Teachers know better than anyone

Teacher unrest is never far from the political surface in B.C., and now in U.S. states as teachers walk out to get attention for social professional justice.

I spent 35 years as an educator, largely in leadership roles as a school principal, supervisor of instruction and as a chief superintendent of schools. I witnessed many of the inconsequential reform efforts usually led by bureaucrats in lonely offices in high towers in central places.

External reforms to restructure, reorganize, change the curriculum, impose stronger teacher and student evaluation systems — many ignoring the fundamental student resource and change agent: the teacher.

My conclusion from my experience is that governments, faculties of education, and premiers all need to grasp that the critical force for student improvement is the teacher. We will have stronger education systems if we listen to the teachers. Time and dollars now spent on bureaucratic change would be better spent on giving more resources to those who serve in our classrooms, and to those who prepare teachers for the profession.

Yes, that includes higher compensation, and satisfactory working conditions. That would be meaningful reform.

Free the teachers and provide them with the resources to do their important work.

And so, I stand with the teacher groups on the continent who are rattling legislative precincts.

They must be heard.

Alan Newberry, Vancouver