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The two roles of teachers

Doctors, lawyers and engineers are all professionals – too professional to consider themselves as mere trade unionists.

Re: “Teachers deserve better,” Letters, Oct. 18.

Letter writer N.D. Hughes of Surrey states, “As a group they (teachers) are highly professional, motivated and tasked with educating our children who will shape our future. B.C. teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in Canada.”

Doctors, lawyers and engineers are all professionals, and as professionals, they are too professional to consider themselves as mere trade unionists, simply because it is not professional.

Like some confused teenagers who want to be treated as children one day and adults the next, teachers want to be treated as professionals one day and trade unionists the next. It is hard to be both.

Two of my sons and their families have moved to Alberta, where the pay is high and the living costs are low. Others have that choice too.

 

Fred Perry

Surrey