Once again a stupid public remark by a BCTF leader puts teachers in a bad light And yet we continue to allow these clowns to represent us

I would like to provide a real life example why the general public has so little respect for the leadership of our union

I am a Twitter user I follow a number of people who are in positions of responsibility within the BC Educational community In this fashion I hope to be able to view educational issues from all sides My Twitter community includes people as diverse as our own local NVTA Vice-President Chris Miller WVan Superintendent Chris Kennedy Seycove Librarian Bryan Hughes Chris Harris President of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers Assrsquon and George Abbott BC Minister of Education

Over the last couple of days the Minister of Education Abbott has been visiting Districts and Schools on the North Coast including Haida Gwaii His Tweets have included reports of visits to Masset Secondary School and another elementary school in Queen Charlotte City Most of us would agree that such visitations are important parts of a Ministerrsquos duties We as educators would be the first to chastise any Minister who stayed cloistered in Victoria We would also expect elected officials to keep us abreast of what they are up to

On Tuesday night I received a Tweet from George Abbott announcing that he was having a turkey dinner with the Prince Rupert Board of Education (Hardly a political statement) That Tweet can be accessed by clicking of the Twitpic link below In response to Abbottrsquos message the following message was posted by Chris Harris

ChrisHarrisBC Chris Harris This a punchline georgeabbottbc Enjoying a turkey dinner with the Prince Rupert Board of Education bced bcpoli twitpiccom6o0mxy

(please note that this is a verbatim copy of Harrisrsquo message)

Now Chris is no ordinary Tom Dick or Harry making flip comments about remarks made by the Minister of Education He is the President of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers Association This just happens to be the second largest BCTF local in the Province As a President of a BCTF local Chris should recognize that what he says not only represents his personal opinion but reflects on every other teacher in the Province He is one of our leaders

I suppose the response ldquoThis is a punchlinerdquo was meant to be comical but it displays an ideological perspective such that nothing that a Liberal minister does is worthy of supportive comment It also reflects an immaturity or lack of understanding of the role of President of the Local Union I would expect classroom teachers to be less than fully aware of the impact that their public statements can have but a Local Union President

should measure his or her words carefully when making public comment Chris Harris may not understand it but his comment shows a profound disrespect for the Minister of Education that does none of us any good As a private individual Chris Harris has every right to think and say what he wants but on a Twitter account where he identifies himself as the President of VESTA such comments are counter productive It makes him and by association the rest of us look small minded and petty

We must remember as well that this comment is made in the midst of collective bargaining where 41 000 BCTF members are on strike I would think the last thing we wanted to do would be to further alienate a Minister who as reported by the BCTF has been amenable to ramping down the traditional anti-teacher rhetoric of past Liberal Ministers of Education This is the very same Minister who had a warm welcome at last Springrsquos BCTF AGM and was lauded by President Lambert as being a breath of fresh air in the educational dialogue

Our leaders need to learn that when they speak they represent all of us Their days of snappy ideological retorts need to be put behind them