Dear editor,
Here’s an open letter to our son, the teacher:
You phoned this morning and described how your day was starting in a very different way from your routine. A flood of memories came back to me.
As you know, I am retired going on 17 years. I had been involved in school wars since 1968, with varying degrees of intensity — with the NDP and Socreds.
Note the NDP were part of the problem — they wiped out 75 independent local unions and gave us provincial bargaining. The Socreds kicked the administrators out of the BCTF and made the BCTF a formal union.
A consequence was the blossoming of a large bureaucracy at both the BCTF and Ministry of Education — what should have happened at the local level where teachers and trustees lived and worked (and faced the consequences of their actions) now happens far away from the classroom with bureaucrats in charge.
My point is this: There is enough blame to go around, but the blame game leads away from solutions, away from the classroom, away from student, teacher and parent.
As a classroom teacher, you and your colleagues need to pause and think about this. Something is seriously wrong in public education and I think the solution lies with you and your colleagues — active classroom teachers.
What do you like to do best — who knows the students and parents best? What will help you do that?
Conversely, what is blocking your from doing that? How can your BCTF help you with that?
You, individually and collectively hold the key — there is your challenge.
My only advice: The core of public education is the relationship between student, teacher and parent. Everything else needs to support, nourish and encourage that relationship. Keep your students close, your parents closer.
Cliff Boldt,
Courtenay
