TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK

This week was dedicated to the appreciation of teachers, and all they do daily to stimulate, educate, and inspire the future leaders of Belize. There were certainly many tributes to teachers enumerating the ways that they go above and beyond for the sake of their students and the enormous influence they exert in the formation of the next generation of Belizeans. The Belize National Teachers Union (BNTU) however, chose to mark Teacher Appreciation Week in a much different way. On April 13, 2023, Ruth Shoman was elected by an overwhelming majority of her peers as president-elect of the BNTU and was slated to take over in early July. It was supposed to be a smooth transition from one powerful woman to another, while President Elena Smith was this union’s first woman to serve as President, it was Ruth who served faithfully beside her. In fact, Sister Ruth has had a long and illustrious career both as an educator and as a union activist. She has been a teacher for over twenty years, she has not only been a union member and leader at the district level, but she has also been on the BNTU’s National Executive as the National Secretary since April 2017.

The natural expectations were that after serving the union and alongside the leadership she had earned her right to sit at the table. Sister Ruth did not inherit the right, there was no sense of entitlement because she had clawed tooth and nail and merited her place among her peers through hard and unrelenting work. Soon after her victory, some old news started to make the rounds again. To what vile purpose one can only speculate. However, we would like to point out that in the Guardian of October 13th, 2016, the same information was circulated. The rag in question asserted that atonement did not give one the moral authority to make “demands on accountability, transparency, and good governance.” It admonished Sister Ruth, “a good-looking Corozal lady/ teacher” and told her she “should be sitting at the back of her class with her mouth shut.”

At this juncture, it is evident that not much has changed at the Guardian or in the UDP as it relates to their views regarding women, women’s empowerment, discrimination, gender-based violence, harassment, and biases. The whole lot is still tone-deaf and have not realized that these barbaric attitudes have no place in the modern, bias-free society Belize yearns to become. Voters, especially young voters are less likely to be forgiving of this narrow-minded mess. Sister Ruth was welcomed to work as an active member of the union, to participate and lead at a district level, and then at the national level. Her credentials were never put into question, her work on behalf of and commitment to the union have been beyond reproach. Her application to be considered on the ballot for the presidency was approved, and she won convincingly because the membership gave her the mandate. There is no question of her abilities, her skill, or her commitment and they cannot kill her drive and laser focus, the easy way out is to kill her credibility and assassinate her character. It has happened time and again in the UDP, ask Lady Z when they came for her on her delivery bed, and ask Lady T how she was treated by her own. Sister Ruth’s crime is that she is a woman, a smart and independent woman at that, a woman from a rural area in a man’s world. She does not have the right familial ties or the right connections. She refuses to look pretty and to sit quietly in the corner. Sister Ruth asks uncomfortable questions; she demands answers and is not afraid of hard work. Sister Ruth still has a few more lessons to impart and we are definitely here for it.