The Rural Voice, 1980-11, Page 23A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
A price forprogress?
BY CARL HEMINGWAY
Problems! Problems! Problems!
How did we manage to get into such a mess? We pride
ourselves on our wonderful intelligence, our superior scientific
knowledge, our affluent society, but it is just a little
embarrassing to find a brief comment in the last issue of
Readers' Digest that points out "Our society has progressed so
far that we park our cars at home and lock them, we have to
unlock the door to get into the house and before we go to bed
doors and windows have to be securely closed while our
backward brothers in the underdeveloped countries sleep in
peace with the doors unlocked (if they have doors) with only the
risk of some animals, wild or domestic, disturbing their rest.
Yes, we've come a long way.I wonder in what direction?
Presently there is a Secondary School "teacher" strike in
Bruce County.
From bits and pieces of news that I've picked up the complaint
is the excessive work load of the teachers and of course a little
more money would be acceptable to keep up with inflation.
Some pupils were interviewed on T.V. and they all supported
the teachers in the objection that classes of 35 pupils were too
bie.
1 can agree that 35 in a class is a fairly heavy load but what was
lacking in the information was the pupil ratio in other schools.
A few years ago, while attending the graduation of one of our
family, I learned from the brochure that was passed out (by
doing a little mental arithmetic) that the pupil -teacher ratio was
only 161/2 pupils per teacher yet the average number per class
was 25 pupils with some classes as high as 35.
Mathematics showed that only two-thirds of the teacher were
in the class room at any one time.
Forty hours a week is recognized as a standard work week.
The school day runs from 9 to 3:30 with a minimum of 35 minutes
for dinner which is approximately a six hour day or a 30 hour
/ week. Granted that there are papers to mark and lessons to
prepare but there is also 10 hours a week left over for this.
At the time I collected this information I was writing a column
for a weekly newspaper in the town in which this particular
school was located. I wrote up this same information with the
added comment that I thought a teacher with a university degree
should be able to teach more than one subject and that the
supervisor at $30.000 per year (remember this salary isn't
relevant in 1980) should be able to make better use of his
employees.
Somehow or other the editor and secretary both admitted
receiving and leading the article but unfortunately it got lost and
was never published.
Is the kind of information being withheld in Bruce County?
I attended Brussels Continuation school for my Junior
Matriculation (end of Grade 12) where the teacher -pupil ratio
was 30 or more.
While the number in each class was considerably less the
number per class room always ranged between 20 and 45 as
there were about 65 pupils for two teachers to look after and each
teacher was in the class room the full six hours every day.
We pupils had to pass departmental examinations which we
did just as successfully as pupils today.
To get my "Upper School", I went to Listowel for one year and
was successful with a similar pupil -teacher ratio.
If a fair settlement of this dispute is to be reached let us have
all the information.
Municipal democratic elections are fine in principle but how
many of our County school board members have any real
knowledge or experience in a class room?
How much authority has this school board in the practical
operation in the classroom?
How many of their decisions are really made by the Ontario
Department of Education on the basis of you do or you don't get
a grant.
A second "strike" is more or less in effect -that of the
"government clerks". Here the demand is for more money.
In this dispute information is pretty scarce but I was pleased
and surprised to have a TV program inform us that the basic
salary was $12,000. While to some of us this may seem like a
pretty good salary when we learn the cost of housing along with
rising interest rates we can realize that their employees are
getting a lot less income than government -arbitrated settlements
granted to other unions members working for private
corporations.
McGAVIN'S
FARM EQUIPMENT
LTD.
Sales and Service
527-0245 Walton, Ont. 887-6365
Seaforth Brussels
Established 1936
We specialize in a complete line
of farm Equipment including
soar
LEvI-Aiw
SPEf2RY+NEW HOLLAND
THE RURAL VOICE/NOVEMBER 1980 PG. 21