Friday, March 1, 2013

March 2 - SOL #2




Today is March 2nd, and the second day of the Slice of Life Writing Challenge on the Two Writing Teachers  Blog  ( Ruth Ayres and Stacey Shubitz).

This will be a bit of a rant - something I need to get off my chest.

Friday I sent off 2 terse letters to our local teachers' union and the head of ETFO Elementary  Teachers' Federation of Ontario). 
Teachers in Ontario have been protesting the government's imposition of contracts and stripping of collective agreements by withdrawing extracurricular activities since the fall. It has been a tense time .
Yesterday our union told us we would continue this withdrawal of service.
.
Before Christmas, with all the political issues, I agreed with the hard line.
But now we have a new premier and minister of education. They have extended an olive branch and although there is no definite solution or more money, there is dialogue.
The high school teachers are back to providing extra curriculars, but not us.

This time I do not agree with this "stay tough" stance. The public does not support it or us.  It is time to stop the posturing and meet the government halfway. 

There - got it said - I feel better.

I also like the idea of writing  the night before - as I am really more of  a night person and do most of my writing at night. (Thanks for the advice to Linda, Deb and Elsie) 


3 comments:

Carol said...

Hi Bev,
I'm up doing the night writing thing too. Not usual at all for me. I will probably leave the post and clean it up a little tomorrow morning, but I got a good start.

It's so hard, I think, to be an educator right now. Hard to keep focused on kids. Hard to know when to stand up for ourselves, and when to let go. Hard to bear the public perception. Your post captures this dilemma.

Linda B said...

I hope that things for the teachers can work out soon, for the sake of all the stress it causes, Beverley. Teachers have so much on their plates already, they don't need this too. What a challenge for you and your colleagues!

Anonymous said...

I, too, am torn about the ETFO stance on EC's. Many teachers in the US get paid for doing sports, etc. It has only been this year, after 10 years of teaching in Ontario, that I became aware of how much even the high school teachers are doing for free. It have certainly become expected and thought by most to actually be part of the paid job. However, at this point, I'm not sure it's helping anyone for the teachers to continue to withdraw EC's. As things like "Welcome to Kindergarten" start to get bumped, I think we only end up hurting ourselves. Good year for me to be on Mat leave!