to nurture children override a demand for wealth. As with other professionals, we aren't in these vocations for the money.

As such, teachers are called upon to do extra-curricular supervision including sports teams. They routinely take marking home and have to develop curriculum outside of school hours. They may have time off a Christmas, Easter and in the summer, but upon careful investigation, these periods are often filled with more prep work land report card writing and the like. In fact one of my best teachers routinely spent 2-3 weeks during alternate summers in Europe for the express purpose of professional development. Her passion was contagious. The point I'm making is that when all the hours of a teacher's efforts are calculated, they receive far less than is commonly perceived. Further, there is no allowance for teachers to receive overtime and there is ultimately a cap on possible earnings. School districts provide increments for years of service, but that ends at some point. The point here is that as with some salaries employees they receive no monetary compensation for what can be excessive overtime, unreasonable treatment by management and parents. So, the fact that teacher unions can be militant should come as no surprise. Two reasons, first when a group feels attacked it is expected for their reaction to be unionization and militancy if the conditions continue to cycle negatively. Surely it must be the case because private sector professionals in the helping fields do not unionize. Working conditions impact employee satisfaction and it seems too simplistic to simply blame teachers or their union or government – for that matter – for the current situation.

Second, all people always serve some level of self-interest. Let's just accept that and move on.

But let’s go further down the road of compensation for a moment. By contrast to teaching professionals, the self-employed and those employed in industry have a vastly different experience. Overtime is routinely provided for, in fact it's guaranteed by law. For those is sales, every moment of working time can be quantified, considered productive and containing the real potential for greater remuneration. And of course, those who also have five or more years of university education typically earn more than those in the teaching field. Why? It seems to me that compared to let’s say a bookkeeper, executive assistant or graphic designer, the relative value of the teacher's work is seem as revenue negative. That is, they produce no salable product nor do they add wealth to a product by way of remanufacturing, advertising or accounting.

This of course is a fallacy. Teachers are primarily responsible to teach children how to think, including learning the disciplines of reading, writing and arithmetic. An uneducated generation is counterproductive for our culture and economy. Our policies toward educators should prompt the best to work here (wherever here is) and to encourage professional development and excellence so that the next generation can not only function but become leaders in our communities.

Teachers need fair pay, working conditions and most off all the respect of society. Their jobs as we've designed public education are essential.

But what, some may say about the competence of teachers, accountability and excellence. Again, I'm convinced that overwhelmingly, a typical teacher's motive for entering this vocation is not to become rich. True, the unions overprotect those who may have become complacent and those who would fit better in a different vocational field. So let’s design ways and means to deal honestly with those issues and not brand all teachers as incompetent, ungrateful or lazy. It's also simplistic to blame teachers for less than desirable outcomes in the teaching process. Parents are responsible to make their kids ready to learn. That includes home interaction, proper nutrition and care. It also means teaching them to respect teachers and all authority figures. Parents are responsible to teach kids how to use technology. Parents are responsible to support the teaching process as partners. Again, if these issues involve parenting skills development and assistance then public policy should work on those issues instead of forcing educators to babysit malnourished children.

So, how can we help the situation? It seems to me that supporting teachers may be in letting the government know that teachers need to be respected, challenged and fairly compensated. And this without buying into the political posturing reducing the issue to us against them, labour/management, conservative/liberal positions.

Parents can support the educational system without it becoming the basis for provincial politics. Maybe the union leadership, opposition and government will have to work together respectfully if they know that parents are calling BS on the current situation. If the quality of education has been reduced to electability of public official we're in a dark place indeed.