Supporting Teachers Not Education

While I believe it’s generally inaccurate to describe much of what goes on inside public schools as “education” per se, and while I have serious misgivings about the level of incongruity between the romantic slogans and rhetoric put forth by state school apologists and the actual reality of things, I nevertheless support teachers’ wage demands.

Teachers form a large segment of the middle class, and given that the gap between the have’s and the have not’s is growing larger each day, it’s important that their wages be kept up if anything to help preserve what is left of the middle class.

At the same time, whether you love teachers or think they’re nothing more than a caste of indoctrinators who call themselves educators (and there is a lot of truth in that idea), it’s important to remember that the outcome of the teachers’ dispute will set the tone for how the government treats you when it comes time to renegotiate your contract.

If you’re a worker in BC, you’d better hope teachers put up a hell of a good fight.

As for students being hurt during the strike action: I feel for students whose grad activities may be interrupted, but other than that unless you see some value in seeing your children’s mind deliberately turn to rot and their creativity destroyed in some state-run spoon-feeding center designed to churn out “good workers” and compliant citizens (this is called “socially responsible teaching” in education ministry circles), then you could argue that the time away from school is a good thing.

Brad Lee