Kids learn next to nothing in school these days.

Educrats and politicians are wasting tax dollars and more importantly our children’s lives.

Even though 50% of our children go to university, how do our university graduates stand up to graduates from Asia and Europe?  Not well I would assume.

OT:  Now McGuinty is peddling his education software which the Liberal gov’t will most likely buy, he’ll make a bundle of $$ off the taxpayer again, but there will be no mention of the quality of learning that our students will receive from this software.

In the interest of striking a path to a solution which is not controlled by existing institutional entities,  I propose having a contest to come up with an approach to improving educational outcomes that:
Let’s call it an educational “hackathon”
1. Eliminates the need for the expense of paid tutoring;
2. Establishes clear standards of literacy and numeracy which can be verified and certified as achieved by enrolled students;
3. Utilizes both on line and free public spaces for meetings;
4. Can be readily extended globally

These things are judged not on the basis of the best essays in the school but on the basis of who submitted the essay to the paper.

Meaningless.

all I can say is…yikes.

Malkin please can you post one of your high school essays?

As a parent I am extremely curious: I have noticed the dumbing down of children books so I was wondering why it was happening .. is it because most children are no longer able to read at a high enough proficiency level?

What I have noticed is that in children’s books there is a staggering difference between children’s books written today for 10-year olds when compared to children’s books written in the ‘50s or before or ‘60s and early ‘70s.
Mid-to-late seventies seems to be the cutoff point.
The language, vocabulary and especially sentence structure dumb down.

I agree with Doug.  But who knows, maybe she is a math whiz.

Here’s an example of high school writing that will cheer you up. 
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/04/scholastic_writing_award_winner_isabella_giovannini_best_high_school_writing.html

I decided to check with Grammarly. I am the last person to edit one’s writing. Even my dyslexic daughter does a better job than me. Grammarly found 11 critical writing issues. 1. Plagiarism
2. Grammar - use of articles (2), 3. Spelling - (1) Accidentally confused words 4. Punctuation - (2) - punctuation between clauses 5. Style check - (5) - wordiness.

I spotted two things right away, punctuation and wordiness. The third, what my teachers would say awkward sentence structure. Doesn’t the news editors have access to grammar and spell check software?  The free versions of Grammarly and Ginger software has really improved. It is a must have app for any student.

I thought you’d never ask. Up front, though, I apologize for the sophomoric nature of my essay but in my defence - I was only 16 years old. This is what I wrote upon being assigned the title: “Why We Should Strive for Biculturalism in Canada”.

“Biculturalism?” you’ll say. “Oh yes, a great thing for Canada! But will you think? Will you think of all the many and varied arguments for and against biculturalism. Will you seriously consider all the problems involved in putting a completely new and different system into effect? Most people just blunder enthusiastically onward, praising the virtue of a bicultural state never really doing anything about it.

Of course, this is the big problem. How are completely new and different systems put into effect? If we were to begin, as has been suggested, by having the French tongue spoken as universally as is the English, in what way would we achieve this? It takes years and years of schooling in French to become even adequate. A Grade Thirteen student, after five years of French, could no more make himself understood in Quebec than could a one month old baby!

But suppose, just suppose for the moment that our great and beneficent government has solved this problem for us, and babies are now saying “Maman” before they learn to say “Mommy”. How are we going to ensure that one language does not receive preferential treatment? Will it be stipulated that on Wednesday, French will be spoken, on Thursday, English, on Friday, French, and so on? Can you not see yourself arising one morning—“Ah, c’est mercredi, n’est-ce pas—or is this Thursday?”

However, we have forgotten one thing. What about all the other minority groups in Canada - the Dutch, the Spanish, the Polish, the Italian, etc. Once they see the French being represented equally, they will begin to demand their rights also. If these rights of equality were granted, we would soon be running out of days. It could become so hectic that we might speak our mother tongue on only one day out of every two weeks - not to mention of course the difficulty of learning all those languages.

In a more serious vein, we ask whether the government could really force biculturalism on the country? Could it really force a whole new culture on Canada? I don’t think that we, the people, would stand for it. We who are living in a democracy, have come to take for granted all those inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness which we share with the Americans. And if we ever thought that these rights were being threatened, I feel certain that we would resist, and resist strongly.

In short, there really is not way to force biculturalism on Canada. It must be an effort of the people, by the people, and for the people. It must arise out of a spontaneous and unified impulse on the part of the people. Until such a time should arise, it is useless and silly to strive for biculturalism.

Thank you, Malkin.
Quite a difference in my opinion.

Along the same lines, I suggest an informal poll:
1) How many recent high school graduates do you think would undertand the title of this Malkin’s post?
“O Tempora! O Mores!”
My guess: 2%

2) How many recent high school graduates do you think would care to look up the titel of Malkin’s post in order to find out what it means and get the full gist of her thoughts?
My guess: 15%

I agree with fromEurope. Recommended books at elementary level are very simplistic not only in writing but content. The books do more harm than good presenting fairy tales and known myths for instant in a twisted form.  There is also too many leveled books based on cheep TV shows like Power Rangers, Avengers, Pikachu.  These are absolutely worthless but will always be first choice for every boy.  I don’t rely on scholastic levels anymore but check every book at the library for its value to my child.  One word about our libraries - little children are very distracted with all the DVDs and computers right by the book shelves. I think at least these institutions should help us parents fight the distractions and promote reading books.  But unfortunately even libraries are slowly turning into playgrounds.

An even lower % would understand she was talking about times and manners in 1958. Today it would simply be seen as not worth knowing.

We have little to learn from the time of the strap, the dunce cap,  classes of 40, high school education plus normal school for teachers, and massive drop outs where few passed grade 13.

More people go farther in school now than ever before.

Notice the same thing Evana. Although, not quite as bad in my little corner. The librarian of one, is old enough to remember the books of the older books published prior to 1970. I came in one day looking for books authored by Thorton W. Burgess. The books were tucked away in a corner and the series became my child’s reading material for the summer of 2004. She read the books twice. The first time she stumbled her way through them, and the next time, she read the book with some fluency. Next summer it was the classics such as Treasure Island or Tom Sawyer. 

The vocabulary is spot on, and the books have an actual story line compared to books today that don’t seem to be following any set story and plot line. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14375/14375-h/14375-h.htm

I’m not much offended by the grammar if tools like Grammerly can fix it.  Just wish she would use it. 

I’m more concerned with the content.  We use writing for several purposes: to communicate, to persuade, to document, and to entertain.  This is a persuasion piece, and is singularly unpersuasive.

I don’t expect a high school writer to be Voltaire, but surely we can teach the basics of formulating and shaping an argument.

I and other critical thinkers do NOT accept your premise Malkin. 

This is a submission to a small village paper in agrarian Ontario.  This one of submission does not even represent the talent in that particular high school never mind what is occurring elsewhere in the province . 

I just today looked at a page for a student analyzing Plato’s “the cave”  well structured and properly argued.  Just an average kid in our learning community.  Not representative but average.

Your post,nor my experience is data, it is simply"a man who”.  May feel real, but is simply noise.

Unfortunately simple people confuse data and noise.

I also have to agree with From Europe about our kids’ books these days. I was a voracious reader as a kid, and still am.  However I found that my own kids had no interest in my old books when they were little, perhaps because these books had more than 10 pages in them and didn’t have any pictures in them.  It’s really too bad.

Malkin, fabulous job on your essay.  Lovely to read something that was actually researched and well thought out.  Thanks for sharing.

I fall into the less than 2% of understanding what the title of this post means.  Can someone please explain it to me?

Tara,

Your glowing assessment of Malkin’s “essay” is impetus for this response.

Simple introductory and summary paragraphs supported with four supporting arguments.  ‘Essay’ is a grand term for 6 paragraphs.

Here is the good news, we see better more complex nuanced arguments from students each and every day - TODAY!

......to know this requires to have children of a certain age or to be in a classroom in Ontario.  If you are wowed by Malkin’s submission at 16 please know we see the same and better each day! 

Pray tell Momnipotent, show the readers evidence of students today displaying the skills of complex nuanced arguments that meets the essay writing quality of Malkin’s.

What is taught poorly in today’s schools is formal academic essay writing that prepares students for post-secondary writing. Universities are left to teach academic writing for what should have been taught in the K to 12 system. An example of self-help aids for students at Trent University -  Beyond the Five Paragraph Essay - http://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/documents/BeyondtheFiveParagraphEssay.pdf

For Tara and others - O Tempora! O Mores
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_tempora_o_mores!
2. A poem authored by Edgar Allan Poe entitled the same http://www.eapoe.org/works/mabbott/tom1p012.htm

Mommipotent, you see improvement on a daily basis?  Why are the literacy results declining then at the grade school level.  Can you fill us in? 
I’d love to see examples of kids’ writing that is better than the poor girl who won the award…
Thanks in advance

Who says literacy results are declining at the grade school level? A lot of the posters here just live off cliché. If I make any statement Tom is all over me for evidence. I need to submit a thesis. This apparently applies only to me.

Of the 64 nations in OECD, there are 3 nations (read countries) that are higher than Canada. Japan, Korea and Finland. Finland is one point higher or a statistical tie. Korea has almost doubke the time on task due to hagwons, Japan is legit but a nation that allows almost zero immigration.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-rankings-2013-12

City states like Macao, and cities are not representative of the whole Chinese population. Singapore is a city state outlier with a good public system.

All of these leading nations rely on a strong public system to get where they are.

We are a world leader in education.

Doug, the student data outcome streams will provide the evidence. The literacy results are declining, but are masked by the declining curriculum standards in literacy and numeracy. Dumb it down so achievement can rise and in turn increasing graduation rates. However, it is all in the student and societal data outcome streams that reflects the declining literacy and numeracy rates of Canadians.

Thank you Nancy for providing the answer to my question.

I agree with Bev.  I am shocked at the quality and quantity of what my kids come home with for their English assignments.  Their level of writing and research is about 3 years behind what mine was at their age, and their schools are much better equipped than mine ever were!  I am sure there will always be some shining examples so we don’t all fall into the pit of despair, but for the MAJORITY of kids, they sorely lack any ability to critique, research and then write a good quality essay. 

I don’t know what neighbourhood you live in Momnipotent, but in our fine schools, the only real literacy training our kids get are at Kumon and other learning centres.  Schools don’t teach fine writing/researching skills anymore.  Our kids have never had more opportunities to go further than previous generations in their schooling, and most are further behind in their foundational skillset than their parents/grandparents are.  Very sad.

Tara,

1950-1975 25% of Canadians attended any form of post secondary.

Today it is over 50%. Our universities are highly ranked internationally.

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

An essay on CEA written by a university professor not of the education faculty’s staff, but an English professor. “Here’s what I suspect will happen if the basics of writing continue to be ignored: not only will students become worse writers than they are now…they will become less adept users of new technologies.”  http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/case-teaching-grammar

It is a stinging attack on the K to 12, pedagogy and what is not being taught in the K to 12 schools.

* Momnipotent, I hope you are right at least for your school.
My experience is more similar to Tara’s.
There are a few students who write very well most likely due to their home environment or because they are in high school and have made a decision that they want to become lawyers but the average writing quality is relatively low in my opinion.

* I think the expectations vary dramatically from school to school and inside a school from teacher to teacher.

* What I think is happening is that the teachers give assignments that are very open to interpretation and then they grade very flexibly in order to keep everybody trying and everybody’s self esteem up.

There may be good intentions for doing this. By the time students reach grade 5-6-7 there are huge variations between students in terms of their skills and competencies. By having open assignment and flexible grading I think teacher are trying to accomodate everyone at their level. The good students would do a very good job, perhaps even go beyond the grade level expectations, the average students would do an ok job which will be graded good or very good to encourage them, the poor students would do a very poor job but they will receive fairly positive grading highlighting good intentions or fragments of good writing.

* Since Doug keeps stating that all our schools are equal in the education they offer I think it is fair game to judge this essay as the essay of a grade 12 student, a few months away from graduation and to assume that is one of the best essays (since there was a competition and since the writer will be attending university).

Hi, somehow this discussion have become an angry argument.  I’ve deleted a bunch of posts to calm it down, possibly one of yours.

Imagine that you are visiting a literate friend’s salon.  Malkin sets the table for the discussion each day, and we contribute our views and our gentle wit.  Our reward is an intelligent and moderate discussion on matters that deeply concern us.

We don’t mind opposing views or strong opinions, but there are norms for friendly discussion If you wouldn’t say it to Malkin’s or her guests over a coffee, don’t say it here.

If you want to whack the ball off into another direction and see who scampers after it, there are other venues that you might enjoy more.

It’s not about freedom of speech, which we passionately defend.  This is our space, and we are exploring these ideas together.

Tom, the bastard moderator.

In response to those who claim the award is irrelevant because it is not representative of the work being done in the schools—at least as alarming as the impoverished essay, is that the newspaper chose to give the writer the prize, sponsored by a prominent community service club. For the award to have any substance, they ought to have disclosed the number of entries and perhaps comment how difficult was the decision considering the excellent quality of the entries, etc..

Who knows? Was this the only entry?  Nobody wants that to leak out. In that case, the prize becomes like a participation trophy. Would it be too embarrassing to just omit the award on occasion, there being no worthy contender?

Finally, regarding representative work, teachers could argue that the Literacy Tests are meaningless because they do not represent the true classroom work of the students, work that is evaluated by professional, university trained teachers who award the grades on which their students proceed to University.

Georgetown: small-town agrarian Ontario? Really!