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‘Parent Tribal Memory’ Category

  1. Race to the middle

    March 3, 2014 by Tunya

     

    Congratulations, TDSB!  Flat is in!  Right in the middle!  Is this happenstance as TDSB apologists claim or is it deliberate dumbing down?

    Was this a leadership project guided by graduates of the FLAT CURRICULUM PROGRAM?

    Consider this:  Al Gore comes to Toronto for some coal fumes alleviation ceremony with Kathleen Wynne, Ontario Premier.  See the headlines for Nov 21, 2013 Al Gore and Kathleen Wynne to hold love-in.

    But, is it a coincidence that a day after Al Gore’s visit, Wynne announces: “Ontario education needs to move beyond focus on 3Rs to foster skills like creativity, collaboration, community and critical thinking.”?http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/21/premier_kathleen_wynne_ontario_education_needs_to_move_beyond_focus_on_3rs.html

    Why do I mention Gore?  Because he connects with the movements that want to curtail prosperity in aid of sustainability programs.  Because he has connections with the Fabians, the 130 year old organization dedicated to spreading global socialism — incrementally and irreversibly — motto:  Educate, Agitate, Organize.

    I was alerted to the global agenda last year when an education official from our Ministry of Education spoke to parents.  This was one month before our provincial election May 14, 2013. The message was to this effect:  Be prepared for a shift in education, a transformation, from content to competencies.  We must test what we value — the competencies: collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking.  It doesn’t matter who wins the election. The changes are going ahead. It’s international.

    Coming back to the FLAT CURRICULUM.  Is this a joke?  No.

    It’s a full-fledged program originating with a professor in Australia, Julie Lindsay, providing credit courses and presentations on global education and related to UNESCO programs.  Here is her book:

    “Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time (Pearson Resources for 21st Century Learning). 

    So does TDSB fit?  For those of us outside the TDSB orbit, will there be a “flattener” come to our town soon?  Remember what I keep saying about Alberta education — the tall poppies needed to be cut down.  Alberta’s former exemplary international school performance rating has now suffered significant slippage. The gurus have left town and the levelers carry on.

    Category Education Reform, Obstacles, Parent Tribal Memory | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Limbo Is Normal For BC Education — Chapter TWO

    March 2, 2014 by Tunya

    Continuing to develop and prove that outright collusion between our two warring parties in BC education — BCTF vs government-of-the-day — is the norm and a DESIRED state for the reasons of mutual dependence by the two parties on a relatively stable monopoly system.  We can track when this contest started. A contest, which I keep reminding readers, leaves the consumer — students, parents, and taxpaying public — sidelined and forsaken — in limbo.

    Our BC education historian, Prof Thomas Fleming, wrote an article that lays out the scenario.  As in his book, Worlds Apart, this article goes to 1972 when BC voted in its first socialist government, the NDP. BC has a rather exacting bi-political demographic — 25 % committed socialist, 25% committed conservatives, and 50% floaters. Teachers, with the aid of their unions, generally rally to the left and in this case helped bring in the new government.  Quote from the section Teacher Power:

    “The BCTF executive was by now firmly in the hands of militants, notably supporters of the “radical Marxist” Jim McFarlan, to use historian F. Henry Johnson’s description, who was twice voted Federation president in the early 1970s. McFarlan and his group within the Federation believed schools should be used as instruments of social change, a view earlier espoused by American educational reconstructionists in the 1930s. McFarlan was not at all shy about exercising his political clout.”


    http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/edu_hse-rhe/article/viewArticle/454/611

    Radical unions, including teacher unions, believe in worker control of the workplace.  It was from 1972 that our perennial school wars started which carry on to this day. 

    Despite all their feuding, the BCTF and government-of-the-day remain an exclusive club to this day.  How independent schools began to thrive in this climate is an untold story.  Perhaps there was some backroom deal to obtain the acquiescence of the union.  Whatever, canny intelligence within Headquarters has usually succeeded in calling the shots, yet helping retain the institutional status quo.

    Literature pays tribute to the sophistication of the BCTF in their struggles.  Lois Weiner in her book, “The Future of Our Schools”, says, “The British Columbia Teachers Federation is a fine example of how to organize for a successful strike, even when defying the courts.”

    Use of psychological warfare and propaganda techniques is also employed.  In the article,  “Structuring reality so that the law will follow”, Sara Slinn quotes Larry Kuehn, ex BCTF president, as saying: “The key to our strategy was to restructure ourselves in a way which assumed that we had the right to bargain the whole range of things and then to try to take that into the bargaining arena … the strategic view was that if we did that for a period of time and we have restructured the reality then the law would follow. “http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Structuring+reality+so+that+the+law+will+follow:+British+Columbia…-a0274699540

    Sure, today we again see the saber-rattling, but looks like the two parties are still playing footsie.  Yesterday’s Globe and Mail article on the topic of Math in Canada produced this precious comment:  “In BC, the worst math teacher I know, the one who confused my kid so much we had to hire a tutor, is now part of the panel developing the math curriculum. Why? Not because of any math knowledge, but because he’s high-up in the union.”  So even while teachers and parents are having “misgivings” about a new curriculum being developed behind closed doors, by this comment it may seem that unionists are getting spots on plum committees as a method to gain union cooperation and forestall obstacles.

    Producer capture reigns supreme.  Consumers get shorted as these two parties do faux battles to again manufacture “labour peace”.  Trust us! 

    Category Education Reform, Obstacles, Parent Tribal Memory | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Limbo is normal for bc education

    March 1, 2014 by Tunya

    Limbo — the state of being disregarded or forgotten, neglected, abandoned, forsaken, deserted, disregarded.

    The latest court cases, appeals, and collective bargaining muddles in BC have caused a news article to conclude that we could be in “limbo for months to come.” That’s nothing new.  Seems we’re always in limbo.

    The “limbo” status in British Columbia specifically applies to parents and students in the public education system.  For over 40 years the education system has been a contest between two strong foes vying for supremacy — the teacher’s union (BCTF) and the government of the day. It doesn’t matter the political stripe of the government — socialist, conservative or liberal — the union presents as Alpha Males.

    It’s not just collective bargaining times that are fraught with turmoil.  There are regular disputes, protests, and grievances to contend with.  The media treats all this as a blood sport, because it’s all so “quotable” and makes headlines.

    This 4-decade battle has been well-chronicled in education historian Thomas Fleming’s book, “Worlds Apart: BC Schools, Politics and Labour Relations Before and After 1972”. http://www.bendallbooks.com/catalog/publications/worlds-apart-british-columbia-schools-politics-and-labour-relations-before-and-after-1972/

    BUT, regardless of how flagrant the School Wars figure in our landscape, these two foes, like spatting spouses, do NOT take much notice of any third party. Of course, lip service is paid — “We want the best for the children”, but that rings hollow.

    What is acutely evident from having lived here all this time is that this is a well orchestrated collusion.  Neither party wants to upset “the monopoly system” which provides so much security and a steady captive audience from which they enjoy mutual benefit.  Whether it’s “labour peace” or “quiet during the Winter Olympics 2010” they usually arrange some sweetheart deal because of blatant “MUTUAL NEED”. 

    Alternative schools, choices, charters, education savings accounts where the education dollar follows the child — all these proven and innovative options are dismissed and discouraged.  At a time when so much is known about how different approaches are working, especially for special needs students, and with the challenges ahead because of technology and a demanding world, it is truly a pity that we have to be stuck perpetually in this catfight, this limbo.

     

    Category Education Reform, Obstacles, Parent Tribal Memory, Teacher Unions | Tags: | No Comments

  4. parent rights in legislation – utah

    February 28, 2014 by Tunya

    From The Salt Lake Tribune, Feb 27, 2014

    http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57607959-78/bill-parents-child-reasonable.html.csp

    Lawmakers advance ‘bill of rights’ for Utah parents – SB122

    Parents would have what amounts to a bill of rights in education under legislation forwarded to the full Senate on Thursday.

    SB122, sponsored by Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, list the rights parents have when dealing with schools, including some new rights.

    The bill aims to reengage parents who aren’t involved in their children’s education as well as those who have been shut out by educators, Osmond said.

    He wants an education system, he said, that recognizes "the parent really is the lead" and that will customize education to get the best outcomes for students . . .

    The version endorsed Thursday requires that schools make reasonable accommodations to let parents influence which teacher the child gets; visit classrooms; excuse a child’s absences; set the child’s level of academic rigor; excuse a child from statewide or national standardized tests; secure course credit if a child tests out or is competent in a subject; set the time for a parent-teacher conference; and be notified if a child violates discipline or conduct rules.

    Category GOOD NEWS, Parent Tribal Memory | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Shortcuts To teacher training – australia

    February 27, 2014 by Tunya

    Teach for Amereica is a successful program that prepares university grads for teaching — in six intensive weeks.

    After six weeks of training at the University of Melbourne, TFA (Australia) program graduates teachers for two years teaching in disadvantaged schools that serve students from low socio-economic backgrounds. About half teach in the high demand STEM subjects, as many are recent graduates themselves with specialist degrees.

    Here is today’s news, Jan 15, 2014: On a fast-track to a career in education

     http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/on-a-fasttrack-to-a-career-in-education-20140115-30txf.html

    The TFA program will no doubt be an item in the Review just started by the new government of Tony Abbott.  Part of the reason his Liberal/National Coalition won the last Australian election over the governing Labor regime was public disaffection with a new National Curriculum — six years in the making — with a worldview that was considered “leftist”, “New Age” and full of “gobbledygook”.  [I guess that’s Australian for our “edu-babble”.]

    Australia, like Canada, has also been sliding in international education scores, so the Review will look at curriculum as well as teaching capacities.  Parents will have a say in the Review process.  Nick Cater, a respected culture critic, says the curriculum is “beyond saving”.  He disapproves of the “sustainability” agenda being “integrated” into all subjects — English, geography, history, mathematics, science — for example. 

    Cater says: “If the Education Minister is to be criticised, it is for imagining this irredeemable document can be tidied up and put back on the shelf when the only realistic course of action is to tear the damn thing up.”

    Australia is a rather bi-polarized nation, thus it will be a lively time as the Review Duo is to report back in six months time.

    I will be watching for these issues to be deliberated — Why a “national” curriculum at all when states are responsible for education? —  Should public funding be freed-up for a wider diversity of alternatives? — Will teacher training be critiqued for its role in mindsets and standards? — Should one worldview predominate or would a pluralist nation benefit from a live-and-let-live broadmindedness?

    Category GOOD NEWS, Parent Tribal Memory | Tags: | No Comments

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