ISSN-1201-2157            Volume 13, Number 1                 www.oqe.org               June 2004
 
INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Practice Does Not Make Perfect

(the low-down on long-term memory)

Only in Alberta � Pity!

(important news about what happens when school choice comes to town)

Low Self of Steam

(free career advice for students who don�t wish to end up flipping burgers)

Every Day a Field Day

(a book review of a most unusual book and its unorthodox proposition)

Striving for Success

(the profile of a delightful Islamic school)

Ontario College of Unions

(an eloquent plea to Ontario�s new minister of education)

Doing More With Less

(recommendations for Ontario on how to save education money and get better results)

Cafeteria Connoisseurs

(mouth-watering menus that appeal to  high school students)

Dead Horse Lore

(useful tactics for those who are sick of beating a dead horse)

My Conversion

(straight-from-the-heart testimony about the effect of child-centred learning on families)

Number Facts

(practical tips on teaching the tables)

Dyslexia or Dysteachia?

(a challenge to the widespread belief that reading disabilities are organic)

The Teen Tightrope

(been-there-done-that guidance on how much responsibility to give adolescents)
And lots more - Publications of Interest, What�s New?, OQE Stuff, Letters to the Editor, etc.

From the President
A Real Eye-Opener

Readers of the OQE Forum are well aware that educational choice is front and centre in these pages. A recent experience highlighted this need as never before.

For the last few years, I have not had a personal investment in the education wars. My youngest had graduated, and I no longer needed to worry about teacher strikes, classroom politics, or educational fads affecting my children. That ended with the birth of my grandson, who is now a year old.

Instead of mainly monitoring the education system as whole, I am doing what the majority of OQE members do every day � paying attention to the results of neighbourhood schools in the area where I live.

A few weeks ago, I was invited by a relative to visit her son�s Montessori classroom. I agreed, mainly out of fondness for her son rather than any particular interest in the Montessori system, about which I knew virtually nothing. My only previous exposure to schooling for very young children was my own kids� nursery school and their five-year-old kindergarten classes.

What greeted me was a class of 20 three-, four- and five-year-olds busily engaged in various activities and monitored by a teacher and her assistant. What shocked me was the calm and order before me. The quiet was unlike anything I had ever experienced in the presence of so many young children.

It soon became clear that the children were allowed a lot of freedom to choose what interested them, while understanding there were strict rules of behaviour that they must obey. The classroom was highly-organized. The walls were relatively unadorned (too distracting).

I watched in amazement as these students pushed their chairs in when leaving a table or waited their turn in line to use the sink. One little boy politely lectured me when I returned some equipment to the wrong spot on the shelf. I saw the teacher correct an older child who tried to interrupt.

I actually left the school with a heavy heart.

  • Was it because I thought our public schools should convert to the Montessori system? Not at all.
  • Was it because I believe there are no classrooms within the public system led by teachers who run a very organized and calm room? Wrong again.
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    Looking for Help

    My heart was heavy because I was remembering a phone call I had received a few years earlier. A single dad had called looking for assistance for his young son. The child�s IPRC...

    continued...