I enjoyed reading your article on how the education system in Grades one to twelve have failed to prepare students for College and University. I teach high school automotives, which has its challenges and many of my students are the ones who struggle with their academic classes.
The problem of education began in the late 1970's- early 1980's. Canada was in a recession, trades jobs were being lost, lay offs and people were losing their homes due to the high interest rate. Those parents began looking at school programs and they came up with the idea that the best career for their son or daughter was college or university. Forget about the trades. Then, as students began entering Universities in the early 1980's, more and more parents saw those university grads getting successful jobs. Also, more and more families had two incomes due to the financial need and raising cost. The big reason for today's mess are the parents, our government, for increasing class sizes in the classroom. How can a grade two teacher teach 32 students in their classroom? and the poor leadership of our greedy self centered high paid establishment. Think of a bank manager making $1,000,000.00 a year and then they get charged with fraud actions so they could get more money.
The baby boom generation grew up in the fifties and sixties where things were tough and lack of money meant you had hand-me-down clothes. But the baby boomer didn't mind because every one was in the same boat. Now the parents said we have the money so our children are going to get good things and nice clothing. I will tell you it doesn't take long for children to figure out how to get their parents to buy them new clothes, new bicycles, walkmans, Ipod and the list goes on and as one young teenager told me, minimum work for maximum results. The Y generation of today has figured out how to get everything they want without lifting a finger. And their parents are so dumb, they can't figure out why their child sits around and does nothing. So, on with the story; Johnny comes to school, he knows if he doesn't do well in school he has a list of excuses to tell his parents. The teacher is too strict, too much homework, not enough time to do homework, subject is not taught properly. teacher doesn't know their subject, and the list goes on. The parents believe their child, because they don't want their child to be emotionally damaged by failure. So the parents do the homework for the child, the parents shovel the walk while the child sits and watches TV or their video. So now the school principal gets a phone call from the superintendent because a parent phoned saying a certain teacher is failing their child.
What is the answer? I would say parents first wake up and kick butt on your child. Get rid of the TV, limit computer use, check the child's homework and if they don't get it done, then there will a consequence. Also, parents better look at the statistics from the universities. They better understand that only 28% of high school graduates go onto University. Best to have plan B if their child is struggling with their core subjects or has tried university and flunks out. Lastly, the education system needs to provide more hands-on courses like the Career Technology Studies. Students need to be told by the parents at an early age that there are many careers out in the real world other than those from University. You have a whole generation that believe they are going to university.
As one philosopher once said "Education is a direct reflection of our society." Today's society is a mess, crime, disrespect, trusted people in high places doing bad things, the Church doing very bad things, no wonder the young generation looks upon our senior society and says, take a ride.
I wish you good luck finding the answer. I believe when the Y generation begins to run the society, things may improve. The cycle of generations seem to survive.
Have a great day, All I can say is there are some really good students out there. They will be successful at what ever they take on. Maybe there are enough of those to kick butt on their own generation.
Howard Rymes
