B.C. School teachers - What would be fair?

[Niflmir]

Many also choose education because they have no other job skills. Many should not really be teachers either.



That would be fine if we could dump the bad teachers but their union protects the worst ones. In BC for the most part we already have the rubish teaching our kids. That is why their union is dead set against testing.

Nobody can become a teacher because they have no other job skills. You need a very specific degree in most provinces to become a teacher, and in the others you need a degree in a teachable subject. You cannot just walk off the street without any skills and into a teaching job. That is just pure propaganda.

As for the quality of teachers in BC, where's the beef? You claim that they are against testing, what tests were proposed? You claim that the rubbish is teaching BC children, what are the GPA averages of the teachers entering the BEd's in BC?

 

[Tonington]

Many also choose education because they have no other job skills.

That's a rather dubious claim. How would you even provide evidence for that? Teachers start out as students, and students work in the summer to pay for college...

 

[talloola]

$70,000 a year is not "peanuts"!

no that isn't peanuts, but if the teachers had no power at all to fight back to a government who 'will
not' recognize their value, they would make much less, and then the teaching would fall drastically
to a low quality where only those who are willing to work for peanuts would be interested. We
want our teachers to be intelligent and pass that intelligence on to the students, and they should
be at a high level of pay, and that should remain so that others following would see it as a good
line of work to be in for their 'own' quality of lives, both financially and otherwise.

The teachers don't make the decision of the 'level' our the canadian education system, they teach it.
The level should be higher, but that is for another day, another subject, and i'm sure the teachers
will have good input on that subject, when asked.

none of us should begrudge the teachers for wanting to make a good living, and its too bad they
have to fight the government to get it.

someone mentioned that they shouldn't be allowed to have a union to represent them, what a joke,
then they would be door mats for the government, and none of them would want the job, they would
do something else, and who would blame them.

 

[taxslave]

Nobody can become a teacher because they have no other job skills. You need a very specific degree in most provinces to become a teacher, and in the others you need a degree in a teachable subject. You cannot just walk off the street without any skills and into a teaching job. That is just pure propaganda.

As for the quality of teachers in BC, where's the beef? You claim that they are against testing, what tests were proposed? You claim that the rubbish is teaching BC children, what are the GPA averages of the teachers entering the BEd's in BC?

Actually it is quite common for people to get into teaching because they have no other job skills or interests. I have a niece that did exactly that. After spending 3 or 4 years of daddy financed archeology in university and discovering the limited job opportunities in what she wanted to do , took 2 more years to get a teaching cert. As it turns out she is a reasonable good teacher.
GPA is not relevant to being suited to be a teacher. I had a science teacher in high school that I bet was straight A student but a really poor teacher.
Try reading a newspaper from BC. Or go to the BCTF website. There is a standardized test to be given to three grades that the union is opposed to because among other things it will pinpoint poor teachers.
THe BCTF is just the most militant of all the various government unions and is the backbone of the NDP. This is not about money for teachers so much as a proxy fight between the government and the opposition.

 

[JLM]

That's a rather dubious claim. How would you even provide evidence for that? Teachers start out as students, and students work in the summer to pay for college...

Yep, I had some of those students working with me. To be fair 25% were good, 50% were mediocre and 25% were absolutely f*****g useless.

 

[Spade]

One-half of all nuclear physicists are below average.

 

[JLM]

no that isn't peanuts, but if the teachers had no power at all to fight back to a government who 'will
not' recognize their value, they would make much less, and then the teaching would fall drastically
to a low quality where only those who are willing to work for peanuts would be interested. We
want our teachers to be intelligent and pass that intelligence on to the students, and they should
be at a high level of pay, and that should remain so that others following would see it as a good
line of work to be in for their 'own' quality of lives, both financially and otherwise.

The teachers don't make the decision of the 'level' our the canadian education system, they teach it.
The level should be higher, but that is for another day, another subject, and i'm sure the teachers
will have good input on that subject, when asked.

none of us should begrudge the teachers for wanting to make a good living, and its too bad they
have to fight the government to get it.

someone mentioned that they shouldn't be allowed to have a union to represent them, what a joke,
then they would be door mats for the government, and none of them would want the job, they would
do something else, and who would blame them.

I hear you Talloola, but it's not a matter of recognizing their value, some of them are valuable, some of them are not. And it's got really very little to do with "government", "government" doesn't pay their salaries- WE do. I guess a proper analogy would be someone dying of thirst in the Sahara Desert 1000 miles from an oasis. People can argue all day that they deserve a drink.

 

[taxslave]

One-half of all nuclear physicists are below average.

Probably half of all doctors are as well.
As far as I know politicians are the only group that all fall below average.

 

[Spade]

Probably half of all doctors are as well.
As far as I know politicians are the only group that all fall below average.

Only when they are matched with an equal number of clowns.

 

[JLM]

Probably half of all doctors are as well.
As far as I know politicians are the only group that all fall below average.

And a piss poor average at that! :lol:

 

[captain morgan]

How are superior resulys defined? Are superior results the same for children struggling with English as Another Language, or in poverty, the same as for those children in high socio-economic neighbourhoods?

Most teacxhers have five or six years of post-secondary training. What is that education worth elsewhere in the market?

Interesting that you bring this up - its is, afterall the quintessential question.

Fact is, the union has fought against this since day 1.

 

[Niflmir]

Actually it is quite common for people to get into teaching because they have no other job skills or interests. I have a niece that did exactly that. After spending 3 or 4 years of daddy financed archeology in university and discovering the limited job opportunities in what she wanted to do , took 2 more years to get a teaching cert. As it turns out she is a reasonable good teacher.
GPA is not relevant to being suited to be a teacher. I had a science teacher in high school that I bet was straight A student but a really poor teacher.
Try reading a newspaper from BC. Or go to the BCTF website. There is a standardized test to be given to three grades that the union is opposed to because among other things it will pinpoint poor teachers.
THe BCTF is just the most militant of all the various government unions and is the backbone of the NDP. This is not about money for teachers so much as a proxy fight between the government and the opposition.

That doesn't sound at all like a lack of other job skills. Lack of job opportunities is not a lack of skills. Also the "lack of opportunities" in archaeology is merely not wanting to wander around the Earth from postdoc to postdoc on a meager salary before possibly landing an assistant professorship somewhere. It is the same for all academic careers in fact.

You'll have to explain what this test is to me that you are going on about. I'm not going to go out of my way to scrounge through every BC news organization's website on the off chance that they might actually give details at a level which explains why the teachers would be against the test.

 

[Tonington]

Want to know what standarized tests measure? They measure test ability. There are plenty of skilled people in this world who simply don't perform well on tests, but are amazing at taking the material they learned and applying it in the real world. The converse is also true, people who test well, but can't do anything in the real world. Class size relative to instructors is up in BC, that's a real risk factor for poor quality education.

 

[JLM]

Want to know what standarized tests measure? They measure test ability. There are plenty of skilled people in this world who simply don't perform well on tests, but are amazing at taking the material they learned and applying it in the real world. The converse is also true, people who test well, but can't do anything in the real world. Class size relative to instructors is up in BC, that's a real risk factor for poor quality education.

I heard that one 50 years ago and it's probably no different now. I agree there are people who can function well academically but can not function well at the MAIN test......................life. But taken to the extreme would you want to be operated on by an open heart surgeon or a neuro surgeon who had refused to be tested at his/her skills? Sometimes the quality of the test is more an issue than the quality of the testee. So it is important to devise effective types of tests. One might be just to get him/her to perform what it is they are trained to perform.

 

[Tonington]

But taken to the extreme would you want to be operated on by an open heart surgeon or a neuro surgeon who had refused to be tested at his/her skills?

Absolutely not. I just think that putting the emphasis on testing rather than on building practical skills is not the best focus for education. Surgeons train for a long time, with a whole lot of practical training. That's partly why it costs so much to train a doctor. In the end they still have a standardized test to be board certified, but they don't have standardized tests after every year of classes for all the different medical schools.

 

[JLM]

Absolutely not. I just think that putting the emphasis on testing rather than on building practical skills is not the best focus for education. Surgeons train for a long time, with a whole lot of practical training. That's partly why it costs so much to train a doctor. In the end they still have a standardized test to be board certified, but they don't have standardized tests after every year of classes for all the different medical schools.

I think life is a series of tests some consciously some unconsciously or looked at another way - comparisons. Everytime you check or compare something it's a test, something we do dozens of times a day, in one way or another to ensure we are "staying on course". Like when you build something you measure twice and cut once, the second measurement being a "test" to ensure the success of the cut.

 

[Tonington]

Actually the test is whether or not the piece you cut fits where it was intended to fit.

 

[JLM]

How many private sector employees would expect a raise knowing their employer is $60 billion in debt? :lol:

Actually the test is whether or not the piece you cut fits where it was intended to fit.

Yep, that's the final test that shows how well you did on all the other tests! :smile:

 

[TenPenny]

How many private sector employees would expect a raise knowing their employer is $60 billion in debt?

All of the auto workers
All miners
etc etc

In short, pretty much all of them.

 

[JLM]

All of the auto workers
All miners
etc etc

In short, pretty much all of them.

Link for the miners please. :smile: