How to destroy chess in schools: lock out the teachers.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

The BC government, indifferent to the consequences of making war on the teachers in BC, has threatened to lock out the teachers if the latter take any job action related to the current negotiations.

This means no chess in schools. That's what you get from a regime that treats the very Constitution of Canada with contempt.

The BC Teachers Federation has come out with some strong words after the union received a letter from the employer group yesterday, threatening to lock out educators if they begin rotating strikes next week.

The union says many exams, including those for Grade 10 and 11 students, won’t be marked, extracurricular activities will be cancelled and teachers won’t be prepared for summer school if the government follows through with its threat.

President Jim Iker says the premier is to blame for the entire mess, noting teachers soon won’t be allowed at the school 45 before or after the day wraps up.

“That means no more extra-curricular activities. In adopting this strategy, Christy Clark could be the cause of many cancelled field trips, sports tournaments, theatre productions, music concerts, and many other events.”

Iker says the union has tried to minimize the impact on students, but the latest government move shows that it doesn’t care.

“Premier Clark would rather shut down extra-curriculars, prevent teachers from working with students at lunch hour, and block teachers from talking to parents about a properly funded education system,” he argues.

BCTF slams the Premier of BC

Christy Clark lockout impacts grads, exams, and (chess)

Minister F tries to deny the impact of a lockout and gets ... SCHOOLED!

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: How to destroy chess in schools: lock out the teachers.

North Vancouver High School Math teacher Blaise Johnson tweeted the following today:

@FassbenderMLA Could you please provide me with a note for my door explaining why I can't help students with Math at lunch or let them play chess?

Let them play chess! Well put.

Let's be clear. Running a chess club under such threats during a lunch hour could get a teacher fired. Fired for teaching chess in their spare time. That's what this regime stands for.

Christy Clark’s lockout will mean teachers would be insubordinate if they helped a struggling student or a child with special needs during the lunch hour,” Iker said.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: How to destroy chess in schools: lock out the teachers.

The BC government, indifferent to the consequences of making war on the teachers in BC, has threatened to lock out the teachers if the latter take any job action related to the current negotiations.

This means no chess in schools. That's what you get from a regime that treats the very Constitution of Canada with contempt.





BCTF slams the Premier of BC

Christy Clark lockout impacts grads, exams, and (chess)

Look at how much of a raise the teachers want.

Shutting out the teachers in the summer. Now there's a concept.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business...230/story.html

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: How to destroy chess in schools: lock out the teachers.

Look at how much of a raise the teachers want.

Yes, show us the teachers' "unreasonable" demands, please do. I don't see your link.

The truth is, the employer is demanding wage rollbacks while conceding increases to every other group of provincial employees. Sounds like sour grapes over the government getting their ass kicked at the Supreme Court. BC funding is now $1,000 less than the national average. What a disgrace.

Why won't this regime obey the law? The Supreme Court told them twice now to get on with putting the funding back into education (and, thereby extra-curricular things like chess) and quit trying to provoke a conflict with the teachers. Do they think they are above the law?

[Gary Ruben]

Re: How to destroy chess in schools: lock out the teachers.

The link is there to see and it's from a Vancouver newspaper.

If a union wants a raise and is in a strike position, and the employer won't give it, walking the picket line is what they do.

This is the what I'm reading they want:

"The province says the teachers are asking for a pay raise of 15.9 per cent over four years, but with increased benefits and other provisions, the government says the total would be about 21 per cent."

Chess is a red herring in this dispute. Nonsense. Simply tends to highlight the pawns.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: How to destroy chess in schools: lock out the teachers.

Saw more news this evening.

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/b...n-exam-marking

If this is all about exam marking, I say pass them all!!

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Teach chess and you could be fired. This is the Clark regime.

The link is there to see and it's from a Vancouver newspaper.

This is the what I'm reading they want:

"The province says the teachers are asking for a pay raise of 15.9 per cent over four years, but with increased benefits and other provisions, the government says the total would be about 21 per cent."

That's interesting. The link you provided has now changed. But the new link does not have the quote you made above. Where are you getting this stuff? Or are you just making it up?

The link you provided notes that the Province is threatening wage cuts of 5% and 10%, based on job action. Job action that is legal.

Like I said, it's vindictive war on teachers, partly due to the well-deserved thrashing that the Clark regime got at the Supreme Court. These neo-liberal politicians have no respect for anything except their own swelled heads.

Any extra-curricular activities destroyed by this government's actions will undoubtedly be well documented by their victims: the teachers, parents, families and children involved with BCs public schools. If you've got a twitter account, and really do care about chess in Canada, why not follow the Math teacher I quoted and see what he says about his Math students and chess club? You might learn something.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: How to destroy chess in schools: lock out the teachers.

Saw more news this evening.

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/b...n-exam-marking

If this is all about exam marking, I say pass them all!!

Actually, there was a famous case here in Canada in which a University Prof gave all the students in a class A was dismissed. The case is highly political however, and still subject to binding arbitration.

The professor's name is Denis Rancourt.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Teach chess and you could be fired. This is the Clark regime.

That's interesting. The link you provided has now changed. But the new link does not have the quote you made above. Where are you getting this stuff? Or are you just making it up?

First you complain you can't find the link and then the link has changed.

Which is it. You can't find it or it has changed.

Here it is from another newspaper.

http://www.nanaimodailynews.com/news...kout-1.1071282

It looks like this is another thread which will flirt with the fine line between sane and mashugana.

[Garland Best]

Re: Teach chess and you could be fired. This is the Clark regime.

I visited the first link you provided, and I could not find the 15.9% over 4 years passage. Instead all I could find is the following "Teachers want higher wages along with commitments to make classes smaller and increase the number of specialists in schools, demands Cameron said would cost over $2 billion and possibly result in human rights complaints if composition rules resulted in a disabled student being turned away from a class, for example."

Your second link has the numbers you list. Wouldn't surprise me if the original article had been edited.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Teach chess and you could be fired. This is the Clark regime.

Your second link has the numbers you list. Wouldn't surprise me if the original article had been edited.

It could have been edited. It does look like a completely different article but other newspapers still have it. I notice the government is also offering a signing bonus.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Clark regime and its war on teachers (and extra-curricular stuff like ...CHESS!)

More developments. There is very heavy choreography here, like a prepared opening line...

Anyway, a rather clever teacher has provided an explanation of the employer's approach ... depending whether you ask the local school board or the BC Public School Employer's Association (BCPSEA).

Christy Clark's Lockout Explained

BCPSEA Version

1. Teachers are locked out:

a) up to 45 minutes before school starts
b) at recess and lunch
c) 45 minutes after the last bell of the day

2. Teachers' wages will be deducted 10% per day.
3. Teachers must not participate in Pro-D or In-Service

School District's Version

Please ignore all the unpleasantness of the lockout and feel free to work for 10% less as much as you like.

Please volunteer! We really value and appreciate the work of teachers!

The two sides are fighting a propaganda war here. Of course, for most of us, on either side, our minds are made up in advance and we know which side we are on. My argument is that the government is harming the teaching of chess in schools ... already needing improvement and expansion in the current period of rather savage neo-liberal cutbacks ... and that chess-players ought to consider such conduct when they go to vote. We may not be a big demographic, but it would be good if we could make chess a serious issue no matter how we do it. Other people, in other circumstances, claim that any publicity for chess is good publicity.

Anyway, rest assured that it is a dirty fight, prepared in advance, and it makes any debates we have here on this board seem like a tempest in a teapot.

[Brad Thomson]

Re: Clark regime and its war on teachers (and extra-curricular stuff like ...CHESS!)

We had problems in Ottawa a couple of years ago. The contract the teachers were working under expired, so it was work to rule until a new contract was agreed upon. During this time the teachers' union forbade them from doing anything extra. As a result there were several schools that stopped taking chess lessons. It was explained to me that the teachers were not permitted to hand out our flyers to the students in their classes, nor were they permitted to collect them and return them to the office once the students had responded.

One principal believed in our chess program so strongly that she herself went from class to class handing out, and the later collecting all of the registrations so that her students could continue to learn chess from our organization.

It is sad that in these types of cases, it is often the students themselves that are hurt the most.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

This regime has been hurting children for a long, long time.

We had problems in Ottawa a couple of years ago. The contract the teachers were working under expired, so it was work to rule until a new contract was agreed upon. During this time the teachers' union forbade them from doing anything extra.

This is often the case when teachers are prohibited from taking any job action and are instructed to obey the dictatorial authorities without question. They are then left, deliberately, with no opportunity to protest their wage and pension cuts, bloating class sizes, savage cuts to special needs, etc., etc. except by refusing to do extra activities that do not fall under their conditions of work.

One principal believed in our chess program so strongly that she herself went from class to class handing out, and the later collecting all of the registrations so that her students could continue to learn chess from our organization.

Great, but principals cannot organize all the chess, sports, arts and other extra-curricular activities single-handedly. So things get lost based on what they choose not to do, or cannot possibly do. When there is a dispute, the principal also has many fires to put out, as it were, and must prioritize their activities.

It is sad that in these types of cases, it is often the students themselves that are hurt the most.

In this particular case, the BC provincial government has illegally underfunded education in the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars over more than a decade. During that period of time, many children went through the entire educational system under these brutal conditions of savage cuts to funding. Finally, the Supreme Court ruled and ordered the regime to find a way to restore matters of quality of education, class size, amount of funding for special children, etc. back onto the bargaining table. They had to be ordered twice to do so; hence the angry remarks from such an unusual source - a judge of the Supreme Court of BC.

This regime has been hurting children for a long time. If the teachers put their wage concerns on the back burner (which they have, now and then, in this conflict) they would still be facing an intransigent bunch of overlords.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

viral letter to Christy Clark or "Why do you hate our children?"

The following letter penned to B.C. Premier Christy Clark has gone viral on social media. It's written by Christine Adams, a Grade 7 teacher:

Ok, Christy Clark, I’m going to need some help understanding this one.

Starting Monday, you will not let me help my students at recess and lunch? It is rare that a day goes by that I don’t have students in during that time who desperately need help. With all the cutbacks with student support and with no regard to my class composition and the needs of the students in my class, how will they learn if I can’t go over concepts with them during my break? And if I do help them, I will be disciplined?

In fact, starting Monday, you insist that we all leave the school property at recess and lunch? Do you have any idea what happens in a school when that bell goes? You want the building to be free of teachers while hundreds of children are transitioning in the hallway? Have you considered the safety factor in that one? So I’m not allowed to use the washroom on my breaks? If I can’t leave my students during class, and I’m not allowed to be in the building during my breaks, are you suggesting that I must go the entire day without using the washroom?

Starting Monday, you’re also telling me that I am only allowed to work 45 minutes prior to the bell and 45 minutes after. I can’t take my work home, I can’t mark at home, I can’t do my report cards at home and I can’t prepare my lessons at home yet you still insist that I do all of these things? Does that mean you will be giving us money finally to buy resources so I don’t have to build all my units from scratch? For every hour in my class, I’m putting in an hour outside of it developing lessons, making resources, planning units and writing report cards. I have no idea how I am supposed to do all of that in 90 minutes a day outside of direct teaching time. Perhaps you want me to do that while the students are in my class? I just can’t, Christy. I want them to learn.

Starting Monday, you will not let me help organize students into classes for next year? So if I know that a child is intimidated by another in my class, or does not work well with someone, I am not able to do anything about that? Have you been in a classroom? There’s a very fine art to separating children who simply are unable to get along, and yet another art to finding children to put together to build new friendships and find a sense of belonging. At my school alone, our teachers invested at least 15 hours last year fine tuning the classrooms, making sure we could make the best of our situation of kids with learning disabilities, with behaviour problems, with IEPs, with social difficulties. I know our school administrators are capable individuals, but they simply do not know how best to place my students, and are not aware of the specifics of the 11 students I have this year who have higher needs.

And, Christy, I’m absolutely crushed that you won’t let me go to my daughter’s grade 7 leaving ceremony at her school. I don’t even work at her school, but you refuse to let me on public school property. Funny thing is, the teacher that is spending countless hours organizing that ‘grad’ also has a child in that class, and she won’t be able to attend it either. I expect we will both be standing outside of school grounds trying to maintain composure. Right now, not that you care, I’m not maintaining composure. I didn’t very well in class today when I told my own grade 7s that I wasn’t allowed to attend their grade 7 leaving. They saw the tears in my eyes.

I know that you will tell me BC teachers started this strike business. We could argue about the logistics of that for quite some time. Do you realize that we chose rotating strikes so we could still volunteer our time on the other days of the week? We were still going on field trips, organizing grad ceremonies, doing extra-curricular, and giving whatever we could to the students in our schools. And now you won’t let us? I look forward to my year end activities with my students. I am not looking forward to telling them that you won’t let me take them.

Do I need a raise? Yes, I truly do. I believe I deserve the 18% you gave your administration, but I’d be happy with keeping up with the cost of living. 4 straight years of 0% is catching up with me. 2 more years of 0% just might break me. Everything is going up, and my paycheque is actually getting smaller. That just doesn’t seem right to me. I just don't understand why I don't deserve the cost of living.

Oh and as long as I’m trying to understand all of this, why is privatization so important to you? You are starving education and healthcare. It seems your plan is to continue to do this so you can say to the public, “Look. The school system is not working! We need to do something different!” At that point, I expect you’ll push your two-tiered education system a little harder, and your next course of business will be a two-tiered health care system. That might work well for you and your well-paid staff, but not for the majority of us. What will most of us do in a two-tiered health care system? Do you just not care because it just does not affect you?

By the way, we DO need to do something different; we need you to start funding education again. I was thinking that in my children’s neighbourhood high school, if you funded just to the national average, they would have $1 000 000 more each year. My own children and I had fun mentally spending that for their school. It was kind of like going through the Sears Wishbook when we were kids, but, like the Wishbook, when someone else is holding the chequebook, it’s all just a dream.

By the way, why is your chequebook out for the private school system? I’m a little confused why you were able to increase funding for those schools but not public schools. Is that because your son attends a private school?

On your Facebook page, you recently said that you are “acknowledging historical wrongs,” but do you realize you’re creating one right now? And you’re right, we can’t undo the past. Take some time to do some research in what investing in our children now will do for our future. And look into what happens if we don’t. It will cost us all a great deal more in the generations to come. I also know you are aware that BC has the highest child poverty rate in Canada, and yet you still have no plan for those children either. All of this is so incomprehensible to me.

You broke the law. Twice. You’ve been told that your tactics with BC Teachers are unconstitutional. To me, that’s not much different than your predecessor who thought it okay to drink and drive and that saying sorry made it all better.

I have so many more questions, Christy, but I expect you’ve long stopped reading. Just on another note, I have to tell you that my 16 year old said to me today that he thought maybe people had to be hurt in some way to be able to really empathize with others. How profound. On that wisdom, I assume you’ve had a brilliant life, as you have no empathy for those you perceive to be below you. I wish all of our citizens of BC could have the same opportunity.

I have never been afraid of a politician before, Christy, but I am afraid of you. I love my province. I’m proud of my province. But I’m afraid there won’t be much left of it when you’re done.

Christine Adams, a Grade 7 teacher

No lunch hour chess
Nothing after 45 minutes after school (and that includes lesson plans, the works!)


Of course, it's not just chess for students that's being harmed by this brutal, child-hating regime. All sorts of extra-curricular activities are being torched. But what does Clark care? Her kids go to private schools.