2009-08-27

Education Under Stress Across North America - Time For New Solutions

As I listen and watch Quebec's ministry of education stumble and mumble its way through a fractured system - growing class sizes, lack of text books for English schools and increasing teacher workloads without much thought and with little support - I wonder how long before the quality of our education collapses. If we're not already there.

My lovely companion is a teacher and the stories are frustrating to say the least. They make do with so little - much like nurses. On one side of the coin, teachers have to put up with the ministry and their poorly thought out ideas (remember those awful report card schemes no one understood? I think they were called "comparative" or something) and on the other a growing disinterest by parents in their kids education.

Quebec's education minister Michelle Courchesne is failing (well, on the English side anyway. In Quebec, there always seems to be two stories) in my estimation. Most recently, the sizes of classes have increased after she promised to reduce them.

Which reminded me of my time in elementary school. I was a miserable wretch in school. My brain couldn't cope with all the commotion and the "one size fits all" mentality. I needed something more tailored if you will. I truly believe I'm one that fell through the cracks.

As the public system simply wasn't jiving with me, I was sent to a private CEGEP, by concerned parties of interest who shall remain nameless, to get my act together. The main selling point was the size of the classes which were all under 10 students. It was a joy to be in school under those circumstances and I did excel. It was during my time at Centennial Academy I discovered I could write as English and History professors made a point of mentioning.

You can thank them for all these blah, blah, blah posts.

In any event, write I must! I'm not sure exactly where Canada stand internationally, but last I checked I believed we weren't fairing too well.

Private schools and even those with a special niche, will play a larger role in the future here in Canada.

The story is probably a little more complicated down south. In the United States, health and education are in disarray - depending of course who you speak with. However, the difference in the U.S. is the people are prepared to take matters into their own hands. Such is the case of "chartered" schools. Clearly, the education bureaucracy has failed kids and for Americans it's time to try a new, fresh approach.

Apparently, students are performing very well under these schools. So why does Obama want to stop them then?

Check out the trailer for Flunked - The Movie exploring the state of American education.

Yes, sometimes it's better the government gets out of the way if they can't get their act together. These days they seem way out of touch with the people and their realities.

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