EDITOR,
I would like to take the opportunity to rebut the contents of a letter attacking me in your last issue ("In defence of teachers," Chief, Jan. 7).
I generally try to confine myself to facts and logic in the public forum, but having been called "ignorant" and having my name misspelled (it's Philip, not Phillip), a small amount of sarcasm is called for.
Mr. Drygas should have taken elementary arithmetic while at school. Consider:
185 days of instruction, with five working days per week, equals 71.2 per cent of a calendar year (even less than the nine months out of 12 that I so generously allotted to teachers, or 75 per cent). If one extends proportionally pay of $50,000 for 71 per cent of a calendar year, then one arrives at $70,422 for a full calendar year, or for $90,000, $126,760. However you slice it, $90,000 for less than nine months' work is pretty good.
$43,000 and $81,000 plus sick days, pensions and benefits result in total remuneration of well over the $50,000 to $90,000 mentioned. Just look at the school board budget, or have a chat with those doing the payroll.
The methods of teaching of basic arithmetic and linguistic skills such as the times tables, the alphabet, grammar and spelling do not fluctuate from month to month, or century to century. One teaches multiplication and division tables by rote, since 8 x 8 will always equal 64. The English alphabet has not changed in quite some time, nor has the standard subject-verb-object of sentence construction. In fact, I wager that those taught in high schools up until 1970 have a much greater understanding of arithmetic, grammar, and spelling than those taught since then, which is of course to the detriment of society as a whole (if you can't read, you can't critically analyze anything). So, for elementary teachers at least, these navel-gazing exercises have been a great waste of time. High-school teachers could take the time to learn new business or design software, and then teach these to their students, but again, that is something that teachers could well do on their time off, in order to qualify as professionals demanding top dollar, as they do.
I would like to believe that teachers are entirely altruistic, but one cannot avoid the fact that smaller class sizes mean less work per teacher for the same pay, and more union members employed. Sorry, I do not recall any instance that teachers voluntarily took a large pay cut "for the cause," as you put it.
As for school as daycare, I would hope that schools here would teach children to write better than in Somalia. I believe that this has been achieved, insofar as my children have been given a small grasp of the language, probably better than most Somalians. Granted, my children have been taught simple words, but nowhere near the sentence structures, spelling, and vocabulary that they will need to progress in university, or even to express themselves in all the marvellous shades and hues that the language has to offer.
As for my facts and opinions being "offensive" to some, "the truth shall make you free," and the ad hominem debate becomes a reductio ad absurdum.
Philip G. Trueman
Squamish
