Fail My Kid??? Oh no you don't...
What has Education Minister Shirley Bond been smoking?
Someone check her meds quick. Maybe it's too much chalk dust.
Bond has had the temerity to ask BC teachers to consider not actually passing some illiterate kid onto the next grade if he or she can't read.
Imagine!
Failing someone! Shocking. How wounding to the little dear's self esteem.
Only yesterday at work we were having this exact conversation. I was recalling that in high school I was in something called "the A class." Others, with less academic achievement were in the B class and C class and D class. How wounding, how permanently damaging.
Of course, you could always work a little harder and aspire to join the A class.
Oh...but then, you would have to write and pass tests, just like in the real world.
But the BCTF won't let you write and pass tests. You might feel bad about something.
Minister Bond is clearly out of step with the times.
And for that, in this rare instance, we can be mildly thankful.
9 comments:
Have children repeat a grade???????? It's the BCTF's fault? In your comment HA! HA! HA! Minister Bond and her department DON'T want children to repeat a grade because it means an EXTRA year's cost (or two) to to the minister's budget to put the child through school. It is ministry pressure on school boards to NOT fail children that sees children going on to the next grade without the needed skills. To fail, repeat or hold back a child for any circumstance the school must call a meeting of usually around 5 to 10 high paid 'help' to discuss the child, it usually takes a year to assess a child, and the usual outcome is pass the child and maybe, just maybe, the next year will 'solve' the problem. ( No it doesn't by the way.) The BCTF really has nothing to do with this policy. So is this comment just a convenient BCTF bashing exercise? And no I have nothing to do with the BCTF executive or the Union. It just seems that it is easier to rag on about teachers than to look at the Ministry and political flunkies who duck and cover on issues like this. Minister Bond speaks double speak on this issue and shame on her for doing so.
The BCTF has been consistent over many years now on this and other matters. I stand by my comment.
And ragging on the BCTF is not at all the same as ragging on teachers, so many of whom wish their own union would take a long walk off a short space station.
David,
Your anonymous poster has been taking some pills labeled "D-E-N-I-A-L". Just the other day I was talking with a high-school teacher friend about this very subject. He confirmed everything you wrote.
The best thing the BCTF could do for the education of our children is to immediately dissolve itself.
Robert
This situation is just more of the little 'box' that the TEACHERS have put themselves into.
They, the TEACHERS, pushed to create the UNION=BCTF, thinking that somehow thru solidarity they could get concessions from government.
HA!
In the end the loosers are those children shoehorned into this mental sausage machine.
Like............ like, eye thinkk dis iz, like, like, a gud idear.
i'm one of those teachers who wish the bctf would take a long walk off a short peer. after watching them operate for the last 16 years i seriously doubt if they give a royal rip about the kids in the classrooms. what a bloody crime this is, and yet most teachers are either too timid, too blind, too stupid, or too brainwashed to speak out.
Dear "fedup",
You're not the only one. I constantly here the same from a good friend of mine. Then why I ask him why he or other like-minded people don't speak up at conventions and elections he explains about the "gang" that runs the organization and if you dare speak out against them then you are ostracized or worse.
It's clear that the BCTF is not a truly democratic organization and that any views other than the official ones of the leadership are strictly not wanted.
well i'm one of those ostracized ones b/c i reported to work during the illegal job action. the things i saw on the picket line from so-called 'professionals' who preach tolerance and freedom of choice and all that blah blah blah blah was astonishing. can't wait to retire so i can speak out freely against these bullies. and even then they'll threaten to withhold my pension.
fedup,
this is how the disenfranchised are maintained within our society.
I suggest you get your 'pension' funds secured first with a couple of cheques and speak with a savvy media lawyer regarding your attack plans.
May I also recommend reading or possibly contacting John Taylor Gatto for some inspiration?
I really hope that you do manage to speak out against this monstrous system (the school system) as it will take some local vision and input to convince others that something is wrong in muddville. So far they (the corporate managers of the teachers and the SYSTEM) have been able to manage and control the message here in Canada.
I for one was a survivor of the strikes of the 1980's and saw first hand the shenanigans going on, so far no-one believes what I say I saw then, and I am pretty sure that the nature of it all has only gotten worse in the intervening decades.
Good for you if you do manage to fire some shots at the BCTF and the system, I wish you well in your efforts!
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