Kneecaps

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Topper
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Topper »

Aaronp18 wrote:
Topper wrote: They have a wagon burner disconnect between government revenues and expenses.
So essentially, to fund the teachers desired raise, Provincial taxes would have to increase to the point that teachers would be giving it right back to the government.

:thumbs:

:hmmm:
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BurningBeard
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by BurningBeard »

Aaronp18 wrote:Here's an interesting article floating around today:

SIMPLE MATH FOR TEACHERS: ECONOMIC GROWTH = HIGHER WAGES
I'm pretty sure Jordan Bateman's (the author) kids go to the same school as my kids... and it's public.

I wonder what the parent / teacher meetings are like. ;)
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Meds
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Meds »

Topper wrote: What this labour action is about is simply wages. Well compensated teachers who enjoy full year benefits and salary for less than 10 months work still wanting a bigger slice of our tax dollars.
To deal with some of the students, and even worse, their parents, that teachers have to deal with makes them worth more money.

That being said, I don't like that they want more of my tax dollars to deal with other people's problem children and incompetent parenting skills. Give the teachers more money, but start sending a bill to overly demanding parents to cover the increases.
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Meds
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Meds »

Topper wrote:UK - Why should public sector jobs be given continual increasing pay while the private sector does not?

This is the reason why many previous public sector positions are contracted out. Quite possibly contracting out f teaching positions needs happen.

Nothing like some competition to bring about greater efficiency.
Would going to contractors not also put more authority back in the hands of said contractors? Working environment and conditions would be less easily dictated by unfit parent committees?

I'm not talking class size here, I could care less about that. A system where the teacher can teach the students who want to learn and leave behind students who simply don't keep up because they won't. I abhor a system that holds back the gifted because it makes the average (and below) feel badly about themselves.

I recall my earlier school days where we had class sizes that were over 30 students, the kids who weren't able to keep up because of a diagnosed learning disability were held back and put into special education classes, the other students that performed poorly were from families where the parents weren't involved and expected the teachers to do most of the leg work.

Would that be a bonus for contractors, or would they have to agree to the terms of the current system?
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ukcanuck
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by ukcanuck »

Topper wrote:I went through school with class sizes of ~36 students/teacher.

I had no problem getting my degree after that torturous classroom environment.

So now the truth arises. You gave up on the BCTF to go teach at private schools in foreign lands.

Thre Fraser institute compares school performance, attached social economic status to their grading and lists past school performance to identify trends.

So you have no issue with final exams.

Now that you are coming around to my way of thinking, I would appreciate a thank you.
Lol why would I thank you for taking my words and twisting them?

I never said I'm okay with final exams, I said I was okay with them as long as they made up only 40 % of the final mark.

I am not okay at all with the fraser institute, but it's a free country and if they must play their games, at least play them in a more honest way.

And yes I'm sure they try to make it look like they take social factors into consideration except that isn't a clear cut measurable variable. By who's standard are schools categorized in their socioeconomic strata? After all, the public system is universal.all teachers are paid the same, all buildings and resources are the same, everything is standardised. There are rich kids living in poor areas and poor kids living wealthy areas... So where is the difference?
The difference is in the individual. Every class is a different kettle of fish everytime.

As for your experience at school in the 60's no doubt, we come a long way baby.
If your arrogant racist persona is any indication, I wouldn't be so proud.

I also was a student during those years, it's a different world to say the least..
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Thomas K-thair »

Couple questions for uk.
How much of a raise should the teachers get ?
How big should the classes be ?
Who is going to pay for all of this ?
If you make an average wage.... say $30 an hour, so $2400 every 80 hrs, exactly how much of that should be given back to the govt in taxes ?

Do you think the average people in BC should be paying higher income taxes ?

You have a lot of strong opinions about this matter. Do you have any solutions about where the money will come from?
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by ukcanuck »

Thomas K-thair wrote:Couple questions for uk.
How much of a raise should the teachers get ?
How big should the classes be ?
Who is going to pay for all of this ?
If you make an average wage.... say $30 an hour, so $2400 every 80 hrs, exactly how much of that should be given back to the govt in taxes ?

Do you think the average people in BC should be paying higher income taxes ?

You have a lot of strong opinions about this matter. Do you have any solutions about where the money will come from?
$2400 every two weeks ? That's an average wage you figure?

After deductions a first year teacher brings home about 2400 dollars a month. Not every two weeks.

How much do you think the person who other than yourself does the most to shape the quality of life for your children deserves?

I think it should be more than a Starbucks manager, and I think it should the most we can afford.

What does it say about the value we place on education if we pay more money To go work in the oil patch as unskilled labourers than we pay university graduates to teach our children?

How much tax should we all pay?
Well that's the multi million dollar question isn't it.
What's the old saying? "The rich won't pay, and the poor can't pay...

We need more middle class to cover all the bills it seems, since Topper's buddies will do anything to scive out of paying their share.

The best way to get middle class earning taxpayers, besides making everyone a welder and sending them up to the patch...?

Give em a decent and fulfilling education.

How big should classes be?

21 would be optimum, but a maximum of 25 with at least one or two TAs depending on particular learning disabilities.

One point I would like to try to explain better is the idea that class size is a fight between the government trying to keep costs down and teachers wanting less work and more dues for the BCTF

Maybe it is those things as well. I'm not claiming teachers are angels.

But thirty kid classes, seriously undermines even the most skilled and dedicated teacher's ability to do their jobs satisfactorily.

consider that a teacher has four classes a day of 30 kids teaching English.

Half of the class are not technically second language speakers, but can't string two sentences together without spelling errors, pronoun/verb disagreements and completely fucking up verb tenses.

The other half consist of 5 kids with actual learning disabilities and three abused kids whose parents should be in jail and who haven't eaten a proper meal in days,

As well as the standard class bully, class clown, class lawyer and in BC, class drug dealer or gang member.

That's 120 kids a day, whom as a part of their studies produce between 120-240 sheets of paper to be read and marked at least once a week. At an average of 15 minutes spent on each student's work (rarely enough time to hack through mistakes and to make corrections so they learn from them) That's 30 - 60 hours a week just by itself.

Add on the 16 hours prep and 16 hours class time, that's 62 hours a week, toss in staff meetings, lunch and break duties, coaching and other sundry time killers and a 40 hour work week becomes a joke very quickly.

All of which sucks to be me.

I know, I know, I chose this career and it's still better than welding pipe all day long in a little shack with faggity oiler fans I admit.

But the bigger issue by far is when does the individual child get time with me to work on his or her personal issues??

If I see a kid suffering and needing a sober adult in his life to make a phone call or spend the time to make a referral or do the paperwork because the girl crying in front of you is pregnant is going to give birth in three months and hasn't got a clue about how to fill out the forms to get help with the enormity of the life changed she is about to face.

Class size is more than just a number to be manipulated by either the government or the union.

It goes right to the heart of whether we are providing a quality level of service to the children... Your children and mine.

Mr "I am alright jack" Topper, doesn't seem to have sympathy for people with challenges he has never faced. So he wants to downplay learning difficulties as whining,
unfortunately there are no such thing as "man up pills" to solve real issues.

When we were kids in highschool in the seventies know one had a clue about terms like ADHD, Autism/ Aspergers...

Nor did anyone even realise that there was a diagnostic scale for autism that all of us are on.
Most of us on one end close to normal brain function and nearly complete brain dysfunction and Aspergers at the other end.

In the seventies know one knew that people cannot learn with traditional teacher methods not because they were stoners and losers because their brains are wired differently.

In the seventies there was this thing called a drop out rate. You don't hear about that in 2014 because we have this miracle called MRI that allows to map brain function so we can prove all of this and take steps to adjust and account for it all...

You ask where is the money coming from?

That's a good question but an unfair one to ask anyone but the Premier that's her job! I don't have access to the books. I don't know where money is being spent that should be spent on education.

Where did the money come from for BC place or the Olympics? Or the sea to sky highway that topper's buddies use ?

Lol I see that dickhead, fassbender is trying to use the same tactic in the media...
I can't answer those questions

But..

I can tell you how they "solved " it in the UK. They track students by learning ability and performance They separate the good kids, the middle ones and the challenged ones into bands A, B and C.

They then spend the money and resources on the good kids and almost nothing on the dummies.

With no collective bargaining, the best teachers get perk filled contracts to teach the top banded classes and the rookie up and coming teachers get the middle bands.

The bottom bands are stuck with whoever they can find. Which is usually no one, and is why London recruiting agencies regularly haunt Canadian universities to find recently graduated teachers to go and fill those vacancies for minimum wages desperate teachers (hi isle nuck ;)) teaching desperate kids..

As a parent, we all make the assumption that our kids are headed to better things in life. Good jobs, healthy families, learning institutions like colleges and universities...
The institutions most band C kids are headed to are prisons. Hospitals, and welfare lines...
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Topper
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Topper »

ukcanuck wrote:I can tell you how they "solved " it in the UK. They track students by learning ability and performance They separate the good kids, the middle ones and the challenged ones into bands A, B and C.

They then spend the money and resources on the good kids and almost nothing on the dummies.
Sounds fine by me. Put my tax dollars where they will do best.

Give the hypochondriacs looking for an excuse to be lazy a serious wake up call.

BCTF just got a $1.5 million dollar loan from the Ontario teachers. Watch for the union dues to increase for the loan payback.
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ukcanuck
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by ukcanuck »

Topper wrote:
ukcanuck wrote:I can tell you how they "solved " it in the UK. They track students by learning ability and performance They separate the good kids, the middle ones and the challenged ones into bands A, B and C.

They then spend the money and resources on the good kids and almost nothing on the dummies.
Sounds fine by me. Put my tax dollars where they will do best.

Give the hypochondriacs looking for an excuse to be lazy a serious wake up call.

BCTF just got a $1.5 million dollar loan from the Ontario teachers. Watch for the union dues to increase for the loan payback.
I guess that's the heart of the difference between our two positions.

I have one and you must have had yours surgically removed :)
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Topper
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Topper »

ukcanuck wrote: you must have had yours surgically removed
By a smart kid, no scars.
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by isle_nuck »

ukcanuck wrote: 21 would be optimum, but a maximum of 25 with at least one or two TAs depending on particular learning disabilities.
Ahh...the sweet life UK. The sweet life...
ukcanuck wrote:
I'm not claiming teachers are angels.
We're not? Damn it! I thought I got my wings and halo with my first full time contract. Back to the drawing board!
ukcanuck wrote:
The bottom bands are stuck with whoever they can find. Which is usually no one, and is why London recruiting agencies regularly haunt Canadian universities to find recently graduated teachers to go and fill those vacancies for minimum wages desperate teachers (hi isle nuck ;)) teaching desperate kids..


The institutions most band C kids are headed to are prisons. Hospitals, and welfare lines...
I got lucky when I was over there. I somehow ended up at an all-girls catholic school (of which I'm neither!) in the northwest of London. Didn't make a whole lot, but more than enough to enjoy the occasional London night and some European vacations during the breaks, so no complaints here! :rockin:

I had one of those C-strand classes right at the bottom of the strand and yes, some of those girls are going to jail. In fact, I was there five years ago when they were about 14, so I wouldn't doubt if one or two of them were there now. I can't really complain though, because my stories from that year definitely don't match up to the horror stories from friends who taught at inner city schools.

But if you want to talk about kids going to jail, you should see the alternative class I taught in BC this year; one of them was arrested at the school because it was a better idea for him to be arrested there than at home and he's not even a teen yet.

Back on topic though..sounds like the government has agreed to a mediator. Maybe this will get sorted before the next ice age! :hmmm:
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Topper
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Topper »

What is the deal with the smiling, waving teachers on the picket line? Are they happy to be there?

Yesterday they had a bbq in the school parking lot while on picket duty.

Is the strike a picnic for them?
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by isle_nuck »

Topper wrote:What is the deal with the smiling, waving teachers on the picket line? Are they happy to be there?

Yesterday they had a bbq in the school parking lot while on picket duty.

Is the strike a picnic for them?
Sometimes smiling is all we can do. Sometimes we wave just to say hi. Sometimes we do both to keep the spirits of others on the line up.

As for the BBQ...I've heard of some student bodies coming to the picket line and making lunch for their teachers. Maybe that's what it was.

Could be some of that, could be none of that. Who knows.
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Rumsfeld »

The strike was going well until the union allowed wee todd to letter the picket signs.

"Suport yor local Teechers guyz"

:stupid:
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Re: Kneecaps

Post by Aaronp18 »

"We help ur kids stay @ skool"
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