MeVille
Gosh.
The Keef's skin sure is thin.
Because after months and months of deriding them he figures teachers should be all thankful and worshipful because of a one-off he has written in the BurnabyNow.
Thing is, it looks like most of the comments that the Keef is complaining about on the Twittmachine are actually pointing out something legitimately problematic (i.e. something that is neither credible nor established) with his BNow piece.
To wit:
...Last week's innocuously entitled Education Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 11) took an easy swipe at one vulnerability of B.C.'s teachers: their mysterious professional development days, which seem to have grown like untended weeds over the years...
Uh, actually...
No.
Because while in the Keef's conventional wisdom mind's eye Pro-D days may have 'seem(ed) to have grown like untended weeds over the years', they have not.
There are actually six such days per year and that number is mandated under the provincial school act.
How do we know this?
Because fine folks such as those that run school district 45 explicitly state it on their on their website:
...Under the School Act, British Columbia’s annual school calendar allows for six (6) non-instructional days for teachers to pursue continuous, career-long professional development.
One is a Provincial Professional Development Day, shared by all schools in the province. The other five dates are District Professional Development Days, which are established by each school district, in consultation with teachers, support staff and parents...
Perhaps if the Keef were to start actually, you know, start showing his work it might help.
______
Previous Keef Reports can be found...Here.
And if this one-off, which does contain some serious fact-based opinions, were to becom a real honest-to-goddess follow-up two- and/or three-off?...Well, maybe then the established tone of our highly credible, but truly idiotic, reports might just change....
.
6 comments:
You and others have pointed out this one-off type of journalism and how kieff and his inside buds run right back to take up the lieberals line. But this new Ed bill is not just about pro-d days.In a blog by Lizanne Foster in the Huff Post she points out that private companies will be able to data mine students personal and ed data. So take away teacher and students rights, slash budgets, postpone seismic upgrades for 15 or more years, increase private and religious schools and you have the agenda that I'm sure the "ledge boys" will eventually see as a good thing for B.C. I may be retired from teaching but I'm watching!
Dear Mr. Baldrey
British Columbia Teachers' Professional Development Days may number 6 per year but of their own volition they go the extra kilometer
This list of professional development conferences is provided as a service to members. The Federation does not necessarily endorse all the conferences, nor does it accept liability for errors or omissions in any of the information provided. Individuals planning to attend a conference should contact the sponsoring organization to confirm the dates and other details of registration. Conferences sponsored by the Federation's provincial specialist associations appear in boldface type throughout the calendar.
By the Month BCTF
By the Year BCTF
Keith Baldrey as I suggested before must be a very lonely person. It seems he's always writing something to gain attention. Maybe he's realized that more & more people just don't take him serious...and see him as on his way to wherever old & tired BC reporters go when their time is up.
Guy in Victoria
Global Keith Baldrey Bio:
http://globalnews.ca/author/keith-baldrey/
Keef says, “Few parents have any idea what teachers actually do that constitutes ‘professional development’ when a Pro D day occurs (usually at the beginning or end of a week). But they are much more keenly aware of their own reality – if they have younger school-age children – of having to scramble to find proper child care with the classroom closed for the day.”
A credible journalist, if he believed most parents had no idea about the subject of his piece, would investigate and get the missing information for them. What exactly do they do on those mysterious days Keef?
Instead he parenthetically slips in what he snidely thinks is a shot about Pro D days occurring at the beginning or end of a week without realizing that it wouldn’t make sense to have the day in the middle of the week because it couldn’t then be leveraged into a longer seminar. He puts the term professional development in quotations, which can only imply that he believes it is really some other unspecified activity. And he says parents have to scramble to find child care as if these days are sprung on them randomly by surprise when in fact the Pro D dates are spelled out clearly in the school calendar at the beginning of the year.
I have searched his article and cannot find the defence of teachers he claims to have provided. Far from it. With defenders like Keef the teachers don’t need attackers.
For a guy that makes his living using words Keef sure has problems using them with any credibility. Maybe he should check to see whether there are any Pro D days for aspiring journalists.
Why does this guy always look like he has something stuck up has ass? Could it be his brain?
CGHZD
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