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Teacher Appreciation, Yeah Right

Posted By: Dave Agar · 3/5/2013 10:12:00 AM

Given all that has transpired this year with public school teachers in Ontario refusing to do extra-curriculars and staging protests, this next story is sure to anger some.

Birch Cliff public elementary school on Kingston Road in Toronto's east end is holding its annual Teacher Appreciation Week. In fact, it's this week. Parents of the kids are being asked to contribute a food dish so the entire school staff can enjoy a special meal on Thursday. Failing a food dish, parents could show their appreciation by donating a $5 Tim Horton's gift card.  360 students. $5 a head.  $18-hundred. 42 staffers, that's more than $40 per employee at the school, as if they needed it.

That the school is even thinking about this with so many teachers refusing to do any more than the bare minimum is no time to be showing our appreciation. If anything it's time to show our disdain for their refusal to get back to supervising extra-curriculars.

In fact, it's time parents started leaning on the Toronto District School Board. This board has basically sat on its hands through all of this, while other boards in Ontario try to right the wrongs. Two boards have already gone before the Labour Relations Board trying to get the extra-curriculars boycott crushed. More boards are expected to file similar complaints this week and so far, not a peep out of the TDSB.

What the teachers are doing is clearly not in the interests of their students and the TDSB is complicit with its silence.

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  1. proton posted on 03/05/2013 12:11 PM
    If my kids were in public school I'd encourage them to appreciate ONLY those teachers that fought against the union and provided extra curricular activities. They're the only ones deserving of appreciation.

    The others deserve to be fired. They make over $ 100,000 when accounting for all the gifts their contracts include and many of them don't deserve a cent as they're only in it for the money
  2. Mark posted on 03/05/2013 02:53 PM
    We make sure the teachers whom we felt were good are appreciated whether there's an event or not. Appreciation is graciously extended and NOT solicited. If the teachers are going on strike - there's no way I will appreciate that. They cause me to have delays with finishing the term and am left with so much homework so why am I thanking them again? Please remind me.
  3. Angry Bill posted on 03/05/2013 03:17 PM
    Anything I could comment here would be extremely obvious, so I won't say much, other than that this only serves to point out even further how much of a different world that teachers live in compared to the rest of us.

    There is this artificial world called "academia", in which intellectuals hang around in faculty lounges that sell $20 shots of scotch (I've been in the U of T faculty lounge, that's really what a shot of scotch goes for there), in their tweed jackets with leather elbow patches discussing cerebral topics that have absolutely no value in the "real" world in which the rest of us live.

    You see, this artificial world is the world in which teachers think they live.

    There's something called the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that some of you may be familiar with. Google it if you're not, because a picture's worth a thousand words. It basically illustrates where we are in society. Most of us live toward the bottom of this hierarchy. The world of academia lives perched at the pinnacle.

    This, I believe, is at the source of the seeming disconnect that teachers have with the rest of society. And it is why they really do feel that they are actually being downtrodden. It's not an act. They really do feel this way.

    And that is why they will continue to behave as they have been.
  4. Mark posted on 03/05/2013 08:20 PM
    Teachers have poor judgement. A result of being pandered to like spoiled brats by the Liberals for the past 9 years. These clowns realy do think they are more special than the rest of us. Personally, I will be contacting the CRA and demanding that these "donations" be recorded as paid benefits.

    The gall of these twits to be asking for even more is astounding. If anything, they should be the ones giving back.
  5. Panther Parent posted on 03/06/2013 12:14 PM
    Interesting, I've been an employee of the TDSB for over thirty years, however, I am administrative staff. Therefore I've never been given a Tim's card or lunch out of appreciation, not once, let alone annually! If you work here, as I have for over 30 years, it's a well-known fact that academic staff are treated differently than “staff”! Even the trustee’s refer to us as “staff” in a derogatory way, but if you’re academic staff you can do no wrong. No wonder they behave the way they do.
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