At 7:30 a.m. I am at the computer and preparing for a day of level 5 spinning. Teapot will be heading in to FSJ later today to pick up the truck which we discovered has a bad starter on it and so needs to be replaced. (Since he is going on strike on Monday and money will be shorter than usual we have decided that that $500.00 repair on the truck can wait till later in the month... for now we will have to tweak the starter each time we start the truck... these are the trials of buying second hand). The girls are going to be having a normal day after having to spend hours getting their bedrooms cleaned up yesterday. All in all it is lining up for a normal weekend. (who knows what normal is though!) The weeks seem to be flying by and I am getting nowhere lately on my homework books. I have been trying to finish some spinning that I started at the Blueberry a few weeks ago. Somehow it seems wrong to take that off my wheel and move on to something else when I am not really finished it. I don't have much left to do and so I got up this morning early with the intent of getting that stuff finished and off my wheel before I move on to TPI questions. Clearly I need to get myself motivated into working on the homework again.
I had thought I would write this morning about the upcoming strike but I decided after all the fore bearance is the better option... Except that I do want you to understand that our rights... that is the rights of the individual (as apposed to the rights of school teachers in particular) are being undermined and taken away from us... I'm not even sure that most people realize what's happening to their rights.
Imagine you lived in a third world country... Imagine you worked for pittance a day. Imagine you worked with children all around you, them working too. Imagine the boy that sat next to you in the factory where you worked would come to work each day with a black eye. Imagine that he was getting that black eye because there was another boy who worked next to him who had problems... you know like ADHD or FAS but the ADHD boy was entitled to work too because he had a family of six little sisters at home who needed their older brother to work and bring home money for food and medication. Now imagine that the ADHD boy was a threat in the factory where you worked to all the little boys and girls working there... imagine that occasionally that ADHD boy even threatened you and made it really hard to get your work done. Then imagine that one day you decided to walk off the job and protest to the government that you needed a safer working situation and more money and that most importantly you wanted there to be help for the boy who was getting the black eye and for the boy who was giving the black eye. Then suppose you were told that if you didn't go back to work and work with this horrible situation you would be fined a lot of money or thrown into jail or you would have your job taken away. Would you say that this person was bad for stepping out and trying to make their work situation better? Would you say that this person deserves to have his job taken away? Would you say that he doesn't have a right to demonstrate in front of his work place? Would you say that that person was doing wrong? No... I don't think so... you would probably say that they have every right to try to access better conditions and better pay. You may also say that they were holding up work that their fight was inconvenient.... but you would not deny them the right to try to get a better working situation.
Our government is not negotiating with the teachers about teaching and schools... they are negotiating how people will fight for working conditions. This is truer and truer each time the government imposes a contract rather than negotiate a contract. Believe me, the teachers I know would much rather a negotiated contract but this fight is not just about the teachers contract... it is the government trying to seriously undermine the right of the individual to demonstrate. Make no mistake, if Bill 22, which goes by the Education Improvement Act (which I think is a stupid cover for a more serious intention), passes, we as a collective British Columbian people will be giving up our right to walk out on a picket line to fight for better working conditions. Yes the teachers strike is inconvenient... for parents who have to scrabble to find child care or lose several days of pay... but it is also inconvenient for the teachers.... they are also losing pay and for some of us even one day of pay is a terrible loss. But I ask you what is more inconvenient... the loss of a few days pay or the loss of your rights. The loss of your rights starts with one small thing and before you know it the snowball is rolling down hill getting bigger and bigger. Soon you have no recourse... no voice... no rights at all. It is a slippery slope my friends... remember that.
For two days I have watched emails coming in from the Union to Teapot (he is the union rep for our school) telling them what they can and cannot do under the guise of the law. He is not allowed to wear a placard but he is allowed to carry a sign. This is because evidently a placard suggests that there is a picket line and that infringes on the rights of those who would cross a picket line. They are not allowed to form a picket line but they are allowed to pass out leaflets. Once Bill 22 passes they have no right to do any of this and they are not even allowed to negotiate working conditions... pay... benefits... and that includes health benefits....
Teapot likes teaching... and he is a good teacher... that has been told to us over and over. Each year he gets up at the end of the year to hand out awards to his students and he invariably chokes up on stage as he is doing this. We are beginning to think that teaching might not be the best career... he certainly doesn't get the respect due to someone who holds the education of our children in his hands, and he certainly wouldn't encourage others to go into this profession... why would he? According to the B.C. government and the media, teachers are the scourge of the professional world.
I heard an interview on the radio not too long ago... the person talking, I think, was a member of the UN and she was saying that we in the West take our rights too for granted. That it is easy to lose them and not even notice that they are going... It is easier to SEE what is happening when you stand from afar... we are very close to the situation... we need to every now and again step back and look around from another point of view. I ask you now... stand back... think about your inconvenience when your child doesn't go out the door on Monday to school, a little inconvenience now might mean that when you need to demonstrate, that your right to do so will be there. Remember the whole problem in Syria started with some teenagers who wanted to demonstrate and what they received was torture and death.... I hope we here in Canada never come to that.
More tomorrow about the teacher strike... why teachers are their own worst enemies.
2 comments:
Well said Frankie. We do need to wake up and support our teachers, as it is about our futures as well.
Too many of us are complacent about how government and business works these days, as well as what has happened to our government over the last couple of decades. It's about freedom and rights for us all, and protecting what we have now, or forever hold our peace.
Hear! Hear! "Teacher bashing" as a provincial sport started (to be noticeable anyway) back when Van der Zalm was Minister of Education for Bill Bennett's government. This lot of galvanized S. C.'s are just taking it to a new level.
Actually I've been surprised at the level of support for the teachers I've been hearing on CBC this go-round. Better than I'd expected. People seem, by and large, to actually be realizing that what's really at stake is the future wellbeing of the kids and the education system as a whole. Which is more than can be said for the "PTB's".
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