We Demand Respect!

February 23, 2010
Dear Editor,

We Demand Respect! Kindly allow me a space in your newspaper and please print this letter. I was not at all surprised to listen how the Minister of Education vilified, ridiculed and called the teachers of this nation ignorant during the House meeting last week Friday! Neither was I flabbergasted when yet another Minister, member of this incompetent Cabinet, appeared on a television morning show trying to instruct us on the meaning of words. This time it is the Minister of Education who is telling us teachers that we are not only ignorant but perhaps we do not know how to use a dictionary. Belizeans, I could not in my wildest dreams …imagine this possibility three years ago! As if that was not bad enough the Minister of Education, in one his presentations at the House last week Friday, stated, among other things, that our teachers lack deportment in the class room and it is common practice to exhibit their underwear (panties) making their students very uncomfortable. What is wrong with this charlatan? Does he like to hear himself so much that he has lost respect for the very professionals he professes to love? Or has his ambition clouded his thoughts? How can teachers and Belizeans allow the Minister of Education, now wannabe Prime Minister, to get away with this type of talk? This chauvinist lad ought to be reprimanded by his Prime Minister and sanctioned by his government. Perhaps, for the purpose of rehabilitation, the National Women’s Commission or WIN Belize ought to give the honorable Minister, at the very least, a one day crash course on politically correct and gender sensitive discourse. As teachers and developers of our nation’s most important resource, our children, we demand respect! Sincerely, __________________ Ernestina Martinez Teacher

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