ifiddles
Well-known member
@ Renboy - even the high school teachers I've met and taken courses with over the years say they have it good in comparison to us in the elementary panel...so you are definitely comparing apples to oranges...
Teachers on strike
- Thread starter mxs
- Start date
I know people have no clue the actual amount of work
It was the high school teachers that were on strike, that's what I was aiming most of my comments at. To look at primary school however, when I was there (a long, long time ago) my class sizes were about 25 kids per class and we had one teacher. There were no TA's, no older student helpers, nothing. My son (grade 1 currently) has a class size of under 20 kids, and there are at least two adults in his class every time I'm there to pick him up. I know his teachers name, but have no clue what the other person does there. And he does mention that older kids come to his class to help 'teach' his classmates how to read (book club).
Many of my kid's teachers have been great, although Math seems to be an enormous problem at the local school, anyone who needs it has an outside tutor, some of which advertise "teaching Math to students of . . . school". Hopefully, the issues are addressed soon.
So, good teachers and bad teachers aside, I'm still left wondering what the issues are, and why there is a strike.
Class numbers don't really fly. If I'm not mistaken we're producing less babies than before, and schools have been closing/reorganizing recently.
Is it job security?
So, good teachers and bad teachers aside, I'm still left wondering what the issues are, and why there is a strike.
Class numbers don't really fly. If I'm not mistaken we're producing less babies than before, and schools have been closing/reorganizing recently.
Is it job security?
I never said that the tax payers are on the hook for their pay during striking. I was merely debunking the myth which is out there (that teachers want desperately back, because they don't earn a full pay) .... the fact that it is true, just underlines one of many problems.
Students need a better union???? Now, you are stretching it ...
You have it too good in the private sector .... LOL ... don't forget about the free summer (this is when the batteries get re-charged). The debate has never been for me whether hard working teacher could work harder than a guy in private sector. When things are compared on a full year basis, pound for a pound, it's a good job to have. Period.
The class size (or rather the ability of government to manipulate it if they need to) is absolutely the torn in the union's eye .... I believe the rest is just chump floating around. Can't see how a job security is an issue. I cannot imagine more secure job, once you make it on the permanent full time list.
No, the fact that they have no incentive to go back to work and thus pressure the ill-headed union. Why would they? Pls don't say because they want to teach ... because if that was true, the union would be fired long time ago and would not let such people to represent them in the eye of the public.
Class size is a definite the bigger the class the less time teacher can focusing on students that might need a little extra help the proposal for the government currently is to have NO limit on class size at all by removing the caps that were in place. this means schools can be continue to be closed going forward with more restructuring. TA's are also being cut that leads to the same issue. Given the amount of special needs and behavioural cases is increasing as specialized programs arn't very well subsidized so parents have no choice but to send them to public school then we get a bit of a double whammy here since the school goes on lock down twice a week cause Billy Mcforgottotakehismeds is having a violent freak out.
There is also a issue with the government trying to define what teachers do with their prep time and other non-class time. Since all teachers do thing slightly differently they each use that time for different things and want to have the freedom rather than being told what they can and cant do in it. Also teachers are being asked to spend more time supervising kids on play ground and lunch time to cut down on the need to hire Aux staff so thats cutting into lunch and break time for teachers.
Cost of living increase is also on the table but from what I hear from the union meetings its not the top priority for the current round of talks.
there are others but the first few are the stalling points in the talks.
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SO I asked my wife what she did during her prep time yesterday as an example.
1) Prep one - She had a meeting with her student council during lunch
2) Prep Two - She drove to a store to deal with equipment rental for the Schools Prom and came back to meet with the Principal in order to discuss a 2 day camping trip she is taking her kids to, on her own time outside school hours.
Oh yea and on Friday night she is going to a high school she previously worked at Prom night to see her previous grade 9's graduate because they asked her to and she is proud of them.
Freaking slacker! Burn them all to hell
1) Prep one - She had a meeting with her student council during lunch
2) Prep Two - She drove to a store to deal with equipment rental for the Schools Prom and came back to meet with the Principal in order to discuss a 2 day camping trip she is taking her kids to, on her own time outside school hours.
Oh yea and on Friday night she is going to a high school she previously worked at Prom night to see her previous grade 9's graduate because they asked her to and she is proud of them.
Freaking slacker! Burn them all to hell
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I know one teacher that uses it to have a Coffee and Read the paper...Others use it for Marking or lesson prep everyone is different.
They're shooting themselves in the foot with the class size thing. I've seen two or three classes broken apart and reconfigured, becoming split classes, simply because an extra student transferred in.
Schools may may have to be closed going forward anyways.
If there is no one to teach, then it's time to move on.
Special needs needs to be addressed better. The Union messed with that big time a long time ago, when Parents were willing to come in and help out, but weren't allowed.
For prep time if a teacher has taught the same grade in the same classroom for several years, they're not going to need or use as much time, as someone who's just switched to a different grade and school. How do you differentiate between the two, and make everything fair?
Not sure about this aux. staff. It was always teachers and only teachers, supervising when I was a kid.
This might be where they moved the parents that wanted to help out.
Personally, I'm still not seeing a big reason to strike.
Schools may may have to be closed going forward anyways.
If there is no one to teach, then it's time to move on.
Special needs needs to be addressed better. The Union messed with that big time a long time ago, when Parents were willing to come in and help out, but weren't allowed.
For prep time if a teacher has taught the same grade in the same classroom for several years, they're not going to need or use as much time, as someone who's just switched to a different grade and school. How do you differentiate between the two, and make everything fair?
Not sure about this aux. staff. It was always teachers and only teachers, supervising when I was a kid.
This might be where they moved the parents that wanted to help out.
Personally, I'm still not seeing a big reason to strike.
Thats not true. A teacher who isn't revising there lesson plans regularly
1) Inst teaching to the changing curriculum 2) Is not teaching well as lesson plans should be changed based on how they worked in the past, new info, adding in new teaching tools .
Plus there are other things that go into prep time marking, organising extra curricular, professional development stuff
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Wait. So you are saying that a Veteran of a grade, tweaking an existing plan,
takes as long as a brand new teacher, creating their first, for that grade?
I find that hard to believe.
Also, there would be less time to set up the classroom, books, and materials, since all that has already been done.
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I don't think so, I remember when my wife was in her first 2 years, she was up till midnight every day creating everything from scratch, lessons, activities etc, every year got easier but then they will move her into a different class (From Computer science to Math for example) and she would be back to midnight every day again. and that repeated itself every 2 or 3 years
