What the heck is wrong with these people?
Is the air there that deprived of oxygen or something?
Good grief.
Now this is a slow motion train wreck.

"Fox and chicken coop" may be a good starting point for this debate. No regrets in leaving this hopeless situation 40 years ago.

First of all, I hope my opinion won't be lost in the white noise of liberal-bashing that usually dominates these threads.

That said, the left does seem to often be either willingly or blindly ignorant of human nature itself. Their absurd revulsion to punishing criminals is ample evidence of that.
And watch almost any parent in public with an unruly child and chances are you'll witness them NEGOTIATING with the kid. One of the key responsibilities of any parent is to teach their kids to accept the directive "NO". It helps reenforce character traits ranging from patience to self-confidence to self-reliance.

As much as we like to claim to be free, answering to higher authorities is an important part of a functioning society.

To fool children into believing they are entering a world where they are always empowered is stupid and dangerous. IMO, they are 'breeding' a generation of citizens who will expect things are due to them. No sacrifices, no need to compete.

A generation of followers.

My daughters will slaughter them in the real world.

Well, there goes "the neighbourhood."

When you get to this point--or the point, as we have here, of putting police officers in our schools--it's a complete capitulation to and admission of abject failure.

When the adults refuse to be adults--which means making difficult decisions and being accountable--and ask children to make adult decisions, it's game over.

Good Lord, deliver us.

Canadian Observer, I appreciate what you've said. You're right. However, as for your statement "My daughters will slaughter them in the real world," I'm afraid you don't quite get it: There won't be a "real world." There already isn't a real world.

The entitled brats are, as I write, on the rampage: just try to get ANY kind of service ANYWHERE. If you make any criticism at all of the way you're NOT being served (SERVED?? What's THAT?), these spoiled autonomons who've been pandered to and empowered to be brats begin to drip with contempt and become petulent and "offended."

It's time to head for the hills, the only problem being: Where would they be?

Let me be a little more specific, Canadian Observer, about what I mean.

When your daughters discover that their boss is one of the spoiled, entitled, me-only, empowered to do what s/he wants, when s/he wants type, their common sense and their being responsible and accountable will not be appreciated. In fact, when they expect accountability from their boss or anyone in that work environment, they will be deeply resented.

If you are an adult in a work environment which has been infantalized, you find that you are a complete fish out of water--and, as Leonard Cohen has so succinctly put it, things begin to slide in all directions ... because ... there's nothing you can measure anymore ... (The Future)

Being an adult in a playpen is tough.

The inmates are being empowered to critique and run the asylum.

It will be interesting to see which group wins in the end, the student's union or the teacher's union.

Did we try this in the late 60s or early 70s? I don't seem to remember hearing of any success stories from those experiments.

"Did we try this in the late 60s or early 70s?"

I remember trying this on with teachers and administration in those days. Fortunately, adults were in charge and they gave respect and consideration for our opinions, but didn't yield on anything important, thankfully. Unfortunately, the adults aren't in charge now; just put your trust in the baroness, who likely doesn't have any kids in those schools.

oz, it would seem we are not in kansas anymore.

“Meanwhile Dr John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, representing thousands of secondary heads, said: 'This is crazy.

“'I'm a strong supporter of pupil voice but schools are increasingly consulting pupils because they think it is the right thing, not because Government tells them to.

“'I am furious that yet another in this continual stream of legal and educational duties is being placed on schools.

“'They all bring unintended [but not unforeseen] consequences.'”

I altogether agree with Dr. Dunford, batb, and the other commenters here. The public education system in this country has already dumbed down about as much as possible. The responsible, professional teacher is treated like a serf (the less responsible one, too, but this kind of teacher is complicit in the dirty game): the students and their parents—usually the worst of the lot—already have the upper hand. To cover the mess, schools pile on more and more anti-bullying programs and behaviour codes: the only problem is that there are almost never any serious consequences for the kids. The inmates are truly running the asylum.

The teachers? Try disciplining an unruly, rude, entitled student: he complains to Mom. Mom complains to administration. Administration hauls in the teacher and gives him/her the third degree. Teachers are cowed and humiliated—the better they do their job, the more likely they are to be targeted. Really. Over the past 15 years, I can count only one teacher I know who’s stayed on until 65 (with optimum pension): most get out as soon as they can. The ones still in the system, for self-preservation—why put oneself in humiliation’s way, to what end?—often turn a blind eye to student insubordination and entitlement—or just deal with it themselves as best they can. (When push comes to shove, the students win far too often.)

What about the unions? Big problems here. First of all, the unions are full of lefties whose deficient and unintelligent brains are in magic thinking mode. Also, I’ve found that most union reps want to become administrators: conflict of interest here: they altogether soft pedal teacher complaints against bullying administrators (who might, later on, be interviewing them for an admin. position)—and “bullying” is what they’re now required to be.

Principals and VPs, who make huge salaries and are generally left wing apparatchiks, a few bricks short of a load in the conscience department, are “agents” (more like enforcers) of the ministry and boards: they are now middle management, whose job it is to turn policy into practice—no matter how looney toon and counter productive: think Dunford’s “unintended consequences”. Parents and students are considered “clients” and are pandered to at every turn. No requirement of the teacher is considered too much. As a result, the burden on teachers has expanded exponentially in the last decade or so. (They go to endless meetings, complete endless amounts of paperwork, deal with changing curriculum and technology requirements at a dizzying speed, and get no respect.)

No one in the ministry, board, or administration appears to inventory all the demands: once the bucket of water (teacher responsibility and workload) is full, one cannot keep throwing in boulders—without letting out some of the water already there. The unions have barely addressed this huge problem. Teachers are burned out and exhausted—also dispirited, knowing they’ll be thrown to the dogs at the first sign of a teacher/pupil conflict. The politics of teaching these days pretty well guarantee that the teacher CANNOT do his/her best. The system punishes those who try.

batb describes the consequences for our society very well. We’re rearing angry, spoiled brats in adult bodies: a very dangerous combination. Imagine one of them being your boss, financial advisor, doctor, lawyer, caregiver, etc. Excellence in performance and personal responsibility are not their strong suit. Entitlement is. Help.

You don't ask children to deal with adult issues. There is a reason why. Children do not have the maturity or life experience to make sound judgements. These new age, touchy-feely ideas are nuts.

"If you are an adult in a work environment which has been infantalized, "

As someone who works a lot in the post secondary school system with professors, I know what you mean.

Dear Luftwaffe: come back, all is forgiven

Excellent posts BATB and lookout from the trenches where you see the resulting disaster of our lefty, feel-good policies.

This week's Macleans on universities has their critique on what type of student they are receiving and it is not good. The universities are having to implement remedial math, science and English courses as the students are so poor in those subjects. University is the first time for a great percentage of students that they are faced with failure, something unknown to them. As we have seen in earlier threads students expect a B just for making an effort!

Macleans also pointed out that skewed results for Canada's position on educational achievement is at the 15 year old level and not at the end of high school where these standards blatently fail. Kids can and do drop the hard subjects like maths and science just to obtain a high average for university entrance requirements. Chinese or Indian students expect and receive maths and science all through high school and work hard at them as just part of the school curriculm.

Universities here as well as the UK are complaining they can't trust the high school marking system as it is far too easy resulting in students having averages in the 80% and falling on their faces and failing in university. Being part of the educational food chain if universities weaken their standards as it appears they might we will be in serious trouble with the global challenge for future industry.

Again as many of you have noted before these graduates in the soft subjects become the growing lefty government bureaucrats that perpetuate this downward slide of interference and further weakening of our schools and the society that receives these students. Isn't the bail-out plans for CAW and other sectors just part of this its-not-your-fault-if-you-fail scenerio?

Well Canadian Observer - welcom to the white noise world of liberal bashing. Now wasn't that fun? We bash liberals with good reason. This is just one of them. Liberal bashing could be a full-time job because there are so many reasons to bash them. In fact it is a full-time job for some.

You menioned their aversion to punish criminals. Our society is often unnecessarily put at great risk because of decisions by bleeding hearts. Just look at the release to a half-way house of the child killer/rapist Smeltzer. Social architects pervade the Human Rights commissions of our country. I could go on and on but I do have a day job. Suffice to say that sitting in a circle with a bunch of liberals and singing Cum-ba-ya is not about to happen with me. I care way too much about my children and grandchildren.

Dave

My father is a Biology prof at UWO who is convinced that High Schools are sending him illiterates. He estimates that at least 2/3rds of students he gets (and remember, he's in the SCIENCES, not humanities) have no business being in university.

The best provincial high school results are in AB where they axed the school boards. I'll never forgive Mike Harris for folding when it came to keeping his promise to do the same here in Ontario. First off, having two boards in every village (public and catholic) is like the bank having a head office in every village. They'd be bankrupt. There is no reason why there should be countless educrats with nothing better to do than dream up new schemes to "improve" education - at vast public expense. These are the twits who come up with the foolishness we're discussing here. They cost a fortune at a time when the schools can't afford textbooks (although finding money fore "smart boards" is apparently not an issue - nice priorities these educrats have...) Every useless, highly paid, clock-watching deadbeat at the board is money taken out of the classroom where the funding is supposed to go.

We also have to give disciplinary power back to the teachers (which also means axing bad teachers - union be damned) and ensuring the principals back them up. My wife is a teacher who has two main issues with the system: Bad teachers who are unorganized, lazy and stupid, and bad principals who are too cowardly to stand up to bad parents.

Children need consequences to behave. Period. They also need to learn how to fail. They need to be able to fall on their arse, accept that they need to get back up and try again and get on with it. Otherwise, we're training lazy, whiny and useless twits who will have no chance at success outside of menial government work (or prison.) Children REQUIRE direction, restraint and boundaries. Children are happy and well adjusted when they know their limits and have authority figures who care enough to ensure their taken care of.

As for the UK, when the hell do they have to call and election again?

I kinda feel sorry for teachers since they have to deal with students, parents, the union, supervisors, bureaucrats and education experts. Middle management is always the worst place to be in any workplace. You couldn't pay most people enough to put up with the nonsense they endure.

OTOH, teachers were active participants in the decay of their profession. They allowed the union to become political. They voted in leadership that sold the teachers to the left. It is a little rich for the teachers to now quibble over the price. They certainly were more than happy to accommodate their masters when they were getting more days off and increased pay.

The only real victims are the students. I assume that all of this consultation business will be taken away from real learning time. These initiatives are just disruptive distractions created by bored meeting-aholics.

This somewhat reminds me of one of our workplace programs designed to empower the employees. Endless questionnaires, meetings and updates that accomplished nothing for the workers. It only justified the hiring of a legion of extra head office staff and "borrowing" of workers from operation/maintenance departments. HR departments and unions are a curse to any organization.

And we have busybodies like CSPI and PCRM and others of the food police who want to do the same here in ameerica just contact the CENTER of CONSUMER FREEDOM and find out

These observations and input are to follow completion of "Social Responsibility" and Marxism 101????

lynh,

"They voted in leadership that sold the teachers to the left.'

We all on this board voted in elections where the liberals won. Does that make it our fault? Or do you think that the fact that many teachers voted against a lot of that union crap should be taken into account? If ALL teachers are responsible for their union, than ALL voters are responsible every time the liberals or ndp come to power. Do you want to eat that?

Warwick,
In the political elections we hear dissenting voices. We see the divisions on the electoral map. We hear opposition and protest over government programs.

Yet rarely, if ever, have I heard the teachers publicly voicing concern over what is happening in the schools. The votes for union leadership and strike action are also much higher than what you find in elections. There does not seem to be much robust opposition among their ranks. As I said they are willing participants, even if it is through their silence. To me this is evidence of their complicity.

lynnh

The lack of dissention is a reflection of the jack-booted thuggery of the unions - not agreement. Do you know what happens in a union shop if you go against the union?

Then I guess they only have their own cowardice to blame.

BTW, I did belong to a militant union in a government owned workplace. I was also a bit of a sh*t disturber. I had no problem making my concerns known to both the union head honcho and upper management all the way to the CEO. I fully understand the risks of going against the grain. But in my mind it is necessary if you want maintain your personal integrity and professional credibility.

lynnh

where do you work now? exactly.

Since no one believes an 8 year old has anything useful to say on any subject other than possibly Lego, one must assume an ulterior motive for this policy.

Frantic effort to hide abject failure of the entire government education system with smoke and mirrors? Retarded Leftists scrambling to change the subject before they get punted out of their comfy sinecures? Talentless hacks desperate to save their miserable public sector jobs because they know they'll never work outside the sheltered workshop of Big Education? Big f-ing cracks appearing in the facade of Labour Party education policy under the strain of total economic meltdown?

All of the above?

Inquiring minds wanna know.

Think of the al-gories, izzy mays and lord of the fruit flies types and their effects on these little soon to be juvenile thugs, er self appointed minor aged social judges.
Children ruling over adults in school. *|*

They do treat their pets better, it's true. I suspect that Rx companies will be doing well over there in the coming years, as the children chant 'drug the unbelievers'.

Warwick
I choose to leave to raise my kids...but whatever makes you feel better dude.

lynnh

Good on you for raising your kids. That obviously wasn't where I was going with my comment.

I'll put it another way: for all of your self-described sh*t disturbing, what did that get you? What did you change? What did you accomplish with that?

You fault good teachers for not banging their heads against the wall to fight an unwinnable fight instead of putting their heads down and doing the best they can with what they have to work with. I don't think your point is reasonable.

Blame the bad teachers for doing what they do. Blame the unions. Blame the government. Blame the boards. Blame the educrats. But don't blame those that didn't support them just because they lost the votes.

I think too many people are putting their heads down and that's the problem. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone took your advice?

According to your world view people like Ezra Levant or anyone else that bucks the system are also foolhardy. Sure you win some and you lose some but cowering under your desk with tape over your mouth is a cop out.

What I accomplished was to not sit there like a doormat and then complain about being victimized. I forced HO to be aware of the problems in the field. I also hoped I made it easier for other people to come forward and express their concerns. Most of all, I can look at myself in the mirror without feeling like a coward. A few teachers doing the same may find that they have more support than they think they do.

So many have spoken eloquently on this topic, it hardly seems necessary for me to add my view. Yet, being verbose and finding myself channeling Abe Simpson in my 6th decade, I just can't resist.

I was a high school math teacher and retired 2 years ago (Saskatchewan). I went through the major curriculum changes of the 80's where, among other reforms, we were introduced to the "adaptive dimension". This was basically a carte blanche to modify the curriculum (dumb it down) to serve those students who couldn't succeed with the regular curriculum. Don't get me wrong. I believe we should make efforts to meet the students needs and modify the course if it's a helpful thing to do. However, it often proved to be a lazy escape for both teachers and students. (You can't solve an equation? Poor you. Oh well. Just write a poem about it instead.) Instead of assisting, insisting, coaxing, and devoting resources towards student success, we invented cover-ups and lies so that we never had to admit that a student was not achieving very much. I went to my admin and stated that when I went into teaching, I had never thought I would be sanctioned to lie to my students--in fact that I would be REQUIRED to lie to my students. But according to the curriculum-makers at the Dept of Ed (now the Dept. of Learning in some 1984-ish Speak) that was now part of my job description.

Over the years it became obvious that the only way to cover up the colossal failure of these curriculum reforms was to fudge the results even more. So I'm not surprised that the universities are stunned when they find illiterates at their doors. We became so afraid to hurt a kid's feelings or even worse, harm his self-esteem that we became complicit in a tissue of lies. In reality what is worse for a kid's self-esteem than to lie to him about his achievements and have him discover years later, when it's too late to remediate anything, that he has nothing to offer the world except whining, incompetence and self-entitlement? What is there left to do except to enlarge that cloudy veil of protectionism and deceit and continue to carry this infantile, undeveloped being all the way to the grave telling him all the while that he's empowered and wonderful? Or what is sadder than a kid with a great deal of ability and potential, who has learned to be satisfied with mediocrity because that's all that was ever asked of him? Yes, I was part of that lousy system. You may criticize me for not changing it but in truth, there is nothing more unwieldy than a large, self-entrenched institution. The teachers are part of the tug-of-war between the politicians, educrats, parents, employers...in fact just about anybody has an opinion on the subject whether they know anything about it or not. If you're going to do the job at all, you have to ignore most of it or go mad. I held my ground where I could. I was as honest as it was possible to be but no, I never became an activist and I don't kid myself about what I accomplished and didn't accomplish.

Reverting to the topic, I would often consult my students about my class--asking them what was most helpful to them and how I could help them learn better. But I never defaulted on my role as the responsible person in my classroom. If I was responsible, I also needed the authority to carry out my duties. My job was to help them learn and to make the decisions that would make this possible. That was my expertise--that's what I had to offer. I'm not going to understate that teaching is a metier that requires a vast amount of expertise. I respected my work and I wanted to give the best I had--and that meant I didn't accept being treated like crap by anybody. I also respected my students and tried to treat them fairly and decently. Their job was to learn and to assist me and the other students to create the best possible conditions for learning for everyone. To their credit, most students fulfilled this partnership admirably.

Somebody has to be in charge. It's ridiculous to blur the boundaries to the extent that no-one understands what's going on. Depending on the age and maturity level of the student, she can be asked to participate in her own education and offer feedback and suggestions. That is beneficial to both parties. But to set schools up as some kind of Scholastic Idol, where teachers pander to the crowd is totally ridiculous.

I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal as teacher of the year. In fact, I was more of a drudge than an inspired educator, but the profession mattered to me. The kids mattered to me. And in so many ways, I feel as if we have all let them down very badly. And the kind of woolly-thinking espoused in this article just makes it worse.

So many have spoken eloquently on this topic, it hardly seems necessary for me to add my view. Yet, being verbose and finding myself channeling Abe Simpson in my 6th decade, I just can't resist.

I was a high school math teacher and retired 2 years ago (Saskatchewan). I went through the major curriculum changes of the 80's where, among other reforms, we were introduced to the "adaptive dimension". This was basically a carte blanche to modify the curriculum (dumb it down) to serve those students who couldn't succeed with the regular curriculum. Don't get me wrong. I believe we should make efforts to meet the students needs and modify the course if it's a helpful thing to do. However, it often proved to be a lazy escape for both teachers and students. (You can't solve an equation? Poor you. Oh well. Just write a poem about it instead.) Instead of assisting, insisting, coaxing, and devoting resources towards student success, we invented cover-ups and lies so that we never had to admit that a student was not achieving very much. I went to my admin and stated that when I went into teaching, I had never thought I would be sanctioned to lie to my students--in fact that I would be REQUIRED to lie to my students. But according to the curriculum-makers at the Dept of Ed (now the Dept. of Learning in some 1984-ish Speak) that was now part of my job description.

Over the years it became obvious that the only way to cover up the colossal failure of these curriculum reforms was to fudge the results even more. So I'm not surprised that the universities are stunned when they find illiterates at their doors. We became so afraid to hurt a kid's feelings or even worse, harm his self-esteem that we became complicit in a tissue of lies. In reality what is worse for a kid's self-esteem than to lie to him about his achievements and have him discover years later, when it's too late to remediate anything, that he has nothing to offer the world except whining, incompetence and self-entitlement? What is there left to do except to enlarge that cloudy veil of protectionism and deceit and continue to carry this infantile, undeveloped being all the way to the grave telling him all the while that he's empowered and wonderful? Or what is sadder than a kid with a great deal of ability and potential, who has learned to be satisfied with mediocrity because that's all that was ever asked of him? Yes, I was part of that lousy system. You may criticize me for not changing it but in truth, there is nothing more unwieldy than a large, self-entrenched institution. The teachers are part of the tug-of-war between the politicians, educrats, parents, employers...in fact just about anybody has an opinion on the subject whether they know anything about it or not. If you're going to do the job at all, you have to ignore most of it or go mad. I held my ground where I could. I was as honest as it was possible to be but no, I never became an activist and I don't kid myself about what I accomplished and didn't accomplish.

Reverting to the topic, I would often consult my students about my class--asking them what was most helpful to them and how I could help them learn better. But I never defaulted on my role as the responsible person in my classroom. If I was responsible, I also needed the authority to carry out my duties. My job was to help them learn and to make the decisions that would make this possible. That was my expertise--that's what I had to offer. I'm not going to understate that teaching is a metier that requires a vast amount of expertise. I respected my work and I wanted to give the best I had--and that meant I didn't accept being treated like crap by anybody. I also respected my students and tried to treat them fairly and decently. Their job was to learn and to assist me and the other students to create the best possible conditions for learning for everyone. To their credit, most students fulfilled this partnership admirably.

Somebody has to be in charge. It's ridiculous to blur the boundaries to the extent that no-one understands what's going on. Depending on the age and maturity level of the student, she can be asked to participate in her own education and offer feedback and suggestions. That is beneficial to both parties. But to set schools up as some kind of Scholastic Idol, where teachers pander to the crowd is totally ridiculous.

I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal as teacher of the year. In fact, I was more of a drudge than an inspired educator, but the profession mattered to me. The kids mattered to me. And in so many ways, I feel as if we have all let them down very badly. And the kind of woolly-thinking espoused in this article just makes it worse.

So many have spoken eloquently on this topic, it hardly seems necessary for me to add my view. Yet, being verbose and finding myself channeling Abe Simpson in my 6th decade, I just can't resist.

I was a high school math teacher and retired 2 years ago (Saskatchewan). I went through the major curriculum changes of the 80's where, among other reforms, we were introduced to the "adaptive dimension". This was basically a carte blanche to modify the curriculum (dumb it down) to serve those students who couldn't succeed with the regular curriculum. Don't get me wrong. I believe we should make efforts to meet the students needs and modify the course if it's a helpful thing to do. However, it often proved to be a lazy escape for both teachers and students. (You can't solve an equation? Poor you. Oh well. Just write a poem about it instead.) Instead of assisting, insisting, coaxing, and devoting resources towards student success, we invented cover-ups and lies so that we never had to admit that a student was not achieving very much. I went to my admin and stated that when I went into teaching, I had never thought I would be sanctioned to lie to my students--in fact that I would be REQUIRED to lie to my students. But according to the curriculum-makers at the Dept of Ed (now the Dept. of Learning in some 1984-ish Speak) that was now part of my job description.

Over the years it became obvious that the only way to cover up the colossal failure of these curriculum reforms was to fudge the results even more. So I'm not surprised that the universities are stunned when they find illiterates at their doors. We became so afraid to hurt a kid's feelings or even worse, harm his self-esteem that we became complicit in a tissue of lies. In reality what is worse for a kid's self-esteem than to lie to him about his achievements and have him discover years later, when it's too late to remediate anything, that he has nothing to offer the world except whining, incompetence and self-entitlement? What is there left to do except to enlarge that cloudy veil of protectionism and deceit and continue to carry this infantile, undeveloped being all the way to the grave telling him all the while that he's empowered and wonderful? Or what is sadder than a kid with a great deal of ability and potential, who has learned to be satisfied with mediocrity because that's all that was ever asked of him? Yes, I was part of that lousy system. You may criticize me for not changing it but in truth, there is nothing more unwieldy than a large, self-entrenched institution. The teachers are part of the tug-of-war between the politicians, educrats, parents, employers...in fact just about anybody has an opinion on the subject whether they know anything about it or not. If you're going to do the job at all, you have to ignore most of it or go mad. I held my ground where I could. I was as honest as it was possible to be but no, I never became an activist and I don't kid myself about what I accomplished and didn't accomplish.

Reverting to the topic, I would often consult my students about my class--asking them what was most helpful to them and how I could help them learn better. But I never defaulted on my role as the responsible person in my classroom. If I was responsible, I also needed the authority to carry out my duties. My job was to help them learn and to make the decisions that would make this possible. That was my expertise--that's what I had to offer. I'm not going to understate that teaching is a metier that requires a vast amount of expertise. I respected my work and I wanted to give the best I had--and that meant I didn't accept being treated like crap by anybody. I also respected my students and tried to treat them fairly and decently. Their job was to learn and to assist me and the other students to create the best possible conditions for learning for everyone. To their credit, most students fulfilled this partnership admirably.

Somebody has to be in charge. It's ridiculous to blur the boundaries to the extent that no-one understands what's going on. Depending on the age and maturity level of the student, she can be asked to participate in her own education and offer feedback and suggestions. That is beneficial to both parties. But to set schools up as some kind of Scholastic Idol, where teachers pander to the crowd is totally ridiculous.

I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal as teacher of the year. In fact, I was more of a drudge than an inspired educator, but the profession mattered to me. The kids mattered to me. And in so many ways, I feel as if we have all let them down very badly. And the kind of woolly-thinking espoused in this article just makes it worse.

I think too many people are putting their heads down and that's the problem. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone took your advice?

According to your world view people like Ezra Levant or anyone else that bucks the system are also foolhardy. Sure you win some and you lose some but cowering under your desk with tape over your mouth is a cop out. Losing the vote does not mean losing your voice.

What I accomplished was to not sit there like a doormat and then complain about being victimized. I forced HO to be aware of the problems in the field. I also hoped I made it easier for other people to come forward and express their concerns. Most of all, I can look at myself in the mirror without feeling like a coward. A few teachers doing the same may find that they have more support than they think they do.

In any case, I doubt Kate will be pleased with this little war of words. Since she is currently packing firearms, I vote for a cease fire.

So many have spoken eloquently on this topic, it hardly seems necessary for me to add my view. Yet, being verbose and finding myself channeling Abe Simpson in my 6th decade, I just can't resist.

I was a high school math teacher and retired 2 years ago (Saskatchewan). I went through the major curriculum changes of the 80's where, among other reforms, we were introduced to the "adaptive dimension". This was basically a carte blanche to modify the curriculum (dumb it down) to serve those students who couldn't succeed with the regular curriculum. Don't get me wrong. I believe we should make efforts to meet the students needs and modify the course if it's a helpful thing to do. However, it often proved to be a lazy escape for both teachers and students. (You can't solve an equation? Poor you. Oh well. Just write a poem about it instead.) Instead of assisting, insisting, coaxing, and devoting resources towards student success, we invented cover-ups and lies so that we never had to admit that a student was not achieving very much. I went to my admin and stated that when I went into teaching, I had never thought I would be sanctioned to lie to my students--in fact that I would be REQUIRED to lie to my students. But according to the curriculum-makers at the Dept of Ed (now the Dept. of Learning in some 1984-ish Speak) that was now part of my job description.

Over the years it became obvious that the only way to cover up the colossal failure of these curriculum reforms was to fudge the results even more. So I'm not surprised that the universities are stunned when they find illiterates at their doors. We became so afraid to hurt a kid's feelings or even worse, harm his self-esteem that we became complicit in a tissue of lies. In reality what is worse for a kid's self-esteem than to lie to him about his achievements and have him discover years later, when it's too late to remediate anything, that he has nothing to offer the world except whining, incompetence and self-entitlement? What is there left to do except to enlarge that cloudy veil of protectionism and deceit and continue to carry this infantile, undeveloped being all the way to the grave telling him all the while that he's empowered and wonderful? Or what is sadder than a kid with a great deal of ability and potential, who has learned to be satisfied with mediocrity because that's all that was ever asked of him? Yes, I was part of that lousy system. You may criticize me for not changing it but in truth, there is nothing more unwieldy than a large, self-entrenched institution. The teachers are part of the tug-of-war between the politicians, educrats, parents, employers...in fact just about anybody has an opinion on the subject whether they know anything about it or not. If you're going to do the job at all, you have to ignore most of it or go mad. I held my ground where I could. I was as honest as it was possible to be but no, I never became an activist and I don't kid myself about what I accomplished and didn't accomplish.

Reverting to the topic, I would often consult my students about my class--asking them what was most helpful to them and how I could help them learn better. But I never defaulted on my role as the responsible person in my classroom. If I was responsible, I also needed the authority to carry out my duties. My job was to help them learn and to make the decisions that would make this possible. That was my expertise--that's what I had to offer. I'm not going to understate that teaching is a metier that requires a vast amount of expertise. I respected my work and I wanted to give the best I had--and that meant I didn't accept being treated like crap by anybody. I also respected my students and tried to treat them fairly and decently. Their job was to learn and to assist me and the other students to create the best possible conditions for learning for everyone. To their credit, most students fulfilled this partnership admirably.

Somebody has to be in charge. It's ridiculous to blur the boundaries to the extent that no-one understands what's going on. Depending on the age and maturity level of the student, she can be asked to participate in her own education and offer feedback and suggestions. That is beneficial to both parties. But to set schools up as some kind of Scholastic Idol, where teachers pander to the crowd is totally ridiculous.

I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal as teacher of the year. In fact, I was more of a drudge than an inspired educator, but the profession mattered to me. The kids mattered to me. And in so many ways, I feel as if we have all let them down very badly. And the kind of woolly-thinking espoused in this article just makes it worse.

So many have spoken eloquently on this topic, it hardly seems necessary for me to add my view. Yet, being verbose and finding myself channeling Abe Simpson in my 6th decade, I just can't resist.

I was a high school math teacher and retired 2 years ago (Saskatchewan). I went through the major curriculum changes of the 80's where, among other reforms, we were introduced to the "adaptive dimension". This was basically a carte blanche to modify the curriculum (dumb it down) to serve those students who couldn't succeed with the regular curriculum. Don't get me wrong. I believe we should make efforts to meet the students needs and modify the course if it's a helpful thing to do. However, it often proved to be a lazy escape for both teachers and students. (You can't solve an equation? Poor you. Oh well. Just write a poem about it instead.) Instead of assisting, insisting, coaxing, and devoting resources towards student success, we invented cover-ups and lies so that we never had to admit that a student was not achieving very much. I went to my admin and stated that when I went into teaching, I had never thought I would be sanctioned to lie to my students--in fact that I would be REQUIRED to lie to my students. But according to the curriculum-makers at the Dept of Ed (now the Dept. of Learning in some 1984-ish Speak) that was now part of my job description.

Over the years it became obvious that the only way to cover up the colossal failure of these curriculum reforms was to fudge the results even more. So I'm not surprised that the universities are stunned when they find illiterates at their doors. We became so afraid to hurt a kid's feelings or even worse, harm his self-esteem that we became complicit in a tissue of lies. In reality what is worse for a kid's self-esteem than to lie to him about his achievements and have him discover years later, when it's too late to remediate anything, that he has nothing to offer the world except whining, incompetence and self-entitlement? What is there left to do except to enlarge that cloudy veil of protectionism and deceit and continue to carry this infantile, undeveloped being all the way to the grave telling him all the while that he's empowered and wonderful? Or what is sadder than a kid with a great deal of ability and potential, who has learned to be satisfied with mediocrity because that's all that was ever asked of him? Yes, I was part of that lousy system. You may criticize me for not changing it but in truth, there is nothing more unwieldy than a large, self-entrenched institution. The teachers are part of the tug-of-war between the politicians, educrats, parents, employers...in fact just about anybody has an opinion on the subject whether they know anything about it or not. If you're going to do the job at all, you have to ignore most of it or go mad. I held my ground where I could. I was as honest as it was possible to be but no, I never became an activist and I don't kid myself about what I accomplished and didn't accomplish.

Reverting to the topic, I would often consult my students about my class--asking them what was most helpful to them and how I could help them learn better. But I never defaulted on my role as the responsible person in my classroom. If I was responsible, I also needed the authority to carry out my duties. My job was to help them learn and to make the decisions that would make this possible. That was my expertise--that's what I had to offer. I'm not going to understate that teaching is a metier that requires a vast amount of expertise. I respected my work and I wanted to give the best I had--and that meant I didn't accept being treated like crap by anybody. I also respected my students and tried to treat them fairly and decently. Their job was to learn and to assist me and the other students to create the best possible conditions for learning for everyone. To their credit, most students fulfilled this partnership admirably.

Somebody has to be in charge. It's ridiculous to blur the boundaries to the extent that no-one understands what's going on. Depending on the age and maturity level of the student, she can be asked to participate in her own education and offer feedback and suggestions. That is beneficial to both parties. But to set schools up as some kind of Scholastic Idol, where teachers pander to the crowd is totally ridiculous.

I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal as teacher of the year. In fact, I was more of a drudge than an inspired educator, but the profession mattered to me. The kids mattered to me. And in so many ways, I feel as if we have all let them down very badly. And the kind of woolly-thinking espoused in this article just makes it worse.

Right on the money Phantom. The current Secretary of State for children, schools and families is the delightfully named Ed "so what" Balls. He is a horses arse not to put too fine a point on it. There are children who leave school in Britain with good A level passes who can barely read and write. My brother was a teacher in the UK and witnessed first hand how they manipulate exam results to make the schools look good. a rotten system that is like everything else in Britain swirling round the pan.

Rita - WOW. You must hold the record for hitting the "post" button more than once. Hit it just one time and wait. Gotta go thru the filter.

So many have spoken eloquently on this topic, it hardly seems necessary for me to add my view. Yet, being verbose and finding myself channeling Abe Simpson in my 6th decade, I just can't resist.

I was a high school math teacher and retired 2 years ago (Saskatchewan). I went through the major curriculum changes of the 80's where, among other reforms, we were introduced to the "adaptive dimension". This was basically a carte blanche to modify the curriculum (dumb it down) to serve those students who couldn't succeed with the regular curriculum. Don't get me wrong. I believe we should make efforts to meet the students needs and modify the course if it's a helpful thing to do. However, it often proved to be a lazy escape for both teachers and students. (You can't solve an equation? Poor you. Oh well. Just write a poem about it instead.) Instead of assisting, insisting, coaxing, and devoting resources towards student success, we invented cover-ups and lies so that we never had to admit that a student was not achieving very much. I went to my admin and stated that when I went into teaching, I had never thought I would be sanctioned to lie to my students--in fact that I would be REQUIRED to lie to my students. But according to the curriculum-makers at the Dept of Ed (now the Dept. of Learning in some 1984-ish Speak) that was now part of my job description.

Over the years it became obvious that the only way to cover up the colossal failure of these curriculum reforms was to fudge the results even more. So I'm not surprised that the universities are stunned when they find illiterates at their doors. We became so afraid to hurt a kid's feelings or even worse, harm his self-esteem that we became complicit in a tissue of lies. In reality what is worse for a kid's self-esteem than to lie to him about his achievements and have him discover years later, when it's too late to remediate anything, that he has nothing to offer the world except whining, incompetence and self-entitlement? What is there left to do except to enlarge that cloudy veil of protectionism and deceit and continue to carry this infantile, undeveloped being all the way to the grave telling him all the while that he's empowered and wonderful? Or what is sadder than a kid with a great deal of ability and potential, who has learned to be satisfied with mediocrity because that's all that was ever asked of him? Yes, I was part of that lousy system. You may criticize me for not changing it but in truth, there is nothing more unwieldy than a large, self-entrenched institution. The teachers are part of the tug-of-war between the politicians, educrats, parents, employers...in fact just about anybody has an opinion on the subject whether they know anything about it or not. If you're going to do the job at all, you have to ignore most of it or go mad. I held my ground where I could. I was as honest as it was possible to be but no, I never became an activist and I don't kid myself about what I accomplished and didn't accomplish.

Reverting to the topic, I would often consult my students about my class--asking them what was most helpful to them and how I could help them learn better. But I never defaulted on my role as the responsible person in my classroom. If I was responsible, I also needed the authority to carry out my duties. My job was to help them learn and to make the decisions that would make this possible. That was my expertise--that's what I had to offer. I'm not going to understate that teaching is a metier that requires a vast amount of expertise. I respected my work and I wanted to give the best I had--and that meant I didn't accept being treated like crap by anybody. I also respected my students and tried to treat them fairly and decently. Their job was to learn and to assist me and the other students to create the best possible conditions for learning for everyone. To their credit, most students fulfilled this partnership admirably.

Somebody has to be in charge. It's ridiculous to blur the boundaries to the extent that no-one understands what's going on. Depending on the age and maturity level of the student, she can be asked to participate in her own education and offer feedback and suggestions. That is beneficial to both parties. But to set schools up as some kind of Scholastic Idol, where teachers pander to the crowd is totally ridiculous.

I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal as teacher of the year. In fact, I was more of a drudge than an inspired educator, but the profession mattered to me. The kids mattered to me. And in so many ways, I feel as if we have all let them down very badly. And the kind of woolly-thinking espoused in this article just makes it worse.

I'm truly sorry for the multiple posts. It seemed to me as if my message wasn't uploading and I kept trying. I don't know what happened.

Sorry.

Thanks, rita, I really appreciate your comments. My experience mirrors yours very closely. lynnh, I hear you. I've called the public education systems "gulags", which they've become in the last two decades: you know what happens to those who step out of line in places like that. I used to speak out, but I had to stay on the job as main wage earner of my family. The consequences for speaking out--besides not changing anything--began to be quite serious and, as the job was more onerous by the second, no one had/has the stomach for making matters for themselves much worse.

Re the union: most teachers have no clue who the activists--all on the left: a conservative wouldn't last a minute--are who run for office. Remember, teaching is a very solitary profession: an adult in a room in one school with a group of kids most of the day, exhausted at the end of the day with--at least in the olden days--a family to care for. This culture doesn't lend itself well to teachers being politically active, except for no-family lefties, who fill the teacher union ranks. (However, I wondered why my friends, married to big wage earners, didn't risk speaking out: most of them retired early--and silently.) Honestly, teachers are a pretty conformist lot.

What I did do was teach well, respecting my students by setting a high standard and holding them to it. As the years went by, believe me, I had to be subversive to keep my standards high. By the end of my career, I was not ALLOWED to teach the program my kids needed: I was required to conform to the new—over and over again—unimproved curriculum. (I gave that administrator a very serious piece of my mind—and nearly failed my teacher appraisal, which I had to appeal, and lost my classroom. I “won”.) There were so many battles to fight and ridiculous rubrics to follow, teaching well got shoved into a corner. The teachers I know, who are still in the trenches, feel overwhelmed and underappreciated. They’re exhausted and dispirited. I’ve done some supply teaching. Their rooms are often unkempt and disorganized—and they’re working many times harder, to what end—than teachers used to. It’s really a bloody mess. Meanwhile, the administrators and other camp followers smile and cover up. I couldn’t stand being humiliated and trodden upon any more. I got out. Most teachers I know can’t wait to.

A decade ago, Melanie Phillips wrote a fine book about the wreck of the UK education system, called All Must Have Prizes. Read it and weep.

It's a pleasure and privilege to read posts by rita, lookout, and Warwick, who make it quite clear what good and dedicated teachers are having to deal with.

We need a critical mass of good folk to speak out, but it's not happening. I often share my views (I'm a recent teacher) with other teachers--usually in "a closet" somewhere--and discover that they feel the same way but seem to have no clue about how to address all the problems teachers and students face.

Parents who have never grown up are a HUGE part of the problem. And most of these parents are the first, second, or third wave of the spoiled, entitled, know-nothing-but-you-get-passed-anyway-so-as-not-to-ruffle-your-(unearned)-self-esteem generation.

The other part of the problem is the paid-extremely-well administrators who treat these parents as "clients" (right on, lookout). Now that Ontario has two school boards, public and Catholic, principals are loathe to have students pulled and sent to a school in the other board and so pander to the infantile, me-first, who-my-kid? parents.

Teachers are caught in the crossfire--and, yes, I agree, there are far too many teachers, lynnh, who simply put their heads down and keep collecting their pay cheque with benefits. Unfortunately, teachers who don't do this and speak up are punished in subtle and not-so-subtle ways and are often hung out to dry.

The unions are absolutely useless, as lookout points out. They're full of childless left-wing apparatchiks who have no idea of what children really need--like boundaries, clear expectations, high standards, NOT UN Rights of the Child sensibilities--and who continue to want to swath challenged kids in cotton batten so life won't be "so difficult" for them.

'Only problem is, when we wrap students from difficult home situations (often chosen by mothers who haven't bothered to marry their child's/children's father) in protective gear in the form of dumbed-down curriculum and expectations, we ghettoize them twice. When they have to function in the real world, they can't.

Then we all suffer.

We're in a crisis situation and, as per usual, too many Canadians are asleep at the wheel and are wimping out: Who me, dissent or stand up for what I REALLY believe?

Meh ...

I guess this discussion pretty much states that the public education system is broken beyond recovery. If it really can not be improved then maybe the best remedy is to accelerate its decline to the point where it is put out of its misery.

Another eccentric aristocrat letting the tail wag the dog. This is a complete recipe for disaster. Aunt Mamie squared. Only a brain dead Liberal or Socialist would think this sane or rational.
Its like Kate allowing her dogs a say if they could talk.
Where is the British backbone or even the marginally sane to stop this in its tracks?
England has become a human factory of sheep fleecing for users & mooches no matter the rank . Next the State will be processing them to death. People are food.

Watchiing what's happening in Britain these days is like watching your grandmother slowly go senile.
Pretty sad.
I think I need a drink...

lynnh, "broken beyond recovery" seems a pretty good description.

Someone once observed that one cannot turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. The system's so full of sow's ears--and turning out more by the minute--that, short of a miracle, I don't really see another conclusion from the one you're suggesting.

An outright invitation for the inmates to run the institution.

"Well Canadian Observer - welcom to the white noise world of liberal bashing. Now wasn't that fun? We bash liberals with good reason. This is just one of them. Liberal bashing could be a full-time job because there are so many reasons to bash them. In fact it is a full-time job for some."

Yes, I am sure. Almost at least half as many reasons to bash illogical dogmatists. Every opinion is up for debate.... Mine certainly has been transformed with a bit of cohesive logic.
You?

Aye, there's the rub. Both sides can be wrong, but who is amenable to common sense?

Answer: My side, whatever side I am.
82% of people think they are above average in smarts, talent, understanding....
The other 18% are NDP and wise men.

Why the Eff is there a "Minister of Children"?

I grew up in the UK quite happily without my very own government department.

How about a ...

Minister of Good Things?
Minister of Happiness?
Minister of Sleep?
Minister of Climate Change? ... oh, silly me, they already have that one as well.

Different Bob @9.36,

I agree. This is my take:

I am often accused, as are most conservatives, of being selfish, interested only in money and NOT CARING!!!

Well, I am of a Conservative outlook (of the Libertarian variety, personally) precisely because I Do Care about society. Otherwise, I would just take the money and run.

The prophet Roger Water predicted this one. "The Wall" has certainly been torn down.

RW - "I would just take the money and run." For me it stopped being about the money a long time ago. When it did stop being about the money it started being about "life". Life as we know it and how I want it to be for my children and grandchildren. As time went on and I got older and experienced life more I took greater notice and interest in how life was for other people in other parts of the world.

The world was becoming a more volatile and unsettled place. I compared how we lived in North American society to other places on our planet and became quite concerned about the militancy of certain groups and factions in certain countries. I, along with the world, witnessed outrageous acts of terror, although many would call those acts something else. I saw those terrorists bring their venom to my continent in a most startling and brutal way. Until they flew the airplanes into the buildings on that outrageous September day I didn't have a ferver for politics. I was "right" leaning and held a strong penchant for law and order. But THAT day changed everything for me.

Mikmik - it isn't about "opinion" for me. Its very much about "Ideology". I believe that my country's goodness and its gift to give to the rest of the world is based on the Judeo/Christian values that have guided it through its very difficult beginnings, sustained it as it grew and prospered only to see so many who have greatly benefited from it turn away from the promise of that gift. They embrase a phylosophy (note that I did not say "opinion") that, due to Canada's welcoming heart, allows peoples from all parts of the world to immigrate to our great land, not to assimilate into it, but rather to find the freedom of our free society to bring their radical and often destructive ideologies to the front. They will gladly use the freedoms of our society to bring forth their agenda which, in the end, will bring a brutal end to Canada's freedom for all. And, we have far too many 'liberals' who are more than willing to allow them to do that.

I do not have alot of patience for a "difference of opinion" on this or that. In the end it is not about a difference of opinion. It is alot about a difference in phylosophy.

Batb, I admire you for taking on this difficult task. I don't know if it helps but at least once a day, I would focus on one kid--not necessarily the best kid--just somebody pleasant, ordinary, silly perhaps, and young. I wouldn't make it obvious but I would rest my "eyes" on that kid and try to understand the hopes, fears, and dreams circling around in that mind.... It would help silence the "noise" from the shouting, clamoring hordes whose demands I would never be able to satisfy. I reminded myself that I was here for that kid and the one next to him and yes, the little jerk making rude signs when he thought I wasn't looking. I knew that while I was teaching, some career-building administrator was making himself look good on the basis of my hard work; some parent was blaming me for the fact his kid was failing the subject; some bean counter was cutting the instructional budget so the Director could get a fancy office; and some young teacher was being blackmailed into taking on a huge pile of extra-curricular duties in order to "earn" the privilege of having a job (who cared if he had the energy to do a decent job of teaching after a weekend of basketball tournaments and evenings supervising the drama club).

Teachers did, at one time speak up on professional matters. They were treated as if their expertise was an important resource. But that changed. Schools came to be seen as factories and those in charge were trained in management techniques more suitable for producing cars than developing good students. These administrators did not welcome views that were inconvenient and contradicted their own--and don't kid yourself. They had ways of dealing with teachers they didn't like. If they couldn't exactly fire you, they could re-assign you to a school or a job where you were bound to fail--or else have a nervous breakdown. One of the best teachers I ever knew was driven out of the profession because he happened to be outspoken on unpopular topics. The new breed of administrator became very interested in appearance rather than substance--so photo ops were organized to make the school look good. There were photos of travel clubs, conspicuous charities, grad ceremonies that rivaled the opening of the Olympics...yet all this time, students were learning less and less. However, PR was getting better and better. At a recent Awards Ceremony, one teacher commented that he had one of the only 5 students who didn't, in one way or another, make the honor roll. (But when everyone wins a prize--nobody cares because it doesn't mean anything so the Awards Ceremony became a sad joke.) There were mission statements (Success for Every Learner--that's the Mission Statement of the moment but it changes periodically to reflect declining expectations) and new stationery, T-shirts and WalMart-style rallies where staff was encouraged to consider themselves part of a "family" and to hug each other. It's just so condescending and so Big Brother.

Teachers actually are a fairly gullible bunch--and I say that with affection. They're nice, decent and they mean really well. But that makes them vulnerable to soft, fuzzy, ways of thinking. It also makes them really lousy at sticking up for themselves or dealing with confrontation. Hence, rather than becoming activists to change a lousy system, they hunker down and try even harder to make it work. When they get tired out, they tend to self-destruct or get bitter. It's either that or get pragmatic about your survival. There is a way to survive that lies between accepting crap and groveling, and waving banners and screaming. It's important to find a way to do the job without losing your mind or your self-respect.

I hope this venture in Britain goes the way of fox-hunting and other anachronisms. It's simply not good for the kids and it sure as heck isn't good for education.

We just had our civic elections on Saturday. Elected to the school board: recent past president of the Teachers' Assn., a local college instructor with impeccable NDP credentials, and a husband and wife team also active in local NDP politics.

The District Teachers Assn. and CUPE were both quick to express the 'progressive' direction the Board has taken, as they belive the new Board will assist them in shaking down the Prov. gov't for even more funding for their members.

Board politics. It's no longer about education outcomes, it's about control and vested interests.

My brilliant elder daughter attends the "TOPS" (talented offering for programs in science - worst acronym ever?) program at the Marc Garneau Institute in Toronto. She was one of 60 students from the GTA accepted out of the 2,000 that applied last year. Her school is co-located with one for regular students and she takes two classes (French and gym) with these non-TOPS ("Stops", her classmates call them) students. Her other classes - math, science, English, history and geography - are taken solely with the TOPS kids. (Last year, the graduating class of about 60 students earned a collective $1.3 million in scholarships, or an average of over $20k per kid.)

She is in Grade 9. In math, they are doing high order algebra, and are expected to begin calculus by year end. In science, she is studying the basics of quantum mechanics. She says most of the kids in her class are very bright, and things move along pretty quickly; things usually don't have to be explained more than twice.

However, the physical school is getting crowded. It is situated just south of the Ontario Science Centre, in an area known as "Flemingdon Park". FP is chock full of Ontario Housing high-rises, and many of the apartments are euphemistically referred to as "multi-family units" (i.e. 3 Somali families share a 3-bedroom flat). While many schools in Toronto are facing declining enrollments, her school is busting at the seams.

As well, given the number of kids applying, the Board is looking at expanding the program. One of the options is to move the program to a school that is relatively empty, such as Toronto's Central Technical. Central is easy to access by subway, has great facilities (including machine shops where budding inventors can get their hands dirty), and could accomodate a tripling of the program easily.

However, when the consultant hired by the board to examine options made his presentation to parents last week, his preferred and recommended option was to make the program more "community based"; that is, he wanted to expand it by shifting STOPS into the TOPS curriculum until they represented 50% of the students. Even my 14 year old daughter realized this was crazy. "Dad", she asked "How can they improve the program by filling it with stupid kids?". (Any question why I love her?)

I know there are many SDA readers who work on or near farms. I'm sure they are aware of the success rates of such practices as improving the overall health of the herd by integrating sick cows with healthy ones, or rejuvenating rotten apples by throwing them in a barrel with ripe ones. Apparently, this consultant is unaware of these empirical studies; I intend to educate him.

rita, everything you say is spot on. Thanks for sharing. Like you, I know many very fine teachers who have, literally, been forced out. Our professional opinions and decisions are now devalued and demeaned.

One high school math teacher explained to me why she ups failing grades to 50%: if the student has to repeat the course, the burden is on her, not the student, to improve. She has to make detailed "intervention" plans to which she is accountable, while no onus is placed on the student to even improve his attendance, let alone his work habits. A university prof friend, in her last year of teaching, received an exam paper with mere scribbles on it. She gave a 50% score, rather than be hauled into a time wasting, demeaning appeal, where the student’s “feelings”, not her expertise and experience, are given top priority, which is just what this British idiocy will accommodate.

KevinB, I feel so sorry for your daughter: a sane young person in an insane system. I hope the powers that be make some different decisions here, but don’t hold my breath . . .

Kevin, your story reminds me of a rather sad illustration I heard at one of the innumerable conventions I attended. Someone, describing modern education, said the proponents were those who would look out at a crowd of kids standing on a level football field. When they noticed that some kids were taller than the others they decided this was unfair because the shorter kids couldn't see over top the tall kids. So instead of building steps for the short kids, or giving them strategies to deal with being short, they dug trenches under the tall kids. That way, everyone was "equal".

One of the saddest things is when political or social ideology starts to infiltrate the classroom. Someone rules that all kids are equal then, everything is distorted to conform to that mindset. When that doesn't work, they start to play semantics (different but equal). I remember the "mastery learning" days. That system believed that if you cut learning down into very small bits all students could master anything--some students would just take longer. Teachers were not allowed to say (or even think) that some kids would never get it no matter how many times they repeated the stuff because some academic had statistically proved that every kid could master anything. As usual, there was something useful to be extracted from that method but it failed when it attempted to provide all the answers for all the students. And for those kids who were intelligent, the process was beyond stifling. The wise teacher did what all wise teachers do. He used the parts of that system that fitted his teaching style, adapted it to those students who could benefit from it, and didn't inflict it on those who learned better without it.

The invasion of your program by social engineers is a pretty natural consequence of the "different but equal" cadre. The notion that exposing kids with behavior and learning problems to the "better" kids will miraculously cure all their problems is just a thinly disguised type of envy and an ideological abhorrence of anything that could possibly smack of elitism. Any time some kids are singled out because they're "better" it is resented. In such a mindset, merit and ability have no place. I think you are right to suspect that the reason change is being proposed has nothing to do with the merits and abilities of the new candidates and everything to do with numbers. I would go even further and suggest that it's an opportunity for those people who disagree with any trace of elitism to knock down yet another despised pillar of privilege.

The unfortunate thing is that the so-called "STOPS" would benefit from good programs too--programs designed for their needs by people who expect a lot from the students and who aren't prepared to earn a PhD writing excuses for why these kids aren't succeeding. These kids won't do well in the TOPS program and I fear that the eventual solution will be to dig the trench under the more capable kids.

There have been well-publicized cases of parents threatening legal action when their child doesn't get services and instruction appropriate to its needs. I'm thinking of autistic kids or kids who require an attendant because of health concerns. I wonder if legal action on the part of parents whose kids are academically gifted might be one way to go. I know there is a bias in favor of universally bad education rather than designing programs that favor every level of ability, but perhaps with some parental pressure some of that could change. At the moment the only option parents have is to send their kids to private schools and most parents don't have the means. Also many private schools are bad in their own ways too--very often religion-based.

You people seem to represent all that is or rather was great in education and is heartening yet sad that there are real teachers still out there but diminishing rapidly.

Answer me this question please, why do all the teachers I know hate Mike Harris? When I point out all the things, like standardize testing, that he brought in that they as a teaching body didn't they bluster about we would have done it eventually. If there are many teachers like you why is there not a groundswell of support for those like a Harris who are willing to make these required tough changes.

Why can't teachers themselves, forget their stupid marxist brain-dead unions, see as you people do the incredible damage being done to the educational system? Why do they as a group support parties that will only perpetuate this disaster? How can this ship be turned around before it runs up on the rocks or do we have to do what that KGB propaganda officers stated, "we shoot them all!"?

Dave, I wish I had a good answer for you. Saskatchewan is a bit different from Ontario, but some of the same situations apply I'm sure. OK. Standardized testing. On the surface, it might seem a no-brainer. Who wouldn't want to measure how well all students are scoring on basics? Education is expensive and if kids aren't learning, then we should know about it and try to fix it. However, when the scores are compiled, blame starts to diffuse like a bad odor. Why did that school do so badly? Why did this teacher's students do so poorly? It's possible that the answer is simple: it's a lousy school or a lousy teacher. But mostly, these end up being the scapegoat for more complicated problems. Maybe the teacher is trying to carry out the politically correct agenda imposed on him by the government (for example to make sure the cultural component is well-represented in his lessons whether it's appropriate or not). Or maybe she has one or two very high maintenance kids in the class (there was a time when teachers were asked to provide services such as insulin injections or take an incontinent young adult to the bathroom). Maybe drugged or violent kids are disruptive and the teacher isn't given enough support or backup. Or else a judge has sentenced a young criminal to "school". Or perhaps a school has many immigrant students who can't speak English. It all sounds like excuses but there are reasons (apart from incompetent teachers or lousy administration) why kids and schools don't do well.

Perhaps teachers were being paranoid but after being bashed for all sorts of things, they were unwilling to participate in activities that they suspected would simply provide more ammunition against them. I think teachers dropped the ball by resisting any form of standardized testing. What they should have done is participate from the beginning and make sure their expertise helped guide the process so that it would be useful to everyone and didn't end up being some sort of witch hunt. In this, I agree that the teacher organizations failed their members.

Thanks Rita, as I asked in my post why do teachers continue to support political parties that refuse to correct the problems in education? Teacher's unions work collectively to defeat any polititian like Dave Johnson, Harris' Education Minister, that attempt to fix the problems and continue to maintain the status quo of a bloated educracy.

As Moira MacDonald, the Sun's eductation critic, reaffirmed in today's paper that elementary teachers maximum will be 94k at the end of this contract. An astounding sum for an ever-increasingly poor product.

I think there is a parallel with the unionized car industry in ever increasing wages and benefits with a poorer product. In the case of the car industry the market will dictate their future and at the very least these high priced union jobs will be slashed to the bone. Sadly the crappy product being turned out by our public unions is our future as a province and country and the gravy train will only be stopped by an economic collapse, which will not be pretty.

Dave, you can bet dollars to donuts the Union boss's will not be harmed by any collapse. They just move on to new hunting territory, predatory bums that that they are.. In fact its probable the reason why Canada is so left wing is the Communists who openly run them, including Education. Dewey the architect of the modern system of Education was a raving Socialist to begin with. He was well known as a race monger & into eugenics, like Planned Parenthood founder Sayers.
If you want to see why modern education is a nightmare, look these people up as the causation.

Dave, teachers are sheep—as rita says, nice ones—but they're sheep. They were told that Harris was a meany and they believed it. (Teachers are not very politically aware.) I do not blame Harris for everything—not by a long shot—but, unwittingly, his educational policies were lousy and Ontario’s paying a steep price. (His well known disdain for teachers and his attempts to punish their unions and them have had deleterious effects all ’round.) I voted for Harris before and after the changes—and kept my mouth shut at school.

So, what did he do that isn’t working? For one, Administration:

1) Harris removed the administrators from the union: that’s made them “management” and the teachers the “workers”: the trust and cooperation between the two groups is at an all time low, with the teachers under the gun of far too many really mean spirited (and exorbitantly paid) dictators.

2) Administrators have also been given huge powers over teachers, with no in-system mechanism for teachers to get their concerns passed up the line.

3) Harris made administrators the CEOs of the system, thinking, I guess, that the calibre of person who’d have these positions would merit such power. Has anyone here met the principals and VPs out there? Many, if not most, are intellectual and moral pygmies: power hungry sycophants too. That Harris empowered such deficient toadies is, I think, the opposite of what he’d hoped for. Unintended consequences, indeed . . .

4) These administrators are also completely beholden to the Ministry and the boards under its auspices: administrators—they have no union—MUST do what they’re told. The Ministry of Education is packed with know-nothing bureaucrats: not a real teacher among them, I’d say. These people now thoroughly run—into the ground—education in Ontario. Harris’s “innovations” have pretty well cut out the input of real teachers, who toil in the classrooms, far from the cushy conferences and lunches the ministry types enjoy.

The problems of this system are huge and now, thanks to Harris, systemic.

Secondly, Harris amalgamated boards, especially, the five legacy boards of Toronto.

1) The legacy Toronto Board was a hot bed of NDP ideology and sexual politics. The other four were more conservative and actually took “education” seriously. Unintended consequences: the amalgamated board has been thoroughly politicized and far more mirrors the politically left-wing legacy Toronto board than any of the others.

2) Accountability in such a gigantic board has gone by the wayside. The political skulduggery going on, at the expense of teachers and their students, is staggering. But no one knows who anyone is anymore and the lines of command are obscure: what a fine climate for arbitrary measures and dumbing down—at huge cost.

3) Harris’s amalgamations haven’t saved a penny: in fact, far more is being spent on far less re human capital and sound educational outcomes.

And, Dave, I’m not a knee-jerk anti-Harris type! (Psst, ironically . . . as a c[C]onservative, I’ve given here many more criticisms than the knee-jerk, anti-Harris teacher could begin to.) Being a politician, Harris put in place a lot of ill considered educational policies, which are having the opposite effect to those he intended . . .

Dave, I can try to answer your question but likely I won't succeed. I never voted left in my life. I expect that many of my colleagues don't either. However, the organizations we belong to are definitely on the left. They also claim to speak for us but they don't. It's true that teachers tend to do better in settling salary and benefit contracts with left governments than with conservative ones (though under Romanow's NDP that wasn't true) so self-interest does play a part.

I'm not from Ontario but if I recall, under the Harris gov't many cutbacks were instituted that affected teacher jobs and working conditions. So even if there were reforms that might have ultimately been of benefit, teachers would have been more worried about their jobs than reform. I'd need to look into it more, but I think Harris was pretty heavy-handed in his treatment of teachers. Teachers felt they were being made a target and treated unfairly.

Over night a whole slew of other Harris nightmares percolated to the surface of my brain—and remember, I’m a teacher who always voted for his Conservatives!

The main problem is the top-down, paternalistic (maternalistic?) system he entrenched: he went with the idea that the Ministry, with its politically correct (did he ever factor that in?), cumbersome, bloated, far-from-the-classroom bureaucracy knows best. The fact that teacher input was shoved aside—in the smaller boards, before Harris, teachers with experience and initiative were actually listened to and treated as an important part of the team—has had very negative consequences. Teachers’ on-the-ground ideas were even regularly incorporated in policy. Harris hugely distrusted and disdained teachers (with some justification), but, to mix my metaphors, he threw out the baby with the bathwater and put all his eggs in the bureaucratic basket—a mistake of huge proportions.

Briefly:

The Curriculum:

Yes, things were somewhat loosey-goosey before. The Harris Curriculum? Magical thinking and everything but the kitchen sink. Instead of insuring that the basics—including such things as actually learning to print and do cursive writing (like music, these strengthen the brain—and make sure people can read what one writes: what a quaint idea!)—the Curriculum is not only packed solid with far too many expectations, but many for which the kids are not developmentally ready. Teachers, who know what the kids’ basic needs are, despair of the sh**tload of extraneous—but posh sounding—expectations. The good teacher, under the Harris dispensation, had/has to be subversive: cut out the cr*p and give the kids what they need, while keeping beneath the administration radar. (It’s really dispiriting to know that, no matter how hard one works, one can never meet the unrealistic—and counter-productive—expectations of the Ministry.)

Neither has the Curriculum taken into account the critical mass of children with problems. Many more children than in the past are disadvantaged: inadequate family support, autism and its spectrum of disorders, learning disabilities of all kinds, and huge behaviour problems. These kids—like all others—need to learn (and need more time to learn) the basics. They are overwhelmed and swamped by the overloaded, unrealistic Harris curriculum. (This includes the idea—not instituted by Harris, but certainly approved by his bureaucrats—that all kids should have individual programs and learn by experiment: accommodations and modifications, yes. But there’s a core of needs that ALL young kids have. The teacher should address those in depth, over the long run, using, in most cases, the direct instruction method: tell the kids what you expect and then teach them how to do it. Experimentation isn’t very useful if the kids don’t know where they’re going!)

And, did the Harris Curriculum reduce or do away with the politically correct propaganda? Not on your life. The Ministry bureaucrats have made sure that, in certain contexts, men and Europeans are always seen as bad, and, for an apparently secular system, Gaia is in her heaven. It’s bad enough when McGuinty’s a cheerleader for such dangerous claptrap: when Harris had a chance to change this and didn’t, the disappointment is all the greater.

Paperwork:

The load of paperwork now required is backbreaking. Whole forests of trees and weeks of teachers’ out-of-class time are used to fulfill the Ministry’s requirements. Most of the computer programs are cheap and the resulting glitches cause teachers serious anguish, not to mention that, as soon as teachers get used to one system, the bureaucrats change it. What’s actually ON the forms is not usually what teachers would include either. Parents are overwhelmed by the volume of documentation, especially in special ed. and often don’t even bother to read their kid’s IEP (Individual Education Plan—all 12 pages!). Teachers feel swamped and the time and energy expended to do all this “bureaucratize” seriously depletes the resources they have available for their classes and students.

Teacher Learning;

Adding insult to injury (teachers working longer and harder than ever, to the point of exhaustion), Harris had the gall to REQUIRE that teachers, on their own, considerable time and dime, take three (14? in 5 years) “professional development” courses a year, whether the teacher needed to or not. How incredibly patronizing! Some of us could (and had, in the past) LEAD the sessions. Most of us declined to take the courses, though every teacher I know took courses that they considered important for their own professional development. For the only time in my life, I voted Liberal to get rid of this unnecessary and oppressive requirement.

Resources:

The Curriculum was imposed on teachers well before resources to implement it were available. How competent is that? To this day, especially in math, the resources are spotty. I’ve not yet seen a math program that has either enough practice or adequate templates on which to do it And, as I’ve already said, in areas, such as history and geography, the anti-Western bias is alive and well.

Conclusion: The Harris culture of education entrenched some of the worst possibilities: paternalistic, top down, elitist, inefficient, politically correct, unrealistic, inadequate (for the kids’ real needs), inflexible, one size fits all (or else) . . . Still a mess!

I hope, Dave, that this answers some of your questions!

I went searching on the Internet about Harris' government and teachers (after Dave's question) and it refreshed my memory. Lookout, you filled in the blanks. There seemed to be something vindictive in the way the gov't dealt with the teachers. Do I remember correctly that the Minister of Education had not graduated from high school? If reform was necessary it was certainly undertaken with a heavy hand and this provoked resistance rather than co-operation. Also, from the sound of things, the so-called reforms made the job more ponderous and bureaucratic without any net benefit to the kids.

It's really not that simple to fix. If you focus on just one aspect (teachers) without addressing the other problems, you're bound to fail. If there's any institution that contains and mirrors all the problems of society from inadequate parenting, to violence, to drug abuse, it will in one way or another impact on the schools.

rita, all good points.

A word I haven't used yet for the Harris legacy is "politicized", which is what his zeal to punish teachers—what a counter-productive strategy to help the kids!—most certainly did, in spades, to the education system.

Re Education Minister, John Snobelen, not having a university degree. I don’t have a problem with that: look where the highly “educated” (indoctrinated) educational bureaucrats have got us!

The problems in the educational system, intimately connected with those of society as a whole, are so vast and the political climate so jaded—mediocrity and entitlement, the last things needed to solve the problems, are promoted and reinforced—that any meaningful solutions seem out of reach. Until we return to sanity—the adults are adults and exercise proper authority over the children in our care—I think we’re doomed to more mayhem (and even, tragically, murder).

Lookout, all I can say is WOW and thanks for your information. I have copied and saved your comments as I had no idea of the ramifications of what Harris did and perhaps he has no idea of the results of the law of unintended consequences though I doubt it. I have spoken several times to Snobelen on education but your type of feedback was not mentioned. He doesn't seem like a guy that would be reluctant to admit they screwed up on the education portfolio.

One of my good friends that I see frequently was my son's principal at Rolph Road and she is quite supportive of Harris and a staunch conservative but yet she acknowledges the ongoing fight with the brain-death ministry and hates the teacher's union with a passion.

My personal intro to the education fiasco was before Harris when I questioned my friend on why my son's report card was useless as it didn't tell me anything just full of senseless paragraphs saying nothing. My son's teacher said we don't have time to teach the times tables and it was my responsibility to teach him!

Read Harris' column in the National Post today. All I can say is as a Director of Payroll for the Oshawa Group during the Rae years was that Harris saved ours and Ontario's economic ass.

I have faught entrenched unions and their bureaucracy over the years and in a small way understand your frustration in dealing with this growing monolith of the educrats in the Ministry.

Again I haven't walked in your capable shoes but listening to my teacher friends complain how they hated Peterson, really hated Rae and his Rae days, depised Harris and now dislike McGuinty even though he is giving them everything the union asks for it is hard to figure out who teachers like.

The thread of this post is the same type of bureaucracy you rightly rail against is everywhere. Though you say teachers are sheep it still amazes me that their incredibly powerful unions don't demand massive changes to McGuinty and get this vital organ functioning again.

Thanks again ladies for your input.

A pleasure, Dave.

Remember, the union types are sheep too—left-wing sheep who want power, as in: to be administrators, when their socialist, union days are over. So, they will NOT move too hard against the powers that be.

In fact, most of the union types are so brain dead and wrongly indoctrinated that they don’t even recognize the real problems teachers face. And, when teachers bring serious problems to their attention—e.g., being arbitrarily and summarily removed from their classroom, based on a lie told by two viz. min. vixens—they sit on them. The union’s behaviour is actually actionable—but labour lawyers steer clear, even if a teacher should have the moxy and money to hire one. I know of quite a few teachers who are absolutely disgusted with the union’s deficient methods and do-nothing attitude, when the teachers, who pay big bucks to them, are hung out to dry. There are all kinds of horror stories out there.

If the union were doing its job, it would stop the boards in their totalitarian tracks and defang them. ’Problem is, the union types are totalitarians themselves. ’Talk about wolves in the sheep pen! It’s all very discouraging and it seems that the best teachers, with a conscience, are jumping ship—or actually being dumped overboard.

As a Conservative, I’m glad to hear of the good things Harris did: as I said, I’ve always voted Conservative, except for the one time to get Harris’s repressive and unjust professional development monkey off my back. And, my comments about principals and VPs (superintendents too and all other administrative personnel) are a little hyperbolic: there might be one or two (!)—like the one you know—who make the grade.

P.S. Dave, when an administrator mistreats a teacher, the union stands back and tells the teacher to take the consequence and then grieve it. This process can take years, while the teacher remains in harm’s way and utterly humiliated and threatened. (Union types seem to have molasses in January for blood. Their lawyers, who tell renegade teachers that taking the board “medicine”—indoctrination and humiliation—might be good for them, are even worse.)

Then, guess what? There are no sanctions for the offending administrator. I heard of one, with 27 grievances against her—and most of the staff attempted to transfer out of her school—with all being upheld. Consequences for the principal? None that anyone could see. She stayed on and wreaked havoc as before. It's an utter travesty. (BTW, I'm not one of the teachers to which I refer. But I could quite easily have been . . .)

In a gulag, people look over their shoulders and keep their heads and voices down. There's not much opportunity or incentive to organize to defeat the enemy, which has, and will use, its huge, punitive powers against any real or perceived non-conformists. As I’ve said, the whole thing is an utter travesty of intelligence, justice, and fair play.

Not one teacher I know would encourage a young person to go into teaching. Really.

I had a few brushes with union types myself--for the most part, I thought they were sincere types who tried hard. However, like teachers, they wanted to be nice and that's not always very useful in confrontational situations. One thing I objected to is the number of teachers who went on stress leave (after sick leave runs out, disability pay is funded by the teachers). Many times, I felt that if the union had stuck by the teacher, or worked to mitigate some horrible treatment that was being meted out to staff, there would have been no need for stress leave. We were paying because our unions were lazy and taking the easy way out and they were using our money to avoid a fight. I don't think everything has to be fought, but there comes a time when you need to draw a line in the sand. There were two occasions when I would really have needed them to do their job on my behalf and they fizzled like a wet match. I learned not to depend on them too much.

I know many teachers who steer their kids away from anything to do with education. In fact I can only think of one whose son has gone into teaching. That's a fairly negative comment right there. I mean the pay is pretty good and you get those summers off--that's pretty attractive, but the offspring of teachers have seen what it cost their parents and they want nothing to do with it. It also makes you wonder who exactly is choosing to go into education. Quality people tend to choose other careers. Perhaps $94,000 (at the top of the pay scale in Ontario) sounds like a lot of money but there are careers that pay more and don't involve so much heartbreaking work. Jobs that require a 4 or 5 year degree tend to start higher on the pay scale too than a first year teacher. Plus, many careers have more status and provide a lot more respect. If I had felt valued for my work, or if I had been respected for my training, knowledge and expertise, I would have been content even with less money. It's a bitter thing to admit, but when there are few other rewards, you go for the dollar. Also, if you're going to be dumped on by everyone who has a beef and a grudge, even as you're giving of your best, you might as well get decent pay.

rita, your experience, good sense, and ability to articulate your point of view are very much appreciated. It sounds to me like education, for teachers, is about the same in Saskatchewan as in Ontario, unfortunately.

Re the unions: fie on "nice". By the time they're called in, it's usually time to rip out a few jugulars, which the union toadies simply won't do. (I’ve found that they document almost nothing and do virtually no follow up: once a teacher calls them in, cc’s of all meetings, to all concerned, including the superintendent AND the director, should be automatic. That would stop cold—and fast—all kinds of skulduggery.)

You're absolutely correct about all the teachers out on stress leave and taking early retirement: if the unions were doing the job they're paid very handsomely to do, the savaging of teachers would stop dead in its tracks. A few high profile take downs of arrogant and overreaching administrators, out to appease special interest groups and self-aggrandize, on the backs of the dedicated, professional teacher, would make a big difference and set some valuable precedents.

In my dreams . . .

rita, your experience, good sense, and ability to articulate your point of view are very much appreciated. It sounds to me like education, for teachers, is about the same in Saskatchewan as in Ontario, unfortunately.

Re the unions: fie on "nice". By the time they're called in, it's usually time to rip out a few jugulars, which the union toadies simply won't do. (I’ve found that they document almost nothing and do virtually no follow up: once a teacher calls them in, cc’s of all meetings, to all concerned, including the superintendent AND the director, should be automatic. That would stop cold—and fast—all kinds of skulduggery.)

You're absolutely correct about all the teachers out on stress leave and taking early retirement: if the unions were doing the job they're paid very handsomely to do, the savaging of teachers would stop dead in its tracks. A few high profile take downs of arrogant and overreaching administrators, out to appease special interest groups and self-aggrandize, on the backs of the dedicated, professional teacher, would make a big difference and set some valuable precedents.

In my dreams . . .

Sorry for the double post.