a common pot

great, yet another 'tax' to be fed into the bottomless pit called education.

Murdock

No, old sport! The operative word is "GIVE"........(silly boy!)

If this guy is successful in

If this guy is successful in his bid to eliminate school fees he'll do more than even the BCTF to lower the standards of education in this province. Time for Mr. Young to start minding his own business. Leave my kids alone! If we want to pay more for extra activities we will. You lefties need to butt out.

I wondered how long it would be

Until we'd hear from your corner. Almost guaranteed that something dyspeptic would crop up from you on a story that involved education - even if the involvement of 'teachers' was marginal at best.

Thanks for not disappointing. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

sdgreen

thanks for that, you and I don't often come down on the same side of an issue - if you look back up the thread you'll see I also mentioned private schools and the need to immediately withdraw any and all public funding from them...

Gee West!

That was a heck of a run-on sentence.....! :~)

SIG

This says it in a nutshell!

Heh,,heh Heh....

Which one was that? Sombody told me punctuation was fascist...although I don't actually believe that.

I'll be more careful!

G West

:~)

Yep!

That's a doozy all right. :-D

SharingIsGood - a challenge:

sounds like a good reason to leave!

so many did.

Actually there was a work BOOM going on during the time as well and there were pressures on raising the minimum wage, therefore the opportunity to work and the rewards for doing so were on the increase, this has more to do with the number of dropouts than whether they did any interesting field trips in grade 9 or not.

sounds like this has become yet another problem for the system now?

Please understand I do not like the current design, the mass compulsory school-plan is just so 'coal age' its not funny.

So? So were many other buildings at the time? What does that have to do with this discussion?

My point about the 1950's is that it was a time of massive increase in the ADMINISTRATION of schools, the teachers #'s remained the same, but suddenly the system needed a whole new level of 'management'? What?

Designing Education- a book from the early 1960's redefined the term "education" after the Prussian fashion as "a means to achieve important economic and social goals of a national character." State education agencies would henceforth act as on-site federal enforcers, ensuring the compliance of local schools with central directives. Each state education department was assigned the task of becoming "an agent of change" and advised to "lose its independent identity as well as its authority," in order to "form a partnership with the federal government."

Behavioral Science Teacher Education Project - from 1967. Readers learned that "chemical experimentation" on minors would be normal procedure in this post-1967 world, a pointed foreshadowing of the massive Ritalin interventions which now accompany the practice of forced schooling.

The Behavioral Science Teacher Education Project identified the future as one "in which a small elite" will control all important matters, one where participatory democracy will largely disappear. Children are made to see, through school experiences, that their classmates are so cruel and irresponsible, so inadequate to the task of self-discipline, and so ignorant they need to be controlled and regulated for society’s good. Under such a logical regime, school terror can only be regarded as good advertising. It is sobering to think of mass schooling as a vast demonstration project of human inadequacy, but that is at least one of its functions.

SharingIsGood - b challenge:

In Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives - in his own words:

"a tool to classify the ways individuals are to act, think, or feel as the result of some unit of instruction." Using methods of behavioral psychology, children would learn proper thoughts, feelings, and actions, and have their improper attitudes brought from home "remediated."

These formed the basis of the changes wrought on the compulsory school system starting in the 1950's!

In all stages of the school experiment, testing was essential to localize the child’s mental state on an official rating scale. Bloom’s epic spawned important descendant forms: Mastery Learning, Outcomes-Based Education, and School-to-Work government-business collaborations. Each classified individuals for the convenience of social managers and businesses, each offered data useful in controlling the mind and movements of the young, mapping the next adult generation.

For whose aims would this be done?!?

now whole rooms (in schools) are filled with computers that no-one uses.

??? what does this have to do with the schooling issue ???

My old Thunderbird was cleaner, with the normally aspirated 4-barrrel carb, than a much newer Honda Civic. The seat-belts were an 'add-on' and it was the Insurance Industry that forced them into vehicles.

still can. My 'mechanic' has an official grade 9 education, but has attended all the needed courses to maintain the most modern vehicles.

??? what does this have to do with the schooling issue ???

SharingIsGood - c challenge:

yes, and so that meant that life was closer to including an understanding of where food comes from. Unlike now where it comes from a 'store' or a bucket.

hmm, maybe the modern schooling has something to do with that reduction?

so? TV is furniture, there was furniture then as now.

There was Radio then, and it was a source of equal distraction, argument and much hand-wringing (especially that Rock and Roll thing!). No difference, just that the 'visual' stimulation is a bit more addictive - I will agree to that.

Called progress, and still I have to ask what does this have to do with the growth in the Administrative positions within the school system since the 1950's?

Are you suggesting that without school vice-principles there would be no medical progress?

I really doubt this claim murdock.

As this article illustrates, total emissions have gone done very markedly since 1970 - much of this as a result of catalytic converters. I really doubt that a large displacement high compression Ford V8 is going to stand up well against a 2007 Honda Civic.

Anyway, have a look:
http://www.implats.co.za/market/emission_standards.asp

SharingIsGood - d challenge:

bovine scatology.

Life was not any simpler at all, it was just different. Capable persons made a difference then as now.

Tell me please, do you know of Albert Einstein? Do you know when he 'dropped out'? Would you think of him as a loss?

How about Stephen Hawking?
Or Richard Branson?

All did not partake in the Unspeakable Chautauqua

fast forward 100 years...

why?

EDITED FOR PERSONAL INSULTS

EDITED FOR PERSONAL INSULTS

THIS KIND OF PERSONAL TRADING OF INSULTS IS NOT WELCOME ON THE TYEE. PLEASE REFRAIN. -- TYEE MODERATOR

SharingIsGood - e challenge:

good we can agree there.

oops back to bovine scatology.

I have tried to help in the schools that my children were going to. Only in the 'pre-schools' was I really invited in, and then I was not permitted to do any more than coloring book stuff...I teach my children at home now and we are examining the entire world. As it is, without any dumbing down.

When I offered to assist in the schools during the teachers strike that was going to tube a good friend's eldest's child from even taking the needed provincial exams (you know that illegal strike a few years back) I volunteered as a invigilator. I am a licenced witness for Provincial and Federal Courts and have held high level security clearances. The school admin was in favor of my volunteering and on the day I was to help in the invigilation of the english 12 exams the janitor got wind of what was going on (a parent helping to make sure the provincial exams got done!?!) and they, the BCGEU all got together and made sure that only the ADMIN of the school was doing the invigilation and I was NOT PERMITTED to help, BY THE UNION DEMAND - WHILE THEY WERE ON STRIKE. Skip the crap that in the school system parents are encouraged to be anything more than a money source.

ok, I'll accept that.

Now does there really need to be three (3) vice-principles and a Principle? Oh yes and lets not forget the 4 councellors and the 7 office staff!

The amount of paid persons to do this accountability is starting to look more like a make work project to me!

SharingIsGood - f challenge:

ok we are back in agreement

two in a row! first time so far, we agree!

so, back to disagreement.

1st Kids are baby goats, I know the 'society' uses this slang for our children, but should we not display some respect for our offspring and in so doing, see that respect reflected back upon us?

Larger schools only offer bigger problems that the 'system' is designed to make you think it can solve but really only makes worse.

School administrators job isn’t about children; it’s about systems maintenance. The school institution has always had a strong shadow mission to refute the irrefutable fact that all kids want to learn to be their best and strongest selves. They don’t need to be forced to do this.

School is a tour de force designed to recreate human nature around a different premise, constructing proof that most kids don’t want to learn because they are biologically defective. School succeeds in this private aim only by failing in its public mission; that’s the knuckle-ball school critics always miss. Only a delicate blend of abject failures, midrange failures, and minor failures mixed together with a topping of success guarantees the ongoing health of the school enterprise. School is as good an illustration of the work of natural selection in institutional life as we have. The only drawback is, the game is crooked. Like an undertaker who murders to boost business or a glazier who breaks glass in the stillness of the night2 to stimulate trade, schools create the problems they seem to exist to solve.

nope, you do not, unless you take the children to Central/South America.

There are plenty of things to do and learn all about you all the time and every day. We live in a busy world, that is 1st class in most technology, information and communications systems. All that is needed is to teach children how to access that on their own.

SharingIsGood - g challenge:

what are parks? I see a lot of folks out running etc without need for a gymnasium.

musical equipment? what about starting with a drum? or a tin whistle? if the desire to play a musical instrument is not there then pressuring more will not work.

Once the desire is found then go to a pawn shop and find a guitar, or some other instrument cheap.

What do buskers do? Could not a child learn from them how to play?

Computer equipment can be had for free!
OK it may be old, but it works and no one will be P.O.'d because you break it.

Science labs? What is the natural world? How much does a piece of broken bottle glass cost (a cheap magnifier and not very accurate I agree but you are saying that this cannot be done!), or at least a cheap magnifying glass? Start there, again if the desire is not there to learn about this then pushing the subject materials on the student will avail exactly nothing!

Foreign Language specialists? Try a rest home! They would love to talk to someone (ok sometimes and not for long hours on end) and many would also enjoy sharing their mother tongues! Again if the learner is not interested, it will not work in the enforced schooling environment either.

Shop work? Whatever happened to apprenticships? How about asking at a carpenters or fabrication shop or an auto shop? Have you tried? Does your learner want this? Organized tools and a clean shop can be the foundation for a remuneration, if the teacher and student can connect - which will foster the best of all possible learning outcomes!

SharingIsGood - h challenge:

I am not nostalgic, I was born long after the 50s were gone.

The needs of a high-tech society are imaginative people who can switch their occupational underpinnings on a dime. Generalists that can understand much of the world, make use of it without having to 'know' it all. This means the ability to think and to learn, FAST. The ability to find information and solutions on their own, and to know that their information or solutions are workable in a timely manner. I do not see these qualities coming out from the mass-compulsion school system. People have them, but that is in spite of the system, not as a natural consequence of it.

EEEK that is the end of days scenario!

more unions? nope Big Brother has enough oversight already, do not need them or more big government.

sure, but that will not happen with a 'big government' approach. Guaranteed.

why?

It will not pay to have 'self-sufficient' people whom then will not need the egg marketing board, or the tomato efficiecy experts...

sure, but to get that is another subject not connected to the one at hand...other than 'international economics' however that is not a subject you are likely to see anytime soon in your public school system (because that would be like showing the rats what the maze looks like).

easy

TURN IT OFF.

SharingIsGood a realistic approach 1

I know that the school system as it is will not dry up and blow away tomorrow, as much as I wish it would.

Here are, however, some realistic potential solutions:

Dismiss the army of reading and arithmetic specialists and the commercial empire they represent. Allow all contracts with colleges, publishers, consultants, and materials suppliers in these areas to lapse. Reading and arithmetic are easy things to learn, although nearly impossible to "teach." By the use of common sense, and proven methods that don’t cost much, we can solve a problem which is artificially induced and wholly imaginary. Take the profit out of these things and the disease will cure itself.

Let no school exceed a few hundred in size. Even that’s far too big. And make them local. End all unnecessary transportation of students at once; transportation is what the British used to do with hardened criminals. We don’t need it, we need neighborhood schools. Time to shut the school factories, profitable to the building and maintenance industries and to bus companies, but disaster for children. Neighborhoods need their own children and vice versa; it’s a reciprocating good, providing surprising service to both. Education is always individualized, and individualization requires absolute trust and split-second flexibility. This should save taxpayers a bundle, too.

Make everybody teach. Don’t let anybody get paid for schooling kids without actually spending time with them. The industrial model, with pyramidal management and plenty of hori-zontal featherbedding niches, is based on ignorance of how things get done, or indifference to results. The administrative racket that gave New York City more administrators than all the nations of Europe combined in 1991, has got to die. It wastes billions, demoralizes teachers, parents, and students, and corrupts the common enterprise.

SharingIsGood a realistic approach 2

Measure performance with individualized instruments. Standardized tests, like schools themselves, have lost their moral legitimacy. They correlate with nothing of human value and their very existence perverts curriculum into a preparation for these extravagant rituals. Indeed, all paper and pencil tests are a waste of time, useless as predictors of anything important unless the competition is rigged. As a casual guide they are probably harmless, but as a sorting tool they are corrupt and deceitful. A test of whether you can drive is driving. Performance testing is where genuine evaluation will always be found. There surely can’t be a normal parent on earth who doesn’t judge his or her child’s progress by performance.

Shut down district school boards. Families need control over the professionals in their lives. Decentralize schooling down to the neighborhood school building level, each school with its own citizen managing board. School corruption, like the national school milk price-rigging scandal of the 1990s, will cease when the temptations of bulk purchasing, job giveaways, and remote decision-making are ended.

Install permanent parent facilities in every school with appropriate equipment to allow parent partnerships with their own kids and others. Frequently take kids out of school to work with their own parents. School policies must deliberately aim to strengthen families.

Restore the primary experience base we stole from childhood by a slavish adherence to a utopian school diet of steady abstraction, or an equally slavish adherence to play as the exclusive obligation of children. Define primary experience as the essential core of early education, secondary data processing a supplement of substantial importance. But be sure the concepts of work, duty, obligation, loyalty, and service are strong components of the mix. Let them stand shoulder to shoulder with "fun." Let children engage in real tasks as Amish children do, not synthetic games and simulations that set them up for commercial variants of more-of-the-same for the rest of their lives.

SharingIsGood a realistic approach 3

Recognize that total schooling is psychologically and procedurally unsound. Wasteful and horrendously expensive. Give children some private time and space, some choice of subjects, methods, and associations, and freedom from constant surveillance. A strong element of volition, of choice, of anti-compulsion, is essential to education. That doesn’t mean granting a license to do anything. Anyway, whatever is chosen as "curriculum," the vital assistance that old can grant young is to demand that personal second or third best will not do—the favor you can bestow on your children is to show by your own example that hard, painstaking work is the toll an independent spirit charges itself for self-respect. Our colleges work somewhat better than our other schools because they understand this better.

Admit there is no one right way to grow up successfully. One-system schooling has had a century and a half to prove itself. It is a ghastly failure. Children need the widest possible range of roads in order to find the right one to accommodate themselves. The premise upon which mass compulsion schooling is based is dead wrong. It tries to shoehorn every style, culture, and personality into one ugly boot that fits nobody. Tax credits, vouchers, and other more sophisticated means are necessary to encourage a diverse mix of different school logics of growing up. Only sharp competition can reform the present mess; this needs to be an overriding goal of public policy. Neither national nor provincial government oversight is necessary to make a voucher/tax credit plan work: a modicum of local control, a disclosure law with teeth, and a policy of client satisfaction or else is all the citizen protection needed. It works for supermarkets and doctors. It will work for schools, too, without national testing.

Teach children to think dialectically so they can challenge the hidden assumptions of the world about them, including school assumptions, so they can eventually generate much of their own personal curriculum and oversight. But teach them, too, that dialectical thinking is unsuited to many important things like love and family. Dialectical analysis is radically inappropriate outside its purview.

SharingIsGood a realistic approach 4

Arrange much of schooling around complex themes instead of subjects. "Subjects" have a real value, too, but subject study as an exclusive diet was a Prussian secret weapon to produce social stratification. Substantial amounts of interdisciplinary work are needed as a corrective.

Force the school structure to provide flex-time, flex-space, flex-sequencing, and flex-content so that every study can be personalized to fit the whole range of individual styles and performance.

Break the teacher certification monopoly so anyone with something valuable to teach can teach it. Nothing is more important than this.

I know that you and many others will totally disagree with the last and most important statement. So be it.

A twenty-five-year-old school dropout walked the length of the planet without help, a seventeen-year-old school dropout worked a twenty-six-foot sailboat all by herself around the girdle of the globe.

What else does it take to realize the horrifying limitations we have inflicted on our children?

School is a liar’s world.

Let us be done with it.

murdock/s.i.g.

We may have some points to disagree on, but this is definitely not one of them. At the risk of repeating a well-worn cliche, school is devolving into an extremely costly baby-sitting service.

which is indicative of lowered standards today, so the parents can be proud of their "little genuises"?

This is news?

Standardized tests HAD moral legitimacy? Even ‘schools’ – I’m not sure they ever had much either…but I’ll let that one go.

I'd still like to know how, in murdock's world, the urban Canadian single mom or the double income family - who are using all their power just to keep their heads above water - are going to find time to 'teach' their kids under the private system you envision. In fact, a great many such couples have decided not to even 'have' one child - let alone a 'family'. Most of the parents I know call their kids accidents by the way.

I'm not sure I want the old fella next door, who is a great gardener, teaching my children anything but horticulture - and I'm not actually sure about that - you gotta wonder about a guy so obsessed with his lawn that he cuts it 3 times a week all summer. By the way, the parents in the rest of the houses on the block also work one or two jobs and their kids are mostly latch-key orphans from 9 - 5.

Something a little practical murdock, please - I'm busy trying to make a living - unless one is independently wealthy or living on a self-sustaining plot of land in the Cowichan Valley your ideas just won't take. Sorry.

murdock/rick w

NO, this is not indicative of lowered standards, it is indicative of girls staying in longer to improve their workforce potential, less available work for drop-outs, and school teachers changing their methods to teach more to student need despite the current government's push to turn education back to the 19th century.

Most of today's teachers are highly trained and capable people with 5-8 years of post secondary education. It is my belief that Murdock is a bit out of touch with how capable they are. Most of the reason they don't bring more "experts" in from the outside is because of their need to cover Ministry-mandated curriculum and district-defined safety protocols. By the time the teacher jumps all of the hoops to handle all of the special needs kids and demands of "accountability", it is hard to consistantly enable exciting learnings to take place, he or she has not time to do all of the other things that are required of him or her.

I spoke with a "master teacher" who was held in high esteem by the educational community a few years ago. She had been putting on a workshop about what makes good teaching good. She showed all of the materials she had created and the individualized assignments that she had created with each of her 28 students in a Grade 7 class. I asked her how much time she spent doiing this wonderful work that she does with all of her students. Her answer: "14-15 hours per day". In summer, she guest-lectured for university courses that taught best educational practices and took courses herself. I asked her what she did outside of teaching, and I learned that she did very little. Her husband had left her 5 years earlier because she worked too much and she had no children. This person was put forward as the model for others to follow. Something is out of balance. Schools need to reduce class size so that individualized instruction can happen in a healthy way.

As a society, we need to stop expecting workaholism.

S.I.G.

NO, this is not indicative of lowered standards

You may have to go the proverbial mile (no, not kilmetre) to convince me of this, SIG.

Most of the kids I have any contact with are woefully ignorant of what goes on around them, and of expressing what they do know. They are very good using celphones, and X-boxes, but ask them where Toronto or Montreal are, and they become "lost in space".......never mind Tuktoyaktuk or Nunavut.......

What's wrong with knowing a little bit about your own country, and maybe some of the world?

A small step in the right direction

Way to go John. It has been a long fight and so often alone. It is great to know that we sometimes do win. An really what other motivation do we need other than it is the right thing to do.

RW - people remember what they want

(Part 1)
I congratulate you for engaging kids about the world, Rick W. Most grownups that I know ignor children and teenagers. They buy them cell phones, iPods and X-boxes then they leave them to their own devices. Young children are staying up late at night watching x-rated videos and "popping hos" on Grand Theft Auto. You will find just as many really bright kids going to school as went years ago. Of the ones who now finish high school, there are many more who are interested in remembering things just long enough to get them through the tests - just passing. Try as they might to entice the kids back into learning, teachers have a daunting task.

This government's forcing of more provincial exams on students has made matters worse. These tests take the intrinsic rewards from learning and replace those rewards with punishment for kids who try but fail to do as well as they had hoped. Doing poorly on a test is a reaffirmation of their own stupidity (which children who are ignorred or abused by their parents often secretly believe themselves to be). So, why should they even try to learn or show that they care when they will be punished for their efforts? This is called learned helplessness. It is rampant and it is tied to self-esteem. By the time many of these ignorred kids are mature enough to decide that it is time they paid attention for their own sakes, they are in Grade 11 with but one socials course left to complete for graduation.

RW - continued

(part 2)

My son goes to public school and he is keenly interested all of the world. He has been taught and asked to understand things at a far deeper level than what was asked of me than when I went to school (except in English class). His friends/peers take the same courses with the same teachers. Many of those peers don't care to do anything more than is necessary to pass the courses. Those peers generally have parents who pay very little attention to their children. The parents of those children do not talk to them about their school work or what is going on in the world around them. They are the same parents who (if they ever pick up a newspaper or catch the news on TV) read and watch CanWest/Global and believe that they got an understanding of the world around them.

Students are only in classrooms actually engaged in learning for about 1000 hours a year. The bulk of their time is spent outside of school, numbing themselves out with electronic devices, and drugs. I haven't even discussed drugs - like marijuana being 20 times more potent than it was 30 years ago. Just imagine how that helps a young mind? Anyhow, the bulk of learning taking place for students is happening outside of school and many parents are not modelling caring, committment, and interest in their children. Why should kids care about school?

One final aside: (Though I have only watched it twice) have you ever seen how many adults fail on the TV program "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" Most nostalgic adults don't remember what they learned in school, either.

I've written enough; it's time to spend some quality time with my son. cya...

Irrational

The author is letting John Young get away with the rationalization that the Supreme Court ruling that “fees were illegal under the school act for any public school course that leads to graduation.” means that no fees of any sort can or should be charged.

The Supreme Court ruling is logical and justified, Mr. Young’s interpretation and continued battle is untenable. Who would decide what courses should be offered and paid for out of public funds?

He’s hardly been successful at creating a fee-less school system for every child, as he aims to. Fees for exceptional programs provide a rational way for families to decide what additional opportunities their children should participate in.

To suggest that the public school system should fully fund every possible school related activity is another lefty wank-fest.

Mr. Young should get a life.

Mr Young has a life nutter

And some principles other than the slavish worship of the bottom line.

I think YOU should take your own advice.

EDITED BY MODERATOR.

Sorry GDub

DELETED BY MODERATOR.

Not strange at all

EDITED BY MODERATOR.

There’s nothing dedicated or public spirited about John Young’s posturing….he’s likely to cause as much harm as good.

Well I guess I'd say those aren't baseless

ON the evidence provided by your own words:

If you can't see that means there will be no exceptional programs for the families who can't afford the fees then...

EDITED BY MODERATOR.

Run that one by me again, please..

"To suggest that the public school system should fully fund every possible school related activity is another lefty wank-fest."

I must confess I don't know the jargon, but probably, 'lefty wank-fest' means you do not agree to the idea that every school-related activity should be fully funded by the public system.

Whyever not? If it's worth doing, it should be worth paying for! If it's good for the goose, it must be good for the gander, etc. If some people's kids can benefit from it, why shouldn't everybody's kids? Why should there be some limit set between those who have parents with the moolah and those who don't? It is profoundly undemocratic to lay the liabilities of the previous generation's fumblings on the next generation; ergo, we must set them at equal oppportunity as far as we can.

I would really really like to know on what basis you are rejecting the equality principle for the children of a new generation??

G West

Ain't it amazing how rightistas rant on about government interference and welfare statism, but whine and bitch when a program THEY cherish (or take for granted) is threatened with removal........

S.I.G.

These "gems among the dross" are due wholly to the efforts of individual teachers (I know a couple myself, who customarily spend, not only their own money, but an extracuricular 10-20 hours a week with the kiddies) almost in defiance of the system, which believes in the LCD (lowest common denominator). Political interfence in our education pretty well ensures that dross will prevail though.

The major problem with systems though, is they become far more engrossed with the bureaucracy than with the end product........

Dorothy

[[EDITED]]

The reason that John Young’s mission is untenable is in this question I asked earlier – “Who would decide what courses should be offered and paid for out of public funds?”

If the School District decides that a cooking course for two weeks in Italy for 30 kids would be nice, does that get funded by all taxpayers?

Now, the extremists on this site are going to jump all over me for posting an absurd example. Yet, anything more subtle seems to go over their heads. So, let me ask you, who would decide which programs should and shouldn’t be funded? I’ll give you my answer, those necessary for graduation, as indicated by the Supreme Court ruling. Everything else is just an extraneous wish list……

THE REMAINDER OF THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN EDITED BY THE MODERATOR.

If anyone needed any further proof

If anyone needed any further proof of exactly what kind of a 'bent' character you are noleftnutter - you've just provided it.

EDITED BY MODERATOR.

Thanks editor

Much appreciated, and I understand exactly why my response - which I waited more than 4 hours to deliver - was redacted as well. Although it certainly wasn't 'personal' in the same sense that the comment which had occasioned it was; I’ve kept a copy of what he/she wrote because I don’t actually trust anyone who writes in a public place the kind of remarks that mr or ms noleftnutter delivered here this morning.

Cheers.

Dubya

Ditto.....

no left nutter

You really are a piece of work. I've a good mind to repost what you actually wrote. In fact, I think I will:

Dorothy

NoLeftNutter
1 hour ago
Like GW, you only seem to be able to view this issue from a single perspective and miss important information in comments that others make. The reason that John Young’s mission is untenable is in this question I asked earlier – “Who would decide what courses should be offered and paid for out of public funds?”
If the School District decides that a cooking course for two weeks in Italy for 30 kids would be nice, does that get funded by all taxpayers?
Now, the extremists on this site are going to jump all over me for posting an absurd example. Yet, anything more subtle seems to go over their heads. So, let me ask you, who would decide which programs should and shouldn’t be funded? I’ll give you my answer, those necessary for graduation, as indicated by the Supreme Court ruling. Everything else is just an extraneous wish list……..BTW, we’re not all equal and all the group hugs in the world isn’t going to change that.
As for you Dubya, come back when you’re over your urine-swilling induced psychosis and, as for this quote –
Quote:
Someone wrote to me the other day and said how hopeless she'd begun to feel about the greed and selfishness that seem to be the only things she sees in her fellow human beings any more. She was thinking of just giving up the struggle against ignorance, selfishness and hate.- GW
Sorry to hear about your Mom, better luck next time.

You really are a piece of work!

Noleftnutter as opposed to what?

It seems to ask, based on the above posts, what is the basis for identifying a position as one of noleftnutter/ I can't help wondering if that means that he is a really a "rightnutter". In that case it is a very apt handle. I mean to suggest that John Young is doing more harm than good only makes sense if you subscribe to the notion that public education should not be free, should not be equally accessible and should not be of eqaull quality for all students. In other words you would have to be on the fringes of the right-wing or as I said a "rightnutter".

You gotta have pity in this life.

Skywalker

Like many others, you’re missing the point of the danger in what John Young is doing. He might force the government to fund every possible element of every school plan in the country…Yippee.

There is not going to be any more money given to the school system therefore, the number of options available will decrease because, remember, taxpayers have to pay for every element of every school program.

If it becomes illegal to subsidize/support exceptional programs then they will disappear for everyone, not the opposite, which you appear to believe, that there will be more choice all entirely funded by taxpayers.

As I’ve said, the logical answer is that the government should fund every element of every program required for graduation as decided in the Supreme Court ruling. Schools should have the options of supporting and funding all other programs as they are willing and able to…….

GW, I’m going to miss you…..

Personal Insults

FINE, MODERATOR.

Here:

GWest is a fraud.

For your own proof please read this TYEE article in the comments section.

Start with Freudian Slip? it goes down hill fast from there.

I guess that means you're leaving

Because those were your words nutter.

I won't miss you at all.

You mean this article murdock

http://thetyee.ca/Views/Teacherdiaries/2007/02/27/BoyTrouble/

Thanks for bringing it up, I haven't had cause to post it for some time and since I'm entirely proud of my record and what I said on that thread I'm more than happy to bring anyone not aware of G WEST's past up to date.

Your chapter is getting longer though murdock.

Thanks again

back on the road I hope...

"There is not going to be any more money given to the school system therefore, the number of options available will decrease because, remember, taxpayers have to pay for every element of every school program."

This is a picture of total confusion. If a program is not needed for graduation and 'should' only be available for children with a special interest and parents with a fat wallet, because it is really mickey mouse and not a serious subject, then why in the name or perdition does it have to be done through the school at all? Let us try to sort the wheat from the chaff. There is legitimate lateral enrichment, which should be equally available for all, and then there is glorified babysitting, which the school shouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. If public money goes into all that the school does, and it must be universal, then maybe, just maybe, we will actually see people undertake the research on what constitutes a serious education, something we have long since lost sight of. I have sent three bright young minds through the spiritless grinder we now call public education, and only because their other parent had the wisdom to see the need of solid support at home and did the service, did they come through it with the ability to use their minds for something useful once in a while. That was the expensive solution, but worth it, and I know other parents who set their priorities likewise. But it should not be needed, when we have supposed professionals nominally doing the job and getting paid for it. I think, NLN, that there is greater, far greater danger in slouching on the way we have been doing.

NLN

I presume you are referring to the courses required for graduation, because that is the essence of John Young's stance.

Simple enough question deserves a simple enough answer: What are the courses right now, needed for graduation?

Rick W

Your question makes perfect sense……but that’s not what John Young is fighting for. He’s fighting for elimination of all fees for all courses, a completely different animal.

yeah, why!

"Your question makes perfect sense"

So, why do you not answer it? you take on the role of lecturer in this, and somebody asks a question you think is legit. What part of 'question' do you not understand?

Of course that's what John Young is fighting for

An equitable educational experience for all and not one where children and young people whose parents can't afford the frills some kinds of people think ought to be their right merely because they have the money to, how was it put by someone earlier?
Yes, I remember exactly what it was:

That's where the elitist philosophy (if you can call it that) falls off the rails because if the 'exceptional' opportunities are only available to those who can afford them - and many can't - then the idea of equality of educational opportunity goes down the drain.

And since equality of educational opportunity is the sine qua non of the modern capitalistic democracy - we've already been advised that any other attempt at leveling is either communistic or (on gentler days) socialism - then this battle for strikes at the core of what's left of that project.

Therefore, before this nonsense further alienates the mainstream culture of this country and turns it into a meaner place than it already is, for God's sake get out of the public system and quit ruining it if that's what you believe.

This thread is a litany of stories about how damaging that is to children's spirits and anyone who doesn't appreciate that John Young is forcing people to consider - with the help of the courts and the Charter - what this country and especially this province is becoming is purblind to the deepening fissures in our communities.

Even the fact that some individuals can't bring themselves to discuss anything without scatological references is a great eye-opener about those who seem to love the opportunity to separate and distance themselves from other human beings on the basis of the size of their pocketbooks.

It certainly isn't intellectual quality or the ability to engage in civil discourse that sets them apart.

The rich already have their leg up on 80 - 90 percent of the Canadian population already - surely they can stop their larceny and fraud at the school house doors.

Dorothy

I don’t lecture, like most others here, I comment. The answer to Rick’s question -

exists in guidelines drawn up for the school curriculum. I haven’t looked them up so I don’t have a definitive answer. If you want to know what they are I suggest you look them up.

Our kids are entitled to equal access to courses required for graduation fully funded by taxpayers. Those of you who believe every potential educational opportunity that a School District may wish to provide should be fully available to every student and fully funded by taxpayers are simply misguided.

GW

Students are entitled to equal access to all programs required for graduation. That creates equality of educational opportunity. There is no inherent right for every student to have fully funded access to every program that a School District may choose to offer. In fact, many school programs have other benchmarks and qualifiers that may prevent some students from participating, how do you square that circle?

I disagree

You expect a system where the 'extras' are also taught to those kids whose parents have the beans to pay the extra bills.

That's not equity and it has no business in the public system.

Take your elitist ideas and peddle them somewhere else...you know exactly what I'm talking about and have all along. Benchmarks and qualifiers shouldn't have anything to do with whether your dad has gone walkabout or your mom is unemployed.

That's equality of opportunity. No one can guarantee equality of outcome - but we can ensure that everyone starts at the same line. I hope John Young takes this case to the SCC and extends that ideals that this country ought to stand for into every PUBLIC school in the country.

Soon.

no, not again...

"In fact, many school programs have other benchmarks and qualifiers that may prevent some students from participating, how do you square that circle?"

You're changing the subject! We haven't discussed prerequisites or abilities, but access independent of ability to pay, or not.

It also doesn't help you to high-handedly declare that those who do not see it your way are 'simply misguided'. That ain't an argument. I expect you to explain why you believe they are. Where did you go to school? If it was in a private one, you ought to be able to get some of the money back.

Bwah..Ha Ha Ha

Nicely done dorothy.

G Whiz, West!

Compulsory schooling was one of the first steps western civilization took in dragging itself up out of the mire of feudalism and the Dark Ages. Seems that some folks are mighty anxious to head back into that particular muck..........