Solidarity with Sask Teachers

[GGG]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy77

I think it mostly falls on the Principle and how they allocate the budgets, we have a good Teachers assistant program at the public school and really great teachers.

The Principle at our school advocates for learning support from CBE. Not all schools are this lucky, but you cant place a blanket over all the kids with learning disabilities and remove them from regular classrooms.

Do you have an issue with having honours /AP/IB classes in high school? At some point school is vocational training for your future career. At some point kids need to be streamed. The question is what level and when. And the question is how to you optimize outcomes? Is it strict utilitarianism or do you have minimum requirements for each individual that need to be met.

[Eric Vail]

I'm going to leave this here:

[Fuzz]

That just proves how efficient we are. Look at all those unwasted tax dollars.

[The Big Chill]

Originally Posted by Azure

I don't believe heavy handed tactics are the solution.

It is as simple as if you hit other kids, say twice, with after the first time a warning being issued, you're gone. But these days we have to be 'nice' to the kids and not hurt their feelings.

The onus needs to start being put on the parents to raise their kids in a manner that is acceptable to the school, teachers and the other kids in that classroom. If they don't, nobody else should have to suffer because of it.

What do you do with all the kids getting kicked out though? And what long term impact will that have on all those kids?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

That just proves how efficient we are. Look at all those unwasted tax dollars.

I mean can we get a fancy graph on rankings per province in terms of learning?

From what I remember Alberta used to be at the top.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by The Big Chill

What do you do with all the kids getting kicked out though? And what long term impact will that have on all those kids?

Two things happen.

Either we push those kids into special learning classes and fund that process properly. If kids need that. Sometimes kids actually don't, and are just rude and have behaviour issues because parents suck.

So, on that point, who cares?

Who should 30 other kids suffer because 1 kid is a moron?

School is hard enough as is, and I literally don't understand why it is acceptable that parents are not held accountable when their kids have behavioural issues.

On the flip side, I remember lots of kids with learning disabilities, and I don't remember them being an issue in school. These days it seems like when you beat up the other kids you have a 'learning disability', or god forbid, ADHD and need to be treated with kid gloves.

[The Fisher Account]

Remember when we were kids and your parents interacted with your teacher once, maybe twice a year at PTI's?

My wife is a teacher now. Between power school updates, seemingly endless IPP's, ad hoc phone meetings and never ending emails from parents, she's often working 7 days a week.

Parents email her at 8pm on a work day and are upset if she doesn't reply by the next morning.

All this additional work, plus more kids per class and lower (based on inflation) pay than our teachers growing up made.

What a job.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

I'm going to leave this here:

The title on the second graph is misleading considering it includes administrators and others.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by The Big Chill

What do you do with all the kids getting kicked out though? And what long term impact will that have on all those kids?

His anecdote involved a child who was habitually striking other children.

There's more leniency here, as we're dealing with children, but no one is allowed to physically assault someone else. If some kids can't help themselves from striking other people, it's something that needs to be dealt with. As soon as they turn 12, they could be getting criminal records. I don't see how a teacher is equipped to deal, with what is criminal matter.

What about the psychological issues that are likely to develop in the kids who are the victims of these assaults?

[spotthefan]

Originally Posted by Weitz

The title on the second graph is misleading considering it includes administrators and others.

You are absolutely right and there is a reason for it. Because that is what the government has typically used to report class size information. Music, band, admin teachers are used to lower ratios.

However, in this case they are used and yet we still are the largest.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by spotthefan

You are absolutely right and there is a reason for it. Because that is what the government has typically used to report class size information. Music, band, admin teachers are used to lower ratios.

However, in this case they are used and yet we still are the largest.

The text does state "Education workforce" and the disclaimer states what roles that includes. As long as all province's workforces are calculated using the same metrics...

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

Remember when we were kids and your parents interacted with your teacher once, maybe twice a year at PTI's?

My wife is a teacher now. Between power school updates, seemingly endless IPP's, ad hoc phone meetings and never ending emails from parents, she's often working 7 days a week.

Parents email her at 8pm on a work day and are upset if she doesn't reply by the next morning.

All this additional work, plus more kids per class and lower (based on inflation) pay than our teachers growing up made.

What a job.

Pretty much my experience too, except that it's directly from students. They've been raised to think this sort of access to teachers is normal.

I had one student who screamed at me in class because he was upset that I didn't respond to a question he had about an assignment almost immediately, and thus he felt he "couldn't complete the work". The student sent me an email at 1 pm on a Saturday. I was at a kid's birthday party for one of my son's classmates. I responded later that evening around 6 pm. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for this psycho. Following his screaming rant at me I patiently explained to him that "I have a family to take care of on the weekend", to which he responded, "Yeah, well I have a family too, and they're very distressed about your lack of help!!!" Then he stormed out of the room and yelled F***! at the top of his lungs. This is also a student who has such a severe learning disability/behavioral disorder that he would come to my office hours and ask me what exact sentences he should write for his essay. We would talk about the nature of the assignment and the kind of content he should include. I would give a sample sentence and then he would write it down verbatim and say "should I write this? Is this okay?", to which I would reply, "that was just an example, you need to write what you think is best based on your own thoughts." Again, that wasn't good enough and the student complained that I wasn't helping him enough to my Dean.

Just an absolute nightmare. I'm sure his parents taught him to act that way with his teachers and they enabled that behavior. Someone kept pushing him through the system until he got to me. I had severe anxiety attacks each day before class just because I was anticipating having to deal with his crazy ####.

Now bear in mind, these students are far and few between, and most students are easy to work with and can handle their responsibilities well, but students like these take up 90% of my time and energy, and I'm simply not equipped to deal with a person that extreme. Quite frankly, I don't know who is equipped to deal with someone like that.

Not sure what the solution is, but I just wanted to commiserate. The job is draining.

[MacDaddy77]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Are you saying that this is the ideal reality of public school?

Like it should be expected for any child considering public school that their learning will be disrupted by multiple complex children that will be present in their class?

I'm saying it IS the reality of public school, not that it's ideal. you CAN"T reject someone from public school based off the charter of rights and freedoms, It's not an ideal situation but it is what it is; you cant start discriminating against kids with a type of learning disability. Public education is a right, Any parent is also within their rights to move to a private school

I think based on this you should absolutely expect that there may be multiple complex children in a classroom for public school.

That being said there are public schools in Calgary (ours included) that have special classes for extreme learning disabilities and these are special cases.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Weitz

The title on the second graph is misleading considering it includes administrators and others.

It's not misleading at all, it's an apples to apples comparison. Support staff and leaders are an important part of a teaching environment too. If you don't have support, you're doing more on your own.

[MacDaddy77]

Originally Posted by GGG

Do you have an issue with having honours /AP/IB classes in high school? At some point school is vocational training for your future career. At some point kids need to be streamed. The question is what level and when. And the question is how to you optimize outcomes? Is it strict utilitarianism or do you have minimum requirements for each individual that need to be met.

No I don't have an issue with this, nor do I have an issue with early trades learning (Trade, Beautification etc.) in High school, those are elective choices that are made AFTER the foundational years of learning in Elementary and middle school.

the Point School becomes vocational training is High School and you already see realistic separations (made by choice) based off prior learning experiences.

[calgarygeologist]

At least Alberta is towards the top of the metric for average salaries (teachers and support/admin staff) based on those same data tables from Statistics Canada:

[aiy_yah]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Medicine Hat, Grande Prairie, Brooks and Dawson Creek

DC was an exception though, they had such a teacher shortage grade 5/6 was combined into one room with one teacher, probably 40 ish kids

Hat High 93!

Went to elementary and junior high in Redcliff. I remember class sizes generally in the 19 to 22 range.

My youngest is in grade 7 and there's 25 kids. Last year, it was also 25.

[The Big Chill]

Originally Posted by blankall

His anecdote involved a child who was habitually striking other children.

There's more leniency here, as we're dealing with children, but no one is allowed to physically assault someone else. If some kids can't help themselves from striking other people, it's something that needs to be dealt with. As soon as they turn 12, they could be getting criminal records. I don't see how a teacher is equipped to deal, with what is criminal matter.

What about the psychological issues that are likely to develop in the kids who are the victims of these assaults?

I agree with the issues, I just don’t see kicking kids out as a viable solution. It works for the rest of the kids in the class, but it hangs that one kid out to dry, and decreases the likelihood of them becoming a functional member of society. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to fix the support, or lack thereof, that kids get from home.

I personally think we should be increasing the supports available in schools, including behavioural specialists being present, rather than asking teachers to teach and try to be behavioural specialists at the same time. They aren’t equipped to do that, and the whole class suffers as a result.

[FlamesAddiction]

As someone with a grade school aged kid, I am finding this discussion really informative. I have been a little critical of schools, but am now realizing that staff are being put in an impossible situation. When the system isn't working for anyone (kids, parents, and teachers), obviously there is a big problem with the system in general.

How do people feel about the idea that COVID really screwed up the social development of a lot of kids who entered school during the pandemic? My kid entered kindergarten during the peak of it when everyone had to wear masks and stay 6' away from everyone else. They didn't have free play at recess and were discouraged from socializing in general. Personally, I would not doubt if this has caused a lot of issues. One teacher told me that a lot of 8 and 9 year old kids are still at a 6 year old level when it comes to getting along with others and they have noticed kids being more protective about personal space and not being collaborative. They feel more comfortable with one-on-one learning because big groups make them uncomfortable.

[The Big Chill]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

How do people feel about the idea that COVID really screwed up the social development of a lot of kids who entered school during the pandemic?

My wife teaches at the high school level and she would say the impact is very real. She said the next couple of batches of grade 10s coming into high school after the pandemic were a solid couple of years behind in terms of maturity. She also says some kids continue to wear masks just out of comfort of hiding their faces.

I know there will be a thousand different opinions on how we should have handled COVID, and I don’t really want to get that conversation going again, but I feel like it’s too bad we couldn’t have done a better job collectively as adults with wearing our masks and getting our vaccines so we didn’t have to pass as much burden along to the children.