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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
A Happy Birthday Blog
Our fourth anniversary slipped by unnoticed on May 28. Belatedly, today's happy birthday blog is a trip down memory lane -- back to our very first page. There's some good stuff there,for example:
- A graph showing that each Canadian's share of the national debt was about $14,000 (it's now almost $17,500);
- A link to a site that makes it enjoyable and philanthropical to answer questions about things like world capitals, word definitions, and math;
- Sample test booklets from the EQAO tests; and
- A link to Ontario's school finder website.
Four years old and still going strong!
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Not in Ontario - Pity!
In a response to Ontario's glut of certified teachers, the government has decided to address the problem by doubling the length of pre-service training from one year to two. more.
Yet Ontario's teacher training is basically a waste of time - when the Ontario College of Teachers surveyed the province's teachers about the source of their teaching skills, courses at a faculty of education ranked dead last - well below common sense and lessons from their families (see Table 4.1). Given the lack of effectiveness of Ontario pre-service teacher certification programs, it doesn't make sense to double the amount of time students have to put in.
There's a fascinating article in the latest Education Next that talks about the possibility of improved (and less expensive) teacher pre-service training that online learning is beginning to deliver in the US. One example is USC's Rossier School of Education partnership with online learning company 2U. It's really worth reading what's going on here, what with interactive, web-based lectures with classes of 15 students, along with an in-person practicum component of 20 weeks in the students' local school districts. "Student teachers have an on-site supervisor and are also armed with video cameras, which allow them to record and upload their lessons to USC faculty, peers, and others for feedback".
Not only are the new online courses less expensive and more convenient, they also appear to be BETTER, In addition, they have the advantage of allowing candidates to allow their students to complete the program while continuing to hold down a job - meaning that "they will make becoming a teacher possible for a broader population of candidates, which lends hope that the country's education system can attract more talent and make the profession more competitive. The future is a teacher education industry that is both of higher quality and lower cost."
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Scholarships for Psycho-Educational Assessments
GUEST BLOG BY JANA LEGGATT, President of the Ontario Branch of the International Dyslexia Association (ONBIDA)
- Does your child have difficulty with reading and writing?
- Have you had difficulty accessing appropriate assessment of your child’s literacy skills?
- Is having a private psycho-educational assessment beyond your financial reach?
ONBIDA: Ontario Branch of the International Dyslexia Association is thrilled to announce that we will be offering scholarships for psycho-educational assessments for students who qualify.
What is ONBIDA?
We are a small sized charitable organization run almost entirely by volunteers whose mission it is to promote literacy through research, education and advocacy. Like SQE we also would like to see every child succeed in school regardless of their learning profile. For some children the beginning of that successful development must begin with a thorough assessment of their learning skills by a qualified psychologist. At ONBIDA, we are aware of the lengthy waiting lists, the tendency for schools to wait until a child fails to initiate referrals for assessment and that the cost of private psycho-educational assessments is out of reach for many families. Thanks to a generous donation from Oliver Martin’s family we are able to offer psycho-educational assessment scholarships for the 2013-2014 school year. Applications are being accepted now on our website http://idaontario.com/assessment-scholarship.html .
Who was Oliver Martin?
Oliver Martin and his close friend, Dylan Ellis, were shot and killed while innocently waiting in a car in downtown Toronto just after midnight on Friday, June 13, 2008. This horrific crime devastated friends and family, shocked the country, and remains unsolved. The two vibrant, successful and giving 25 year old young men shall be forever missed and remembered.
In Oliver’s honour, and to provide inspiration and support to others, Oliver Martin’s family established the Oliver Martin Memorial Trust Fund. In recognition of Oliver’s lifelong challenge with dyslexia, the Trust Fund has linked with the Ontario Branch of the International Dyslexia Association (ONBIDA) to fund a specific program to improve identification and assessment of children with dyslexia.
If you, or someone you know, has a child between the ages of 5 and 21 years of age who is struggling to learn to read, download our Oliver Martin Memorial Trust Fund (OMMTF) Scholarship Assessment Application here.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Getting government out of education)
OK, listen up. Here's my plan.
Today, I offer a video on the benefits of getting government out of education - a video that kind of wraps up this week's discussion but invites readers to continue the discussion.
Starting tomorrow, for the following week I will revert to our previous format - with one informational posting each day on different topics. Then, depending on your response, I will probably revert to the week-long discussion format. Suggested topics are more than welcome.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
What would happen if parents could shop for schools just as they now shop for after-school programs?
So if education is too important to leave to the politicians, to whom can it be safely left? As it happens, the education industry is not a modern business, like air travel or large-scale manufacturing. People have been teaching and learning as long as they have been people, and past civilizations have tried out all kinds of delivery structures to teach their youngsters. Our ancestors have lessons to teach us - if we would only listen. One of history's greatest lessons in schooling comes from ancient Athens. The following passage is adapted with permission from Andrew Coulson's book Market Education.
Around 590 BC, Athens was still a relative backwater. Beset by petty, bickering dictators and seething social unrest, it teetered on the brink of civil war. In the hope of averting the looming catastrophe, a popular merchant and poet named Solon was chosen by both rich and poor to take on the task of restoring social harmony and establishing a new constitution.
A century and a half after Solon’s tenure, Athenian democracy was a reality. Government regulations were few, and with the exception of two years of mandatory military training, the state played no role in schooling. The common practice was for parents to teach their children whatever they could during the early years of life, after which point the children would be sent off to school.
Anyone who wished could open a school, setting whatever curriculum and tuition he deemed appropriate. From among the available teachers, parents were free to choose whichever one taught the things they wanted their children to learn, at a price they could afford. Since the schools were run as private enterprises, they had to compete to attract students, and this kept prices relatively low. Tuition was generally paid month by month, and parents were careful to see that they got their money’s worth.
At first, Athenian parents sought three general categories of education for their children: gymnastics, music and literacy. As Athenian culture broadened and developed, the elementary school curriculum developed with it. Gradually, more and more parents started to seek drawing and painting lessons for their children. As time went on, subjects such as oratory, rhetoric, and mathematics began to be offered. Adaptation to the changing demands of parents and students was, in fact, a hallmark of Athenian education.
The results of this unregulated, customer-driven system were the most literate society in existence at the time, the most sophisticated economy, and an intellectual and artistic flowering never since equalled. It is hard to establish how much of their achievement can be attributed to their approach to schooling, but we can say this: Athenian parents had complete discretion over the content and manner of their children’s education, and these children went on to create a culture responsible for some of the greatest advances in art, science and human liberty in history.
This week's topic for discussion: does the experience of ancient Athens have any relevance to present-day Ontario?
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday Round-Up
I've been very pleased with the comments to Monday's blog. The education industry is so huge it's kind of like the blind men and the elephant - your impressions of it really depend on which part of the beast you come into contact with. And it's been great to hear from people with different experiences and points of view.
Summarizing, I get the impression that there's an ocean of discontent out there, along with a feeling that education is kind of like the weather - everyone complains about it but no one does anything about it. After all, there's not much you can do about the weather, right?
Part of the problem is: if you agree education is too important to leave to the politicians, then you need to have an alternative. To whom can we leave education? Educators? Book publishers? Education school professors? Bureaucrats? Hmmmmm....
I'll stop now, and encourage some wrap-up comments from you today. Tomorrow, I'll write about one historical solution to this problem.