WhatFinger


Canada needs all the achievers it can get and, obviously, a critical mass of talent is self-reinforcing, in education as in most endeavors

Canada’s dumbed-down education system—A social and economic disaster



Canada’s dumbing down of education never rests. In Ottawa, there’s a debate over whether gifted students should all be educated together, or instead stuck with ones whose interests and aptitude lie elsewhere. Why’s it necessary to consider whether students learning calculus should be schooled with ones who can’t tell the product of 11 x 12?
A starry-eyed teacher wrote recently in the Ottawa Citizen: “We should not worry about academic achievements of the gifted. … in view of the wonderful opportunities that now lie outside of school, on the internet and in the community for all of us to learn science, geography, politics, dance, music, sports and every subject far beyond the classroom.” First, in order to keep its place in a competitive world, Canada needs all the achievers it can get and, obviously, a critical mass of talent is self-reinforcing, in education as in most endeavors. Secondly, all students want substantial challenges at their own level. There are good reasons why England has grammar schools and Germany, the Gymnasium. In any case, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child mandates “the development of the child's personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.” Actually, the worst is the education that Canada’s burgeoning underclass gets. They’re all people who are now or were once schoolchildren, and most had equal potential at birth as the lucky ones. But they’re the millions—yes, millions—of Canadians that Statistics Canada says lack literacy skills necessary for society and the economy. Too many are uneducated and unskilled, unemployed and all but unemployable given the lack of effective support systems. Many are addicted, without hope, sick, homeless or in prison. Think fentanyl! Their human deprivation is unconscionable and the state’s financial cost is unsustainable. Education for immigrants is also a mixed bag. I know of an Ottawa schoolteacher who advised a parent to transfer her daughter to another school. “Because of the high Somali enrolment,” she said, “we have to teach to a much lower standard.” How much lower than what standard anyway? How about remedial coaching? Immigrant children aren’t stupid.

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For too many, systemic educational deprivation begins when schooling starts, with the condescension of low expectations. First, there’s the absurdity of reading readiness. It continues later into university by requiring attendance at stultifying lectures—like how to teach maths in primary school, for four credits toward a B.Ed at McGill. With phonics (sounding out), reading at age five should be universal. Otherwise, reading ability gained late, or not at all, may cause learning disability and behavioral problems. In the slums of Naples, Maria Montessori had all her children reading and writing before they were five—as I was at that age, with home-schooling for two hours daily. Most children thrive on mentoring, as opposed to being talked down to. For example, Shakespeare, Dickens, Conrad and Jack London left school by the age of fourteen. R.J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire aircraft of World War II, left school at sixteen. Apprenticed as an engineer, he was chief aircraft designer at the age of twenty-four. The driving force for founding the Ottawa children’s hospital, Dominic Conway, finished school at sixteen. After studying medicine at Cambridge, he got his MD’s shingle at twenty-two. But in Canada, he would have needed a prior degree, churning for four more years before admission to med school. I have the Grade 6 report, with mostly B ratings, for a student attending school near Ottawa. Evidently smart enough but under-challenged, N told me school bored him to tears. His English report says, “N can read a variety of fiction and non-fiction materials (e.g. short stories, novels, myths, etc.).” The French report says, “With frequent teacher assistance, he can write negative sentences using “ne … pas” and the contracted form when required.” For maths, it says, “N is developing proficiency in multiplying two and three digit numbers. He can round whole numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 … He can divide by one and two digit divisors.” This is Grade six!

The teacher told me that five of her twenty-five students had problems requiring an assistant, available only half the time. However, unlike Shakespeare’s schoolmaster with his all-levels class of forty-two, she thought she had to be teaching all the time. Why couldn’t she give out interesting assignments for students to do on their own? When N was once in trouble, I suggested that he should go on a run instead of suspension. The principal said he couldn’t risk that in case N had a heart attack! I said there would be no such risk if he did any real phys ed. A school trustee told me this was one of his best schools. But now imagine having their students tested for an international comparison of Canada’s educational prowess! What Canada’s Indians and Eskimos (Inuit) get is often even dumber. A young Ojibwa woman in Ottawa told me recently that, at age thirteen, she was afraid to go to school on her reserve for fear of getting gang-raped on the way home. Unusually, her mother had a job and was able to save money for them to relocate. In the Nunavut territory in the eastern arctic, children start learning to read English only in Grade 4—with kindergarten-age texts! Before then, they get Inuktitut syllabics, a kind of shorthand. Unsurprisingly, many Eskimos can’t read or write, and speak only pidgin in any language. There are answers out there. One is to consolidate education on the basis of students’ ability. That would require ending fragmentation of schools by language and religion, which should enable effective learning of at least two languages (for Canada, English and French), as happens in European schools. Then there’s the Americans’ intensive Knowledge is Power Program and the affiliated Teach for America. It has high-performing university graduates bypassing teacher-training to teach in schools serving disadvantaged communities. Some of their students get to Harvard and become doctors! Charter schools have generally done a better job everywhere than same-style, system-wide ones. And all students, not just ones from rich families, need intensive sports and challenging after-school activities—like Inuvik’s program, in the arctic, that trained Canadian cross-country skiers for four consecutive winter Olympics. Ironically, communist societies generally delivered comprehensive universal education far better than Canada does! For a handle on what’s possible, download the free movie The Marva Collins Story, and read the book There are no shortcuts, by Rafe Esquith. Then think in terms of how we coach sports teams for international competition


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Colin Alexander -- Bio and Archives

Colin Alexander was publisher of the Yellowknife News of the North. His forthcoming book, to be published soon by Frontier Centre for Public Policy, is Justice on Trial: Truckers Freedom Convoy and other problematic cases.


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