Dear Editor:
Re: Change ahead for education system, In My Opinion, Burnaby NOW, Oct. 12.
It's a good thing my blood pressure is low because this article raised it considerably this evening.
Keith Baldrey claims that six professional days per year cost taxpayers $66 million a year. Untrue. When they added ProD's to the school calendar, these six days were added to the school year; they did not replace any teaching days.
As we are salaried as teachers, there was no additional cost to the taxpayers.
On the topic of online learning, he thinks this is the new way of teaching in the future.
While it is increasing in popularity, online learning has a tremendous dropout rate. Keith forgot to mention this fact. The majority of students still need the daily support of a classroom teacher to succeed in school.
Believe it or not, a student can take P.E. online, recording his exercise in a log and obtaining credit for the course. There is no way to verify that the student actually did the work. The same applies to any course taken online. Is this the future of education?
As for teacher evaluations, I agree that there isn't enough time for the administrators to complete these for every teacher in a school. That's all a principal would do with his time.
I also agree with Keith Baldrey on this fact: universities need to do a better job of training their teacher candidates (way too much theory and not enough practical strategies).
And he thinks that young teachers leave the profession within five years because the system "doesn't meet their needs"? In fact, many leave because it's a much more demanding job than they anticipated.
Keith Baldrey needs to do his research more thoroughly before writing his articles.
Aldina Isbister,
Burnaby
