Do you remember the frozen veggies with the Lima beans in
them?
I hope they’ve long since removed that horrible product
from the shelves since Lima beans are one of the worst foods known to humanity.
But for some reason back in the 80’s, Canadian food providers decided that
the Lima was a perfect addition to frozen, processed, chopped up corn, peas,
and carrots.
I can remember sitting at the dinner table, staring at those
horrible beans, deciding that anything was better than trying to eat them so I
would try to wait out my parents.
They would take away dessert.
I wasn’t eating those beans.
They would threaten that I would be kept inside for the
night.
Still I was not going to eat those awful things.
I would go to bed angry, bored and a little hungry, but at
least I didn’t have to eat those stinking lima beans.
Then I would wake up the next morning and waiting for me at
the table was cold Lima bean veggie mix.
Check mate Mom and Dad.
Stubborn waiting turned out to be much much worse than simply
eating the Lima beans when they were first offered to me. I wouldn’t have enjoyed them, but it would have been over. Stubbornness rarely affords us anything beneficial. We dig
our heels in, but routinely still have to take our medicine. It’s just later
and usually in a less desirable position than when it was first offered to us.
The stalemate between the Ontario teachers and the
government is currently a Lima bean standoff of epic proportions. The government
seems to be offering something the teachers have no interest in swallowing. At this point, teachers might actually choose to eat a Lima bean over accepting a deal that assures
class sizes would be too large to effectively teach and manage, or allow for supervisions and extra curriculars to become mandated. Yet at the same time, the government seems to be saying I wish
we could afford to offer a more quality meal, but Lima bean mix is what we can
afford. Any parent that could have regularly given their family fresh cooked veggies would have, but time and money didn't allow for it. There are thousands of young teachers with creative ideas and tonnes of
energy that are currently unemployed, desperate for a chance to work. But the
bucket of money the government is currently using for education doesn’t allow
for smaller classes and more hires.
Eat the beans guys.
No way - those beans are horrible.
I think any logical person can see the reason for the
standoff. But why on earth are we waiting for September to get to the
bargaining table? Why are there news reports in May and July saying that a
strike is forthcoming in September? People, we have 50+ days to negotiate, to try to find a way
to make the beans edible. A way to make the numbers work for both sides. But
instead, grownup intelligent people are simply going to wait for a strike
before we get down to serious negotiations?
Regardless of what side of the you fall on, there doesn’t
seem to be any logical reason to wait for a strike to talk.
Unless the strike is manipulative way for a government to
meet a budget.
Unless students and families are going to be used as
bargaining pawns.
It’s going to become very difficult to trust the words of a
leader (union or government) that says they genuinely care about our kids
education, but then decides that it’s not even worth his or her time to negotiate
during the two months off school that summer affords them.
Listen, we all get it. There is a large gap between you.
Lima beans are terrible.
Don’t wait for breakfast and then have to suffer the same
consequence. Get back to that table please.
Our schools and our kids are worth it.
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