Double soft darts to the person who wrote in the June 12 paper in regards to “selfish teachers.” Teachers spend more time with our children than we do in a day. They are, in effect, helping to raise our kids. They prepare them for the world in such a way that they can go on to higher education to earn a good salary to live a comfortable, happy life. Their job doesn’t end at 3 p.m. — they spend their evenings and weekends marking papers and reading essays. They take our children on field trips and do extracurricular sports with them, often or always on their own time.
They want smaller class sizes and more special-needs teachers, as well as a wage increase to reflect increasing inflation and prevent chronic stress and burnout both directly and indirectly related to rising food prices and living costs.
Consider this at the time when the government is giving themselves an 18 per cent wage increase. The timing is a necessity — an attempt to let government officials realize the seriousness and importance of this and that it will not be swept under the carpet or brushed away.
I challenge anyone who opposes the teachers’ actions to dare to make a career change and become one of them. Chances are you couldn’t do it. What’s stopping you? Don’t want the wage cut? Don’t want to work evenings and weekends as well as work days? Don’t want to deal with 30 kids all day?
We need to support our teachers in all ways, every way, showing our gratitude and appreciation for all that they do — for our children, for their future and humanity. Thank you teachers!
Melanie Cochrane
Squamish
