Society for Quality Education

Vol. 21, No. 1, March 2012. ISSN-1201-215

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Things are about to get pretty interesting in Ontario in the aftermath of the Drummond Report. Education is going to be affected in a big way, since 27 of Mr. Drummond's recommendations call for drastic curtailment of education spending. The teachers' unions are already rattling their sabres, as are some of the other vested interests.Yet, if implemented in good faith, the Drummond recommendations will actually improve conditions in Ontario schools. Click here to learn why.

SQE is the only organization dedicated solely to making schools better places for children to learn. Because we receive no government money, we depend totally on the financial support of people like you.

You can help us continue our important work by making a contribution. Click here to find out how. Thank you for your support.

Regards, Malkin

SOCIETY ACTIVITIES

In January, we released our new study of online learning in Canada. Written by Dr. Paul Bennett, the founding director of Schoolhouse Consulting in Halifax, NS., the study finds that the tremendous potential of Canadian online learning is being partially blocked by vested interests, for example the teachers' unions, who see it as threatening teachers' jobs.
Our home page poll recently asked how many of our visitors knew of an Ontario grade 12 student who stayed on to do a victory lap (fifth year of high school). Almost 80% of respondents agreed. Our new poll (scroll down) asks what you think of all-day junior and senior kindergarten now that you have seen Ontario's Drummond Report.
SQE was quite busy media-wise during the last quarter (see our media page). Our message is getting out!

ASK AUNT MALKIN

A veteran of the school wars herself, with the scars to prove it, Malkin Dare has had lots of experience dealing with education problems. If you want some been-there-done-that advice, give her a call at 519-884-3166 or e-mail her.

Question

I am writing to ask you for help with a problem that my nephew (14 in Grade 9) apparently has. According to his mother, he is unable to print properly and certainly is incapable of cursive writing. In elementary school, he had access to a computer to do his tests and some (if not all) of his school work. This is repeating itself in high school, but my nephew basically refuses to use the computer - for whatever reason. His mother says he is unable to do simple things, such as picking out a nail from a package of nails or putting Lego together. He gets extremely frustrated and throws things. I am told that this problem relates to some motor-mechanical problem in the brain. Does this problem sound like anything you have ever heard about? Gary, Orillia

Answer

Obviously, I can't "diagnose" your nephew sight unseen, but I am more than happy to give you my take on his situation. In my opinion, the various learning disability labels are convenient catch-alls that lead nowhere. Basically, they are a way for the school to blame the student instead of themselves for the student's problems. Application of the learning-disabled label is not at all useful, in that there is no known cause, treatment, or cure, but at least it allows educators to sleep at night.

Obviously, students vary in how difficult they find it to learn a particular skill. In the case of your nephew, it may be that he found it harder than average to learn to print and, because he received inferior printing instruction in grade 1, he didn't acquire the skill. Since it's not on the curriculum in grade 2, it's a one strike and you're out scenario. My guess would be that many of your nephew's grade 1 classmates are still having similar problems with penmanship. Cursive writing was dropped from the Ontario Grade 3 curriculum about ten years ago and so chances are your nephew never got instruction in cursive writing either.

The good news is - your nephew can learn to print. Other good news is there probably is no point in his trying to learn cursive writing at this point - since the vast majority of his cohort can't do it either. So that's one less problem to overcome.

The bad news is - it's up to you (or your nephew's mother) to teach him. More bad news - it's going to be harder now that your nephew is older and has a long history of failure. However, everything can be learned regardless of circumstances - given good teaching and persistence. Everything. But the really bad news (hinted at in your nephew's propensity to throw things) is still to come: your nephew is likely to be highly resistant to efforts to teach him. At this point, he is totally convinced that he is stupid and incompetent, and he will hardly welcome new opportunities to demonstrate this.

By the way, the same thing applies to his difficulties picking out nails or putting together Lego. He can learn to do these things, although he clearly needs some scaffolding to get there.

What would I do if it were my kid? With a 14-year-old, I think I might start by telling him exactly what I just told you - namely that he can learn to do virtually anything if he works hard enough. This is the simple truth, but your nephew is unlikely to believe you. Then I would ask him to let me prove it to him by picking something easy, like for example Lego, and teach him how to build things. You nephew should be asked to choose the demonstration challenge. You might promise him some treat, like a video game or a movie, to be bestowed after he has gone along with you for, say, 10 hours.

In my experience, the need for bribes evaporates as soon as the student grasps that he can learn after all.

Once your nephew has successfully mastered the demonstration challenge, you can turn to printing. If you decide to take my advice, once you arrive at this point get back to me for advice on how to go about teaching printing. That's the big one.

Regards, Aunt Malkin

MAILBAG

Private School Blues

I'd be perfectly happy to leave my daughter at her private school - if she were actually being instructed in the core subjects. We have kept on giving the school yet another chance, but against this is yesterday's schedule (which is actually quite a positive day when compared to other days).

9-10 French (we'd like to keep this, but alas)
10-11:30 IB unit study (preparing a paragraph "any way you want" about coffee, its history, its use, where it grows, how it's harvested, etc., based on an interview with a paired-up classmate (who doesn't like to work and prepared little) in exchange for providing said classmate with the same sort of information about corn)
11:20-12:10 Lunch 1
12:10-1 Math Lesson on Fractions (still learning fractions in grade 7?)
1-1:20 Spelling Test
1:20-1:50 Journal Writing, Discussion about upcoming gala fundraising dinner, and Homework Completion
1:50-2:30 Lunch 2
2:30-3:30 Gym

Milton, ON

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Unchristmas

When I was going to school (at a private Catholic school), I was educated by folks who generally considered being an educator a vocation which had principled responsibilities - rather than as a road to a net present value calculation based on a 30-year unionized teaching earning stream with a pension chaser. One need only look at the unionized public school dilemma over Christmas: a quick look at the race to the bottom of values as expressed by the lowest common denominator - as perceived by those believing that political correctness is the fastest way to the top. Cambridge, ON

Extreme Frustration

In my capacity as a community college instructor, I recently received a notification that one of my students has a self-disclosed spectrum disorder. The student's disorder means that on occasion he experiences extreme frustration, which can manifest as self-directed anger. Although the student is very vocal (shouting "yes" if he has an aha moment or crying if he is given an unexpected test), I was asked to carrying on teaching in my normal mode as far as possible. I was requested to allow the student to quietly leave my class without comment and calm down elsewhere. Toronto, ON

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

I'm a high school math teacher, and last week I had an incident that reminded me how I really need to get out of here. My 10 applieds were being very disrespectful in many ways. One little girl said f___ this. She breaks about every rule we have pretty well every day. For example, I tell her not to eat in class and she continues to eat right in front of me. So I got angry and gave the class a lecture. I told them that some students in the class are exhibiting pathetic behaviour and that they need to grow up soon or else people will laugh at them. So the next day, I got a call from the girl's dad telling me that calling his daughter's behaviour pathetic was unprofessional (even though I had of course been addressing the whole class). I told the dad how his daughter had been behaving and he replied that she doesn't behave like that at home (as though that were relevant). In short, the man was of the same opinion after our conversation as he was before it. Rather than addressing his daughter's disobedient behaviour, he thought it appropriate to challenge the teacher. Enough! I really don't need this. The parents are as ill-bred as the kids. Kingston, ON

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Time to move with the times

It is now well accepted among education researchers that teachers matter. The difference between a good and a bad teacher is one year of learning in an academic year: the lucky students of a very good teacher will average one and a half years of learning growth, while the students of a very bad teacher will average only a half a year of learning growth. The lives of students who get a few very good teachers in a row or a few very bad teachers in a row are altered dramatically.

As President Barack Obama put it: "The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the colour of their skin or where they come from. It's not who their parents are or how much money they have. It's who their teacher is." According to the American Federation of Teachers, "Research findings demonstrate the teacher quality is the single most important school variable affecting student achievement."

Despite the critical importance of teachers to students' destinies however, most school boards continue to ignore differences in teacher performance. For the most part, teachers are hired on the basis of factors that have no predictive value (they are rarely, for example, auditioned). And even though the performance of teachers who have been certified by a faculty of education is indistinguishable from the performance of uncertified teachers, school boards hire almost no uncertified teachers. Furthermore, teachers' job performance is virtually irrelevant when it comes to pay and tenure. In fact, few school boards have even managed to agree on a way to evaluate teacher performance.

If school boards were serious about their students' welfare, teachers would be chosen and rewarded on the basis of their teaching ability. Unfortunately, the vast majority of school boards continue to pretend that all teachers are equally good, hiring and paying them all on the same basis (factors (like educational qualifications and years of experience that are unrelated to performance).

This approach to hiring and paying teachers was developed back in the days when statistical information about teacher quality was not available, and it was as good a method as any. Now that information about teacher quality is available however, continuing to use the old approach is kind of like turning your back on penicillin.

BOOKS OF INTEREST

Moonwalking with Einstein: The art and science of remembering everything. Joshua Foer.

The author is a journalist who got interested in memory training when he covered the U.S. Memory Championship. Although the author had no previous aptitude for or interest in memory training, he decided to train for this contest - which he ended up winning the next year. Most people assume that memory is memory (and it deteriorates as you age), but it turns out that this is not true. "The brain is like a muscle, ... and memory training is a form of mental workout. Over time, like any form of exercise, it'll make the brain fitter, quicker, and more nimble." The book reveals many techniques (ancient and modern) for improving memory, and along the way relates many interesting stories about the denizens of the quirky subculture of memorizers. Memory, it seems, is a gift we all possess but which all too often slips our minds. The excerpt (pp 266-268) addresses the issue of what the author had learned about himself.

So had I improved my memory? By every objective measure, I had improved something. My digit span, the gold standard by which working memory is measured, had doubled from nine to eighteen. Compared with my tests almost a year earlier, I could recall more lines of poetry, more people's names, more pieces of random information thrown my way. And yet a few nights after the world championship, I went out to dinner with a couple of friends, took the subway home, and only remembered as I was walking in the door to my parents' house that I'd driven a car to dinner. I hadn't just forgotten where I parked it. I'd forgotten I had it.....

And yet clearly I had changed. Or at least how I thought about myself had changed. The most important lesson I took away from my year on the competitive memory circuit was not the secret to learning poetry by heart, but rather something far more global and, in a way, far more likely to be of service in my life. My experience had validated the old saw that practice makes perfect. But only if it's the right kind of concentrated, self-conscious, deliberate practice. I'd learned firsthand that with focus, motivation, and, above all, time, the mind can be trained to do extraordinary things. This was a tremendously empowering discovery. It made me ask myslelf: What else was I capable of doing, if only I used the right approach?

Pension Ponzi: How public sector unions are bankrupting Canada's health care, education and your retirement. Bill Tufts & Lee Fairbanks.

Written by a pension expert and an award-winning journalist, this is a very readable exposé of the huge gap between the wages and pensions of public sector workers and private sector workers in Canada. As a result, many public sector workers will collect more income in retirement than they earned during their working careers. Meanwhile, the 80% of Canadian taxpayers who don't belong to a public sector union - most of whom have no true pension at all - get the privilege of paying for it all. Nearly every one of the public sector union pension plans is underfunded to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, and taxpayers are legally on the hook to make up the difference, as well as any investment losses. One example: the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, according to The Globe and Mail, is actually $35 billion short of being able to pay its commitments. The excerpt (p13 and p30) gives some background on how public sector workers came to have such lucrative salaries and benefits.

If you happen to be one of the lucky 20 per cent of Canadians who is a government employee, we have to say congratulations. Your employee unions have consistently negotiated phenomenally lucrative contracts on your behalf over the past 30 years - while complaining bitterly that it's never enough. It used to be that government service workers such as librarians, garbage collectors, municipal office staff, and even politicians were paid less than private industry employees doing similar tasks. Partly this was because government workers had better job security, and never had to worry about their employer going out of business or being unable to meet payroll. Partly it was the concept of being a 'good citizen,' and that the joy of working on behalf of everyone else had some intrinsic value to it. Choosing a career as a teacher, nurse, or police officer had intangible rewards of increased respect and prestige, which offset lower income levels. All that, however, has changed....

As we will see during a closer examination of the disparity between salaries, benefits, and pensions of private and public sector workers, public sector unions have successfully insulated their members within a bell jar which excludes non-member taxpayers. More specifically, these unions have engineered a redistribution of wealth from all levels of society into the bank and pension accounts of their members.

Worlds Apart: British Columbia Schools, Politics, and Labour Relations Before and After 1972. Thomas Fleming.

The author, an emeritus professor in educational history and policy at the University of Victoria, documents the road from unity to discord in BC's education system. He pinpoints three main changes that led to the destruction of the amicable cooperation that had once characterized the system: the school consolidation movement; the weakening of educational leadership; and the growth of teacher union influence and power. The author also identifies secondary causes: the expansion of schools' mandate into the social domain; the rise of special interest politics, the decline in school populations, and the shifting of the province's demographics. The result is a 40-year history of intense conflict between the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and the government, resulting in a much-weakened education system. The excerpt (pp 119-120) discusses the role of the teachers' union in sowing discord and driving parents away from public schools.

Complicated governance and labour relations issues have been made even more difficult to resolve by the BCTF's subterfuge and posturing. For 40 years, the federation's leadership has deftly waged a public relations war with government, shifting from the position of 'system critic' to 'system advocate' as time, circumstances, and issues change - and as it suits the federation. Their litany of criticism is long - the institution of public schooling is badly flawed as a result of 'teacher reductions', 'increased class sizes', 'funding cutbacks', 'leaking schools', 'the diversity of student populations', 'the glaring inadequacy of the one-size-fits-all funding formula', 'the misuse of standardized tests', 'regressive policies', the 'unilateral decisions of government and school boards', and a host of other maladies too lengthy to recount. 'We live the reality of lack of resources every day in our classrooms', BCTF president Irene Lanzinger complained in December 2009, with more than a small measure of exaggeration.

Ironically, no organization or politician across the country - including the highly critical former education minister William Vander Zalm - has been consistently as derisive about the conditions of schools and their capacity to provide a high quality education as the BCTF. In fact, it is fair to observe that the federation single-handedly pioneered the tradition of biting criticism that has dogged the schools since the 1960s. Federation executives rightly brag about being 'the most effective and vocal opposition the government faces' and government's 'biggest public policy headache'. Year after year, the teachers' organization has taken great pains to warn the public about the system's glaring inadequacies, unmindful, it appears, about how this never-ending barrage of criticism has served to undermine provincial confidence in the public system and prompt the flight of many families to schools in the non-public sector. Given the extent of the decades-old and systematic neglect the BCTF has alleged, it somehow seems miraculous that the system has not altogether collapsed.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

This site features hundreds of short, very watchable videos on historical events. There is an emphasis on American history, but there's lots of other good stuff there as well. history.com