I live in beautiful British Columbia, and this week has been a huge week for educators and the state of education in BC. On Monday a BC Supreme Court judge ruled that our gov't had violated the Charter Rights of teachers by stripping their rights to collectively bargain. The ruling reinforced a past ruling, and effectively reinstated the contract from 2002. This means that we should have lower class sizes and be able to restore many (many, many) support roles that were cut in the last 12 years. Obviously this is a great victory for teachers, parents, and most importantly students.
Something else came out in the ruling. The gov't purposely provoked a strike in order to gain political opinion and legislate the teachers back to work. This is truly disgusting. I am (almost) at a loss for words on how despicable and underhanded this is. Education should be one of the main priorities of any people, and the way in which the government has, time and again, treated hard working professionals who care for our most precious citizens infuriates me. Some other important information has come out recently, regarding the pedagogical and curricular shift towards BC's new Education Plan. Yesterday, during our Principles of Teaching and Learning class we started delving into the murky depths of the provincial IRP's. It took about 20 minutes for our very inexperienced heads to be swimming, and many of us gained an appreciation for our former teachers as professionals. In contrast we looked at the new curriculum and felt like we could breathe again. What a dichotomous gov't we have. On one hand they legislate us back to work, violating our Charter Rights, and on the other hand, obviously trust our professionalism so much that they have taken away huge swaths of guidelines to give us the freedom to teach and reach our students however (and wherever) we need to! I'm looking forward to digging more into the new plan, and though our next two years of practicum have to be built on the current IRP's, we're being taught to look forward and our assessments and differentiation around the newer focus.
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AuthorI respond to Sarah, Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Smoore, Miss Sarah, (and sometimes Mom!). I have been an DL (homeschool!) teacher for 2 years and am now a proud member of the SD35 team! Archives
September 2018
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