New Brunswick — In a recent CBC questionnaire sent out to educational professionals across the country, it was noted that the stress of COVID-19, including a lack of information, constantly changing operational plans, and low-prioritization for vaccines have led many New Brunswick teachers to describe the past year as the hardest of their career.
Taking this news seriously, the provincial government has moved quickly to solve this problem with decisive action: they fired all of the teachers.
“When it comes to this plan, we’re not working from scratch,” Education Minister Dominic Cardy assured reporters. “For the past year, schools have been operating without psychologists, which has been working out great. One less thing on our plate. We’re now looking to that as a sort of pilot program for going fully teacher-free in the 2021-2022 school year.”
His new proposal suggests that students enter the school in the morning using a specially assigned keycard, both for security reasons and to prove that they are present. Once they enter their classroom, they will be divided into pre-selected groups. Each group will be automatically emailed a topic to discuss.
“It’s the time-tested Socratic method,” he said, excitedly. “Ironically, we’re also cutting Greek history from the curriculum. If I’m being honest, we’re going to have to cut a lot from the curriculum.”
But what will happen to the thousands of qualified teachers who will be newly unemployed?
“I don’t think people fully appreciate that we have a hiring crisis in New Brunswick,” said Cardy. “We have hundreds of vacant positions in service jobs across the province.”
Would there be any chance of new hires at these the schools in the meantime?
“We might assign a few roving adults, maybe PSWs, I dunno, to go from school to school to ensure the kids aren’t all fucking and killing one another,” he said. “But a teacher in every classroom? That just doesn’t sound realistic to me.”