Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Thursday, September 11, 2014

B.C. Teachers' Strike: labourers of the intellect denied

In his landmark work, Democracy in America (1835), the French writer, thinker (and traveller) Alexis de Tocqueville explained that America did not hold high esteem for the “labours of the intellect”.[1] The same, I am afraid, can be said of British Columbia in the 21st century, particularly under the apparent leadership of Premier Christy Clark (and former Minister of Education), who, sad to say, did not complete an undergraduate degree.  Furthermore, Clark’s subordinate, B.C.’s current Minister of Education, Peter Fassbender, also has no formal education, save for a High School Diploma.
 
Perhaps today’s British Columbia’s Teacher’s Federation would be better off, along with B.C.’s parents, and their children, if someone of political authority in this province had a demonstrable history of intellectual achievement  – or at least appeared to read enough books on occasion to warrant the education portfolio.

Governments frequently go to excess in their agendas, but one can see curious parallels between former Premier Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark today.  Gordon Campbell saw himself as a legitimate champion of de-institutionalized (or ‘go it alone’) approaches to mental health (after having, at a later age, dealt with his father’s suicide).  So Riverview Hospital continued to downsize, and the Downtown East Side festered until it became a national eyesore.
 
Meanwhile Christy Clark (the daughter of an impecunious school teacher) sees her own legitimacy in battles with the BCTF (including an earlier strike) beginning a dozen years ago.  But today’s ‘intellectual labour’ stoppage is now more than a provincial embarrassment.  Students, parents – and teachers - are betrayed by irresponsible (and unyielding) government, which refuses arbitration or even to sit, while the Premier continues efforts to save face from B.C. Supreme Court rulings with a reductio ad absurdum: save money – at all costs.
 
This mantra, borrowed from the Harper Neo-Conservatives, who are well known for both their rampant anti-intellectualism and puritanism, is now ingrained in taxpayer consciousness across the land.  Clark is also capitalizing on Prime Minister Harper’s disrespect for the rule of law and its independence, for example when he publicly impugned the integrity of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a Canadian precedent, thereby planting seeds in our minds of the partiality of our judiciary.

As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for, but you will also pay if you don’t get it, particularly when it comes to education.  You cannot teach the joy of intellectual labour in an environment when those in charge of the system abuse the public– and I am referring, this time, to the rather uninspired political leadership in B.C..



[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America and Two Essays on America, tr. Gerald E. Bevan, intro by Isaac Kramnick (Toronto: Penguin, 2003), p. 65.

No comments:

Post a Comment