The Editor,
Something positive coming out of the teachers' strike is that everyone is thinking and talking about our education system. Parents are looking at alternative ways to educate their children. Private schools have insane waiting lists. I'm sure that home-schooling is being looked at more seriously by many parents as well. Teachers must be looking at what other forms of employment there are besides teaching.
Teachers must also be second guessing their union leadership. Why go on strike if your negotiating team takes two months off for summer holidays?
There is no indication that negotiations are going anywhere. All we hear is that school will start again in October. What happens in October that will change anything? If the teachers are hoping to be legislated back to work with the package that the government has been offering from the start, why go on strike in the first place? Why not settle today and have school start tomorrow?
The government is handing out money to parents. That kind of thinking can easily be tweaked into giving parents vouchers to educate their children, where they like and how they like. Forty dollars per day works out to $8,000 per year, per child. At this time, teachers are not allowed by their union to tutor children but as the strike drags on, that unity will break. What teacher wouldn't want to invite 10 children into their home for five hours per day and make $80,000 per year with way less headaches than they have to endure today?
As this strike lasts longer, more and more people will begin thinking outside the box and leave the present public education system, parents and teachers alike. It boggles the mind that so many inventive ways to educate our children are not used today in our public system.
Here's hoping that the positive result of this strike is that our education system will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
John Bootsma
White Rock