Part of my philosophy of Active Living means living responsibly and actively engaging in the world around me. In living responsibly I choose to be an advocate for my children and my community.
Below is a piece I submitted to the Vancouver Sun December 2, 2011. I also forwarded the same letter to George Abbott and the Premier's Office - if you want the response(?) please let me know and I am more than happy to send it your way.
Some might suggest this letter is political, I argue I am merely a parent voicing concerns and wanting to ensure children are getting what our province deserves to provide for them.
I encourage each of you to get ACTIVE and start writing, what ever your cause is.
And a special thanks to all of you hard working, dedicated, talented and very passionate teachers.
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A Parent’s Opinion
A response to Ghost of a premier past casts a large shadow that complicates rebranding.
If Christy Clark is trying to rebrand her name and image and set herself apart from her predecessor, Gordon Campbell, she may actually want to own up to her “Families First” campaign, and recognise that one of the strongest supports to families is a healthy school. Schools provide important connections to students and their families. Healthy schools promote healthy neighbourhoods and healthy societies.
I am a very concerned parent; for the record, I am NOT a teacher and neither is my husband. We do have good friends who are teachers, and just as many good friends who are not. We are all very concerned. This is not about the current job action and the teacher’s union but this is about the decimation of the public school system within this province. I do have family members who are teachers in other provinces and BC should be ashamed of it’s reputation and it’s record. What the government has done to public education, to educational supports, to teachers and to our children is deplorable, shameful, neglectful and in my mind, criminal.
The stresses are evident upon walking through the school doors. Teachers are stressed, administration is stressed and students are stressed. The bare bones funding has turned schools into a form of boot camp which are rigid and unbending. There is little room or time for original thinking, creativity, contemplation, or alternative expression. And with the Ministry of Education’s new Personalised Learning Directive, if the government has it’s way, children will not have a classroom at all but will be sitting at home with their laptops, creating greater disparity between those with the most electronic toys and those without. This is one more example of this government avoiding adequate funding for educational and technological resources, and unloading societal responsibility onto individual families.
The Personalised Learning Directive adds a new level of understanding to the Ministry’s statement “Student progress will be reported to parents in a more meaningful, effective and consistent manner across the province, enabling parents to play a key role in shaping their children’s education.” Check out the showy presentation on the Ministry of Education’s government website that says nothing, throws around some impressive relevant language around pedagogy and innovation, and side steps the real issue of investing in public education.
The Action Steps identified in the BC Ministry’s Education Plan suggest standards will remain “relevant and robust so that every graduate has every advantage to succeed in life”. That is making the false assumption that we are currently working with adequate standards. Conditions have been worsening over the past 10 years - isn’t it time the BC Liberal party started investing in BC youth. Studies show, you pay now or society pays later.
BC is becoming a province that wants to make individuals responsible for looking after themselves, rather than a province with institutions to support one another. Don’t get me wrong, I have strong feelings supporting personal responsibility, however, in order to create that ability for autonomy and independence, a foundation must be established and educational supports must be in place.
I am tiring of BC’s promises to business taking priority over children and education and I know many other voters share this concern. Public schools and education can ameliorate inequalities and bind us together as British Columbians.
Premier Clark, here’s your chance to really make a difference, for your child and all the other children across this province. It is time to make children and families a priority.
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