A Debate
A friend sent my wife an essay on the teachers' strike. I could not resist a response and I share with you the viewpoint of one Mary-Ellen Lang apparently published on the CBC News Viewpoint, and my response.
I apologize for the formatting of the viewpoint.
CBC News Viewpoint | October 14, 2005 |
>
When teachers strike
By Mary-Ellen Lang
When thousands of law-abiding citizens vote en masse to break a particular
law and place themselves in a position of contempt of the courts, it is a
worthwhile exercise to wonder why they would do such a thing. What
precipitates such action? What drives such resolve?
Most teachers by nature fit into "the system." Indeed it could be said
they are the system. So when they decide to directly oppose that very system,
it is an event worth noting. In B.C., the current teachers strike is the
culmination of years of what feels to teachers like battering at the hands
of an abusive "partner."
While it is certainly true that the B.C. Liberals, as is their habit,
legislated an end to bargaining and imposed by means of their creative
law-making talents a "new" (same old) contract on teachers, and while it
is therefore true that teachers are breaking that law by striking, it is also
true that Canadians in general are heir to a long history of admiration
for law-breaking of a particular sort.
Canada has consistently given refuge to fleeing Americans who have run
from "the law" of the U.S. Runaway slaves, First Nations (Sioux) refugees and
draft dodgers have sought, and been given, sanctuary here.
Canadians still debate whether or not Louis Riel was a traitor or a hero.
But they tend not to debate the relative merits of such law-breakers as
Dr. Martin Luther King, Alexander Dubcek or Nelson Mandela. Generally,
Canadians are quite clear on the morality of resisting immoral laws or situations
that are a serious affront to human rights, freedoms and dignity.
At the present time, most B.C. teachers (even those who didn't vote)
regard > Bill 12, the B.C. Liberal law that nullifies teachers' right to collective
bargaining (again), as bad enough to warrant civil disobedience.
If objecting to Bill 12 were all there was to it, it could be argued that
the teachers' stand is questionable. But Bill 12 is just the tip of the
iceberg. There has been a long buildup of actions and attitudes by B.C.
Liberals that feed the present resolve to resist them.
They unilaterally tore up legal, lawfully negotiated contracts, stripped
class size standards and many sorts of professional services from the
province's students. They orchestrated the backward slide of income (given inflation) and attempted to prevent teachers from even talking to parents about school conditions through (unsuccessful) action in the courts.
The Liberals took over the B.C. College of Teachers, fired its
democratically elected directors, appointed buddies in their place and
denied teachers any say in this government-controlled institution. Then
they threatened to cancel teachers' licences when they refused to pay dues to
this farce.
This government-controlled group sponsored media ads encouraging parents
to report on bad teachers directly to this new college and when hardly any
reports came in, escalated this campaign (still without the results they
apparently expected).
Since the Liberals have taken power in B.C. over 2,000 teachers and over
100 schools have vanished from the educational landscape. Classes of 35 to 40
students, a quarter of whom may have significant behavioural and/or
learning problems, are not uncommon.
School libraries are without librarians, while programs, services and
courses of every sort no longer exist. Teachers are getting by without
textbooks, or are keeping the ones they've got going with duct tape.
Counsellors who should be looking after the social and educational needs
of students are in overcrowded classrooms, instead. In high schools students
now have "spares" where courses used to be.
As far as I can tell, there are three equal issues that drive the current
illegal strike in B.C.
First, the actual income and buying power of teachers is diminishing.
Although teachers are getting better qualified all the time, they have
less money in hand than 10 years ago after factoring in inflation.
Secondly, teachers believe that Bill 12 is more worthy of a fascist state,
than a democratic one. Their reasons for this attitude are rooted in the
observation that the B.C. Public School Employers Association's so-called
"bargaining" behaviour could more accurately be described as stonewalling.
It brought zero to the table, had no offers or suggestions to make.
We didn't get anywhere because it had no intention of getting anywhere.
Further, the subsequent legislation, which I suppose it had hoped would
look like the solution to a teacher-caused impasse, looks instead to most
people like premeditated sledge-hammering.
Finally, the issue of class size, class composition and services to
students is a major sticking point with teachers. Imagine classes in which some
lone teacher is expected to manage the educational fortunes of 43 Grade 8 math students,35 English students, 38 Grade 5s, Industrial Ed classes of 36
(although there are only 21 tools), Grade 6 classes with four emotionally
disturbed students, three ESL kids, and a blind child packed in among the
other 20 "average" kids. (I'd like to see our esteemed minister of
education > try to teach one of those classes for a week.)
Governmental disregard for the learning conditions of students and working
conditions of teachers (the two cannot really be separated) is so
pervasive and debilitating it's only a matter of time before a class-action suit for incompetence, willful negligence and arrogant pomposity is laid at their
feet.
Teachers, as everyone says, do not like to strike. In fact, they hate it.
What they hate considerably more though, is the disrespect, abuse and
incompetence they are subjected to as they try to deliver an education to
children.
Mary-Ellen Lang delights in being a mom, grandma, writer, teacher,
gardener and equestrian, usually in about that order. She has been teaching since
1972, and writing since 1980. Two of her three (award winning, Young
Adult) > novels are published in many languages in Europe, the USA and Canada.
My Response:
I would like to respond to Mary-Ellen Lang's essay. She begins with a false assumption that the "system" into which she declares teachers to fit is one occupied by souls other than doctrinaire union supporters. It is a symptom of our times that intelligent people like Ms. Lang are unable to see the tactics of the teachers' union as a declaration that the group firmly adheres to a "system" that is in rebellion against the "system" she holds up as a foundation of society. The true "system" is one based on an unwritten social contract, which has given teachers the esteemed place they hold in the hearts and minds of the public. It is a system that believes in the rule of law and one that abhors anarchy. In contrast, the teachers advocate a system where everything is relative and if a person or group doesn't agree with a decision it simply ignores it and looks to mount public approval for its resistance - an approval based not on the rule of law and the prescriptions that serve as the glue to keep this fragile social structure together, but rather on popularity. What a sorry example that presents for our next generation of children that we entrust teachers to act toward in loco parentis.
Ms. Lang compounds her error by suggesting teachers feel like they have been battered at the hands of an abusive partner. Now employers and emloyees sometimes do enter into arrangements where they so align their interests as to be seen to be partners. This happens often in the private sector and successful models are based on some fundamental principles such as 1)accountability, 2) shared vision, 3) incentives to succeed and excel, 4) consequences of failure.
Since the reality of the relationship between teachers and their employers beginning with unionization in 1993 has been the antithesis of a partnership, and since the unionization of teachers was something they as a group fought hard for (a tenacious foot soldier being Jinny Sims, armed as she was from her experiences as an eager member of NUT in the UK) it is disingenuous of Ms. Lang as a teacher to offer up the image of a battered partner to characterize the plight of the teachers union in 2005.
If one accepted the partnership model, how would one then interpret the actions of the BCTF in spending untold amounts on advertising that directed vicious ad hominem attacks against its partner, sinking to the depths of publishing mugshot photos of the premier to be stapled to every telephone pole. Ms. Lang clearly has never had to work in a true business partnership, and sadly neither has the vast majority of teachers. Furthermore the reality is that teachers cherish the sinecure of their employment, one devoid of measurable standards of performance, devoid of meaningful sanctions for failure or incompetence and with impregnable job security for those with seniority, hardly the foundations on which to build a healthy partnership.
It is remarkable to me how easily folks like Ms. Lang gloss over the illegality of what the teachers are doing by defying an order of the Labour Relations Board and the Supreme Court of the province. It is even more remarkable that she seeks to justify this law-breaking activity by relying on a specious interpretation of Canada's history of admiration for law-breaking. She suggests that granting refuge to escaping slaves from the US should stand on equal ground to opening our borders to draft dodgers and Sioux refugees. It is a meretricious argument that proposes Canadians in general admire and condone the list of lawbreakers she advances in support of her argument.
To compare teachers' disgruntlement over the economic value of their services and the working conditions under which they provide them for 193 days of the year to the evils of segregation, apartheid or communist oppression, is odious and a reader of Ms. Lang's piece would be pefectly justified in placing her essay in the dustbin at this point.
Lang concedes that the teachers' stand is questionable if it were based only on an objection to Bill 12. This is a helpful concession since it is rather easy to demonstrate in fact that is exactly what teachers are doing and no amount of rationalization can change the reality of a democratically elected government passing legislation to confirm a policy it established in its previous mandate - namely that education is an essential service in this province.
The litany of complaints Ms. Lang lists as justification for disobedience of the law are facile and one-sided and ignores the role of the BCTF throughout the process. Even if everything she said was true, the simple fact is that despite spending millions of its members hard earned dollars on a futile attempt to defeat the Liberal government in the last two elections, the BCTF failed. The Liberal government has been democratically elected and more sophisticated labour advocates than Ms. Sims and her fellow executives have conceded that victory to them.
Faced with that result, the responsibility of the BCTF executive was to enter into negotiations with its employers with an attitude that recognized the political realities. It is clear it did not do so and while it is convenient for the BCTF to argue that the government was intrasigent, the ability of the Liberal government to successfully negotiate major contracts with other public sector unions refutes the BCTF's and Ms. Lang's arguments.
The BCTF used flawed tactics in its negotiations by bundling a number of issues together in order to attempt to paint the Liberal government as anti-teacher and anti-education. It is a risible proposition that unfortunately those who are inveterate Liberal haters, regardless of their intelligence, too readily accept without due consideration. Ms. Lang is doubtlessly an intelligent woman, but there is a chasm between intelligence and wisdom. Her suggestion that a class-action lawsuit might be launched against the government for among other sins "arrogant pomposity" merely underscores my point.
I believe most teachers do hate the thought of a strike. Regretably, the teachers in BC have displayed such lassitude in the past several years over the issue of who should represent their interests, they are now faced with the sad spectacle of having a dim panjandrum like Jinny Sims parade before the public as the face of the teaching profession in British Columbia. Right thinking teachers should be appalled at what they have allowed to occur. Their first step should be to overwhelmingly endorse Vince Ready's proposal no matter what he says. Their next step must be to find the courage to put forward to lead them, a slate of teachers who genuinely have pedagocic and not political ambitions.
Teachers have built up a huge historical reserve of goodwill capital with the public and it is a shame they wasted so much of it in this latest dispute.
I apologize for the formatting of the viewpoint.
CBC News Viewpoint | October 14, 2005 |
>
When teachers strike
By Mary-Ellen Lang
When thousands of law-abiding citizens vote en masse to break a particular
law and place themselves in a position of contempt of the courts, it is a
worthwhile exercise to wonder why they would do such a thing. What
precipitates such action? What drives such resolve?
Most teachers by nature fit into "the system." Indeed it could be said
they are the system. So when they decide to directly oppose that very system,
it is an event worth noting. In B.C., the current teachers strike is the
culmination of years of what feels to teachers like battering at the hands
of an abusive "partner."
While it is certainly true that the B.C. Liberals, as is their habit,
legislated an end to bargaining and imposed by means of their creative
law-making talents a "new" (same old) contract on teachers, and while it
is therefore true that teachers are breaking that law by striking, it is also
true that Canadians in general are heir to a long history of admiration
for law-breaking of a particular sort.
Canada has consistently given refuge to fleeing Americans who have run
from "the law" of the U.S. Runaway slaves, First Nations (Sioux) refugees and
draft dodgers have sought, and been given, sanctuary here.
Canadians still debate whether or not Louis Riel was a traitor or a hero.
But they tend not to debate the relative merits of such law-breakers as
Dr. Martin Luther King, Alexander Dubcek or Nelson Mandela. Generally,
Canadians are quite clear on the morality of resisting immoral laws or situations
that are a serious affront to human rights, freedoms and dignity.
At the present time, most B.C. teachers (even those who didn't vote)
regard > Bill 12, the B.C. Liberal law that nullifies teachers' right to collective
bargaining (again), as bad enough to warrant civil disobedience.
If objecting to Bill 12 were all there was to it, it could be argued that
the teachers' stand is questionable. But Bill 12 is just the tip of the
iceberg. There has been a long buildup of actions and attitudes by B.C.
Liberals that feed the present resolve to resist them.
They unilaterally tore up legal, lawfully negotiated contracts, stripped
class size standards and many sorts of professional services from the
province's students. They orchestrated the backward slide of income (given inflation) and attempted to prevent teachers from even talking to parents about school conditions through (unsuccessful) action in the courts.
The Liberals took over the B.C. College of Teachers, fired its
democratically elected directors, appointed buddies in their place and
denied teachers any say in this government-controlled institution. Then
they threatened to cancel teachers' licences when they refused to pay dues to
this farce.
This government-controlled group sponsored media ads encouraging parents
to report on bad teachers directly to this new college and when hardly any
reports came in, escalated this campaign (still without the results they
apparently expected).
Since the Liberals have taken power in B.C. over 2,000 teachers and over
100 schools have vanished from the educational landscape. Classes of 35 to 40
students, a quarter of whom may have significant behavioural and/or
learning problems, are not uncommon.
School libraries are without librarians, while programs, services and
courses of every sort no longer exist. Teachers are getting by without
textbooks, or are keeping the ones they've got going with duct tape.
Counsellors who should be looking after the social and educational needs
of students are in overcrowded classrooms, instead. In high schools students
now have "spares" where courses used to be.
As far as I can tell, there are three equal issues that drive the current
illegal strike in B.C.
First, the actual income and buying power of teachers is diminishing.
Although teachers are getting better qualified all the time, they have
less money in hand than 10 years ago after factoring in inflation.
Secondly, teachers believe that Bill 12 is more worthy of a fascist state,
than a democratic one. Their reasons for this attitude are rooted in the
observation that the B.C. Public School Employers Association's so-called
"bargaining" behaviour could more accurately be described as stonewalling.
It brought zero to the table, had no offers or suggestions to make.
We didn't get anywhere because it had no intention of getting anywhere.
Further, the subsequent legislation, which I suppose it had hoped would
look like the solution to a teacher-caused impasse, looks instead to most
people like premeditated sledge-hammering.
Finally, the issue of class size, class composition and services to
students is a major sticking point with teachers. Imagine classes in which some
lone teacher is expected to manage the educational fortunes of 43 Grade 8 math students,35 English students, 38 Grade 5s, Industrial Ed classes of 36
(although there are only 21 tools), Grade 6 classes with four emotionally
disturbed students, three ESL kids, and a blind child packed in among the
other 20 "average" kids. (I'd like to see our esteemed minister of
education > try to teach one of those classes for a week.)
Governmental disregard for the learning conditions of students and working
conditions of teachers (the two cannot really be separated) is so
pervasive and debilitating it's only a matter of time before a class-action suit for incompetence, willful negligence and arrogant pomposity is laid at their
feet.
Teachers, as everyone says, do not like to strike. In fact, they hate it.
What they hate considerably more though, is the disrespect, abuse and
incompetence they are subjected to as they try to deliver an education to
children.
Mary-Ellen Lang delights in being a mom, grandma, writer, teacher,
gardener and equestrian, usually in about that order. She has been teaching since
1972, and writing since 1980. Two of her three (award winning, Young
Adult) > novels are published in many languages in Europe, the USA and Canada.
My Response:
I would like to respond to Mary-Ellen Lang's essay. She begins with a false assumption that the "system" into which she declares teachers to fit is one occupied by souls other than doctrinaire union supporters. It is a symptom of our times that intelligent people like Ms. Lang are unable to see the tactics of the teachers' union as a declaration that the group firmly adheres to a "system" that is in rebellion against the "system" she holds up as a foundation of society. The true "system" is one based on an unwritten social contract, which has given teachers the esteemed place they hold in the hearts and minds of the public. It is a system that believes in the rule of law and one that abhors anarchy. In contrast, the teachers advocate a system where everything is relative and if a person or group doesn't agree with a decision it simply ignores it and looks to mount public approval for its resistance - an approval based not on the rule of law and the prescriptions that serve as the glue to keep this fragile social structure together, but rather on popularity. What a sorry example that presents for our next generation of children that we entrust teachers to act toward in loco parentis.
Ms. Lang compounds her error by suggesting teachers feel like they have been battered at the hands of an abusive partner. Now employers and emloyees sometimes do enter into arrangements where they so align their interests as to be seen to be partners. This happens often in the private sector and successful models are based on some fundamental principles such as 1)accountability, 2) shared vision, 3) incentives to succeed and excel, 4) consequences of failure.
Since the reality of the relationship between teachers and their employers beginning with unionization in 1993 has been the antithesis of a partnership, and since the unionization of teachers was something they as a group fought hard for (a tenacious foot soldier being Jinny Sims, armed as she was from her experiences as an eager member of NUT in the UK) it is disingenuous of Ms. Lang as a teacher to offer up the image of a battered partner to characterize the plight of the teachers union in 2005.
If one accepted the partnership model, how would one then interpret the actions of the BCTF in spending untold amounts on advertising that directed vicious ad hominem attacks against its partner, sinking to the depths of publishing mugshot photos of the premier to be stapled to every telephone pole. Ms. Lang clearly has never had to work in a true business partnership, and sadly neither has the vast majority of teachers. Furthermore the reality is that teachers cherish the sinecure of their employment, one devoid of measurable standards of performance, devoid of meaningful sanctions for failure or incompetence and with impregnable job security for those with seniority, hardly the foundations on which to build a healthy partnership.
It is remarkable to me how easily folks like Ms. Lang gloss over the illegality of what the teachers are doing by defying an order of the Labour Relations Board and the Supreme Court of the province. It is even more remarkable that she seeks to justify this law-breaking activity by relying on a specious interpretation of Canada's history of admiration for law-breaking. She suggests that granting refuge to escaping slaves from the US should stand on equal ground to opening our borders to draft dodgers and Sioux refugees. It is a meretricious argument that proposes Canadians in general admire and condone the list of lawbreakers she advances in support of her argument.
To compare teachers' disgruntlement over the economic value of their services and the working conditions under which they provide them for 193 days of the year to the evils of segregation, apartheid or communist oppression, is odious and a reader of Ms. Lang's piece would be pefectly justified in placing her essay in the dustbin at this point.
Lang concedes that the teachers' stand is questionable if it were based only on an objection to Bill 12. This is a helpful concession since it is rather easy to demonstrate in fact that is exactly what teachers are doing and no amount of rationalization can change the reality of a democratically elected government passing legislation to confirm a policy it established in its previous mandate - namely that education is an essential service in this province.
The litany of complaints Ms. Lang lists as justification for disobedience of the law are facile and one-sided and ignores the role of the BCTF throughout the process. Even if everything she said was true, the simple fact is that despite spending millions of its members hard earned dollars on a futile attempt to defeat the Liberal government in the last two elections, the BCTF failed. The Liberal government has been democratically elected and more sophisticated labour advocates than Ms. Sims and her fellow executives have conceded that victory to them.
Faced with that result, the responsibility of the BCTF executive was to enter into negotiations with its employers with an attitude that recognized the political realities. It is clear it did not do so and while it is convenient for the BCTF to argue that the government was intrasigent, the ability of the Liberal government to successfully negotiate major contracts with other public sector unions refutes the BCTF's and Ms. Lang's arguments.
The BCTF used flawed tactics in its negotiations by bundling a number of issues together in order to attempt to paint the Liberal government as anti-teacher and anti-education. It is a risible proposition that unfortunately those who are inveterate Liberal haters, regardless of their intelligence, too readily accept without due consideration. Ms. Lang is doubtlessly an intelligent woman, but there is a chasm between intelligence and wisdom. Her suggestion that a class-action lawsuit might be launched against the government for among other sins "arrogant pomposity" merely underscores my point.
I believe most teachers do hate the thought of a strike. Regretably, the teachers in BC have displayed such lassitude in the past several years over the issue of who should represent their interests, they are now faced with the sad spectacle of having a dim panjandrum like Jinny Sims parade before the public as the face of the teaching profession in British Columbia. Right thinking teachers should be appalled at what they have allowed to occur. Their first step should be to overwhelmingly endorse Vince Ready's proposal no matter what he says. Their next step must be to find the courage to put forward to lead them, a slate of teachers who genuinely have pedagocic and not political ambitions.
Teachers have built up a huge historical reserve of goodwill capital with the public and it is a shame they wasted so much of it in this latest dispute.
posted by Ben Buan | 10:42 p.m.
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