Could Brenda Larson not find anything else to write about this week, or did she think we needed yet another visitation to the public's envy of the benefits they perceive teachers enjoy? Does she think we need to hear one more time that teachers are lazy; whining and overpaid? Isn't it enough that Mike Harris has fed this societal resentment and, by devising schemes guaranteed to be challenged by teachers, has encouraged everyone who isn't a teacher to despise those who are?The public should "reaffirm that teachers should be tested"; according to Ms. Larson. Teachers are tested every day by their students.
Nobody has indicated what the Tory testing process will entail or whether it will have any proven pedagogical credibility. Good teachers have a multitude of skills that defy any written testing procedure. Most poor teachers will be able to pass knowledge-based tests.
Rather than joining a bandwagon of dubious destination, Ms. Larson should exhort the public to consider whether the hundreds of thousands of dollars to be spent on testing teachers will accomplish anything other than satisfy a premier who has lost all objectivity where teachers are concerned.
In considering workload, the usual starting point is to compare teachers' instructional time to the 40-hour week.
Now imagine spending an hour, shut up with 25 students, delivering a curriculurn that isn't nearly as interesting as TV, video games or the Internet, without having spent at least as much time preparing instructional materials and practice activities or having planned methodologies to recognize the uniqueness of each child and allow him or her to grow.
An hour in the classroom isn't the equivalent of an hour of most other jobs.
Ms. Larson suggests if teachers care about children, they should run extracurricular activities. Parents care about children; why doesn't the government mandate that they work with teams and clubs? Why not engineers or psychologists or members of parliament?
Why should teachers be forced to take this responsibility; just because they have done so, voluntarily, in the past?
Ms. Larson tells us that opposition to Mr. Harris' latest measures will further alienate teachers from the public, that they can't win the image battle.
Is that what Ms. Larson thinks is the issue here - image? That teachers should allow the further erosion of the education system so the public will have a better image of them? Teachers aren't trying to win an image battle, they are trying to serve their students better.
PATRICIA NAYLOR, THORNHILL.
