Everyone on the government side disgraced themselves today, but I had no idea how gross the behaviour was. Jeremy Harrison, Doug Steele, Ken Francis, and Dustin Duncan literally never shut up. Francis and Steele just chat. They don't even pay attention, they just have loud... Yelling conversations about anything and everything. Duncan just yells every time another MLA speaks. Jeremy Harrison is just an outright jerk. Every time Carla Beck spoke he would just yell "Carla who?" Again and again. Christine Tell barely looked up from her phone.

I think the reason a lot of teachers are struggling, myself included, has nothing to do with the actual act of teaching.

It’s emotional energy.

The days have become so demanding. Kids need so much, much more than pre-pandemic. The supports are so thin, we have to be…/🧵 Everything to everyone. But we also have to be always on our game. Always positive, eager, constructive, professional, engaged, and more. So what happens to me, and every other teacher I know, is that you wind up with nothing left.

You spend all of your emotional energy at ….

Every now and then memories pop up from early in the pandemic. It feels like a lifetime ago. Trudeau was on tv in front of his house every day, growing out his beard. Moe was actually giving press conferences. And everybody was making sourdough. One story got missed. Short thread During that period, I was, at best, a tepid supporter of @ryanmeili . I didn't know him well enough to really have my mind made up. That period was chaotic, as we all remember. There were a lot of unknowns. Some were washing groceries. We were all learning immunology from...

Every first year teacher gets faced with a challenge that school never could've prepared you for. For me, it was when a student left to use the washroom, and came back in a panic. He told me he had been climbing on top of the stalls in the bathroom... and discovered a bomb. He said he looked in the ceiling tiles and found a metal case with a countdown. His face was ghost-white. I didn't take the time to ask WHY he had been climbing on top of the bathroom stalls, I just leapt into action. I grabbed a ladder, and looked...

So why is our government being so slow with the restrictions? It has nothing to do with anything they actually believe about covid, exponential growth, hospitalisations, or anything else. In Scott Moe's mind, there is only one priority: Blame. Short thread. You see, everybody knows what is coming with omicron. The media and doctors have made it pretty clear, as has Dr. Shahab. So why no restrictions? Because in Scott Moe's mind there are two options. The first option is what literally every province has taken.

I'm glad to see this getting attention. The government's response is...really something. I'd like to take a moment to break it down. Short thread...

https://twitter.com/ctvsaskatoon/status/1473397938336546819

This response is...a lot. About low per-student funding, the government basically says "we don't use a per-student funding model so it's not fair to compare."

They don't care that per-student funding is ACTUALLY that low. They're just upset that's how it's calculated.

I think some folks need a math lesson. Exponential growth means that small changes we make now make big difference later. We measure transmission of viruses with the reproduction rate, or "R". This is what an R value of 1 looks like. Every person who gets it gives it to one other person. The line stays flat, cases don't climb.

This interview is a piece of work. It's insulting. And it shows a total lack of reflection. Let's look at a few key quotes, shall we?

https://twitter.com/CBCSask/status/1472907166931632128

The total cases on Dec 20, 2021 were 13555. Today our total is 82208. Our ICUs are still under pressure from the fourth wave. Omicron is bearing down. This man does not live in reality.

Let me tell you a story about swimming pools and sandwiches. I promise that it has a point, and by the end of this you may have a better perspective on the reason why a wide range of social issues are so hard to solve. Join me for a thread. When I was much, much younger, one of my first jobs was working as a lifeguard. I cut my teeth teaching swimming lessons at the Sandra Schmirler in Regina. In a fairly privileged area. About three blocks from the house I grew up in.

So I have a bit of a theory about the next two months or so, how it's going to affect the deep divisions in SK and around the world, and where we all fit in. Omicron has changed things, and we need to be ready for what may come. Short thread. Canada, along with many other countries, has kept the kid gloves on for a lot of this pandemic. While Covid has been devastating, when compared to historical pandemics, we have gotten through reasonably well. For comparison, the Spanish flu killed 5-10x more people.

What's coming in Saskatchewan is the consequence of all of Scott Moe's choices up till now. He chose to keep things as unrestricted as possible, and to focus on the wishes of businesses, anti-maskers, and shallow political gains. He exhausted us all. He allowed our healthcare system to be overrun, and it still hasn't recovered in advance of the fifth wave. He's gaslit and mislead for almost two years now, and the crisis is about to worsen, and he's been telling us it's not that big a deal.

The Sask Party is broken. They aren’t even pretending to be functional at this point. They seek only to concentrate the power and wealth in this province into fewer and fewer hands. How did they come to be so broken? I have a theory, and it has to do with Greek Myth. A thread… The seeds of the development of the Sask Party came in the 1995 election. The PCs, under Bill Boyd, got crushed, taking 5 seats. The Liberals, under Linda Haverstock, took 9. The NDP looked unbeatable. The Liberals and PCs recognized this, and decided to join forces.

So, as you can probably imagine, I've been having a a lot more political conversations lately, which has led to me arguing with people with different views than mine. And I've learned a trick. Before engaging in an argument, try to get both parties to make a statement of belief. Conservatives especially, but not exclusively, take positions of opposition. Think about how they're obsessed with inflation right now, but are offering absolutely no ideas other than "inflation bad." So instead of engaging with their reaction, insist on a statement of belief.

I was talking politics with a friend yesterday and the idea of conservative vs. progressive came up, and I realized that most folks probably don't know the origins of those words, and knowing where the origins of these movements come from is helpful to understand them. (short 🧵) So after the First French Revolution, France was in a political flux. Napoleon rose to power, and then fell again. In the aftermath, different groups emerged. One group wanted to return to pre-revolution politics. They wanted to restore the deposed King Louis to the throne.

When I tell people I teach middle years, they usually react with a mix of shock and concern. But I love my job so much. Middle schoolers are the most creative people in the universe. At present the class has built an elaborate love story between an Optimus Prime action figure we found on the playground, and a dried-up gluestick. The tale of Optimus and Gluestick is a romance for the ages. They've even made it official, and wear rings. What people don't always understand is, those goofy moments are what sustain you as a teacher. It's the best.

Since the SP took power, education in this province has changed dramatically, but also quietly. Most of those changes have come about as a direct result of a massive erosion in funding. How’d it happen? How has the government convinced people this is okay? Join me for a thread… The SP took power in 2007. What did education funding look like then? Well, it was regional. School Boards set local property tax rates to meet local needs. The Sask Party had a huge problem with this. Because it meant that urban divisions had access to larger pools of funds.

So I wanted to talk a bit about the climate today, and how our government seems to have no interest at all in dealing with it. So I tried to read through the official climate plan, and…hoo boy. It’s a real piece of work. A thread. When you follow the link, you’re shown the single stupidest chart you’ll see in your entire life. Comparing a small province to the entire global population is intentionally misleading. You’re then treated to a video of Brad Wall talking about the plan.

saskatchewan.ca/government/new…

Since I've started talking more about politics, I've gotten a range of reactions. Some folks think I'm ridiculous for caring about electoral politics, and, fair enough. I used to agree. Then I got more involved in labour and saw how politics puts its stain on everything. Wanna bargain? The law governs what you can bargain about. Wanna strike? The law governs when, where, and how you can strike. Want a higher salary? The government decides how much food is on the table, then unions argue over scraps.

QP Time! Buckle up for a thread, friends! Meili rises first and asks about Moe’s hug an anti-vaxxer for Christmas campaign. Then asks about the modelling for Omicron. Merriman says the plan is status quo. So basically we’re just hoping for the best. No mention of modelling. QP: Meili asks about modelling again. And why the SHA leaders are leaving again. This may be my inexperience talking, but sometimes Meili asks like four questions at a time. Then we settle on asking about a public inquiry again.

I see tweets like this, and I get so frustrated. Because the person tweeting this knows exactly what they're doing. They're intentionally misunderstand to move the conversation from gun rights and safety, to talking about the tweet. It's cheap politics, and it works. Short thread These folks never play defence. They just say more and more extreme things. That way, instead of talking about gun safety, we talk about this weird pseudo-conflict that she basically made up. The idea of banning a band because they hold difference values from you? We all know...

The row with the Ag Producers get me thinking a bit about the way the Sask Party consults, or doesn't. And about how governments get out of touch. Let's talk about it. A thread... I started teaching in 2007. The year Brad Wall came into power. And oh boy did he make promises. Check out the attached summary of the 2007 election promises. Balanced budget requirement (abandoned), tying civil service increases to population...

Source: ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/cpsr…