-by Kimberley Love
Last month, after six aching years and the testimony of more than 7,000 survivors, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its report on the residential school system that forcibly separated aboriginal children from their families and created an indelible moral stain on the Canadian experience.
The stories of the residential schools – their purpose and what happened at them – are shocking to modern Canadians for three reasons. Firstly, they are recent: the last school closed its doors in 1996. Secondly and sadly, the school system was actually born from a hopelessly misdirected effort to "help" the children. And finally, these events all happened close to home, wherever you live in Canada.
I am not aboriginal. I grew up in a fair-skinned, freckled family in a community where everyone was fair-skinned. We knew absolutely nothing about the First Nations communities and families nearby. We never thought about the peoples who had inhabited the land that we now tilled. Our notion of local history was based on white settlement. Our communities, our culture and our school systems were all thoroughly colonized.
But here's what I find disturbing about the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
The Hub is pleased to offer this, the last of a thought-provoking three-part series on education from the perspective of a current local teacher. Follow the links to Part One and Part Two.
With two months to go before school begins again, negotiations with teachers continuing, a new leader of the Opposition, and three years to go before both a school board and a provincial election, it may be the perfect opportunity to step back and give the education system some real consideration. Send us your take on the subject at owensoundhub.org.
-by John Fearnall
#7 on my list of Top 10 ways to immediately improve education:
Let teachers, with input (questions) from their students decide what to teach.
I know some won't believe this, but good teachers are the only thing that is keeping the system going as it is. And they know their students better than anyone else in the system. So let teachers decide what to teach. Rather than relying on a curriculum that is fairly useless (you can find all the documents here,) at the start of the year give teachers time to sit down and decide what needs to be taught where and how. When teachers are engaged and interested in what they are teaching, everything else falls into place.
#8 on my list of Top 10 ways to immediately improve education:
The Hub is pleased to offer the second part of a thought-provoking three-part series on education from the perspective of a current local teacher. Part One can be found here.
With two months to go before school begins again, negotiations with teachers continuing, a new leader of the Opposition, and three years to go before both a school board and a provincial election, it may be the perfect opportunity to step back and give the education system some real consideration. Send us your take on the subject at owensoundhub.org.
-by John Fearnall
#4 on my list of Top 10 ways to immediately improve education:
Eliminate the adversarial system.
How we say/do something has as much or more of an impact than what we say/do. Because of this, we must eliminate, or at least try to reduce the conflict in our school system. Everywhere I turn, there is conflict: Ministry vs. Board; Board vs. Federation; Board vs School; Admin vs. Teacher; Public vs Teacher; Teacher vs. Student; Teacher vs. Teacher; Student vs. Student.
If we are going improve education we must ...
The Hub is pleased to offer this, the first of a thought-provoking three-part series on education from the perspective of a current local teacher.
With two months to go before school begins again, negotiations with teachers continuing, a new leader of the Opposition, and three years to go before both a school board and a provincial election, it may be the perfect opportunity to step back and give the education system some real consideration. Send us your take on the subject at owensoundhub.org.
-by John Fearnall
So, with 10 years to go in my teaching career, here is my list of 10 ways to immediately improve education:
#1 Eliminate school boards (The System)...
-by Jon Farmer
My dad drove his camper van to town for a few days of work this week. On his first night, before he went off to my uncle's, I rode my bike down to meet him at the local marina for sunset. He was parked where he could work on his reports while watching the water. I rode around the last corner of the gravel path through Kelso Beach Park, swung one leg over the saddle, and cruised up beside. I leaned my bike on its kickstand and stepped into the Volkswagen. We were planning to walk and watch the sunset so after a quick hello I went back outside to lock my bike while dad finished a page.
As I was feeding the bike lock through my back tire, a Dodge Charger drove into the parking lot and pulled up beside us...
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