Harris’ War on Teachers Will Hurt Students
This is the text of a letter to the editor, published in The Toronto Star, March 22, 2000, Section A 27.
Imagine that you are scheduled, tomorrow, to make a presentation to 30 teenagers of varied backgrounds, interests and abilities that will keep their interest for 75 minutes and induce them to learn more about your subject material.
Now, assess how long it would take you to prepare for this encounter.
Would an hour do it? Two? There are work sheets, problems, questions to create and type, duplicate and staple, teaching aids to sift through, select or build, lab experiments to set up and test, equipment and tools to repair and sharpen.
Now multiply this preparation time by three, and you have some idea of how teachers fill their school days and evenings and weekends beyond the “four hours” they spend teaching every day.
Remember too, that the work the students have done must now be read, marked and promptly returned. Beyond this, some 70 per cent of teachers volunteer to take responsibility for at least one extracurricular activity.
Now, Mike Harris has ordered that every teacher will have yet another class of students to prepare for, teach and evaluate.
Imagine what impact this extra burden will have on the students we already have, and on the physical and mental health of the teachers. I feel sorry for the students, especially the weaker ones, because they will be the most affected and lost in the crowd.
Harris will continue to blame the teachers, continue to starve the system to save money, while the really big bills, for welfare, for boot camps, for prisons, for victim compensation, won’t arrive until after the next election.
– ROBERT McCULLOCH
Glammis, Ont.
– And the following text, penned by Queen’s Park observer Ian Urquhart, appeared in The Toronto Star, March 27, 2000, Section A19.
Premier Mike Harris is back at work today after yet another holiday. Since the Legislature rose for its winter recess on Dec. 23, Harris has worked just 42 days; he has taken 53 days off, a leisurely schedule by any standard.
In that time, he has spent at least three separate holidays abroad — including two in Florida and a ski vacation in Vail, Colorado — as well as considerable time in North Bay, home of his estranged wife and their two children.
His whereabouts the past five days are unknown, although he is rumoured to be golfing in Arizona. “I’m telling you we do not release the details of his activities when he is on his own time,” Hillary Stauth of the Premier’s press office told The Star’s Richard Brennan. “It’s his own personal business.”
Fair enough. But with his lax schedule, Harris has left himself vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy from teachers, welfare recipients, public servants and other groups he has targetted for not working hard enough. The multiple vacations also raise intriguing questions about the strength of Harris’ commitment to his job.
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Taking a cue from the Premier, most ministers have also been working at a leisurely pace the past three months; full cabinet has met just four times since Christmas and there is no meeting planned this week. That suggests a less than full agenda when the Legislature finally resumes sitting next week.