Questions of funding, class size and other issues determined through bargaining and defined by teachers’ employment contracts are important. But setting those aside for the moment, what is one thing teachers could be empowered to change today that would improve the school experience for them and their students?
242 Responses to “ Question 17: Enabling teacher-led change ”
Connect
Enabling Teacher-led Change:
Make educational journals available to teachers, so that their change is research and evidence based. Evidence ≠ public opinion necessarily.
Which journals do you like? Any particular areas of interest for you?
Great question. I just quickly went through my reference manager and these publications seem to be the most popular (roughly in order of most citations):
Journal of Science Education and Technology (free)
Science education
Journal of Research on Technology in Education
Journal of Research in Science Teaching
Phi Delta Kappan
Science teacher
Physics teacher
Mathematics teacher
International Journal of Science Education
Journal of Educators Online (free)
Review of Educational Research
Have all teachers informed about learning disabilities. My son has a learning disability. Now that I am informed about the traits of his learning disability upon refelection all comments/complaints at his IEP meetings where traits of the disability. My son’s mental health is now not good. I was suggested by mental health to read the book Lost at School by Dr. Greene. Which I have now done. I will be sharing this book with all his future teachers. I am so very fustrated as I thought that his teachers would understand what they were dealing with but now I know that isn’t exactly the case. I am now way more informed thanks to mental health services and I want to change the system not just for him but for all children.
I have compassion for your experience. However, it seems like just another thing to put on teachers who are already quite burdened. As far as I know, most teaching programs do address learning disabilities, and the related strategies…however, it simply isn’t practical to expect a teacher to be an expert on dyslexia, ADHD, Autism, FASD, and the myriad of other forms of learning difficulty. If there were only a few conditions for teachers to be informed about, it would be a different story…
…as such, I propose that you try to empower the teacher, who is NOT a specialist in the various mental conditions and disabilities(that’s an entirely different degree or two or three). Get an actual specialist if you aren’t able to do it yourself, and have the necessary resources and information provided to the teacher.
Do not expect a teacher to have the time to read the book that is important to you(they have x number of textbooks and a ton of homework to read over and mark already)–distill the important information for him or her and streamline it so that they can implement it easily for your child.
Many teachers are already putting in 4-6 EXTRA hours a day that they are not getting paid for…so do as much of the work for them as you can–it is your job as the advocate and guardian of your child.
Also, work with your child to empower him to succeed in a system that isn’t designed specifically for him (it is no different than wanting teachers to adapt to teaching requirements that are above and beyond what they signed up for).
Slowly society at large is becoming more informed on the nature of learning disabilities and mental difficulty…but it is really a field that is a specialty in itself…far too much to ask of teaches who are struggling enough with simply teaching the curriculum to the non-disabled kids.
Actually, as far as mental health services go, it is really their place to step in and to make the difference if there is a mental health issue interfering with school…
…we don’t expect mental health professionals to teach reading, writing and arithmetic to our kids when their grades are low…so why put it on teachers to do the job of mental health pros when mental health is the problem?
Of course it is best when we all do what we can…but first hold those accountable that are accountable.
What a teacher can do above and beyond that should be counted as a grace, not as a requirement.
Thanks so much for your reply. I understand your points. I do plan on informing his future teachers about traits of the learning disability and no longer have the assumption that they already know what it is. I also will make suggesstions on how they can solve problems between himself and the teacher by using the colllabitive problem solving approah as put forward by Dr. Greene. My plan is not just to hand over the book. If these things do not work out then I will ask mental health to speak on my sons behalf. I expected the school system to know what to do in order to teach my child and have him feel successful however this is not a correct assumption. It was the school system that gave him this designation so therefore it was assumed that it would be the school system that would know how to work with it. I myself contacted mental health as frustration levels at school are out of control. It was only from mental health services that I became more informed. I hope that the system will change not just for the sake of my son’s health but for all children who do not fit within the box.
Sorry who is required to teach children with learning disabilities? It is the school system. I get that teachers do not have extra time and there is no extra help (funds) for support of these children so the kids become “lost at school”. The soluction is Not to lower parents expectations but to change the system so these children do not end up with nonproductive lives. How do I teach my child to feel succesful in a system that was not built for him? I am not being sarcastic but looking for an answer.
Most schools used to have a special education program where children with difficulties would go to a separate classroom to get personalized instruction and assistance with their work in the areas where they were not keeping up with their classmates.
In many areas that has been phased out, and the regular classroom teachers are forced to deal with these various conditions that actually require special intervention. In a few cases, students with such needs get assigned learning assistants. This seems like a good thing, but it is not. It just crowds the classroom with another adult, and kids with learning assistants end up confused between the additional authority figures that they have to answer to.
I personally think that it was a much better system before, as it got kids the attention they needed, and it didn’t create further issues as keeping struggling kids in classrooms that move too fast for them does.
When kids that need personal interventions are in large classes where they can’t get the attention that they need, they often get agitated or distracted and become disruptive as a means of seeking attention.
To fix the system is not a matter of getting regular teachers to do more, but of reorganizing how the ‘issue’ is approached. One trained special education teacher can manage learning difficulties for a large number of students.
It is cost-effective, as one person can replace almost all of the learning assistants that populate the many classrooms where children with learning difficulties are being forced to sit through lessons and curricula that progress much too quickly and complexly for them.
…so I would suggest advocating for something like that if you want to see systemic change. It is a lot to ask of a teacher that already has 20+ students to deal with that they specialize their curriculum so that it accommodates learning disabilities, and simultaneously keeps kids progressing through the curriculum at the same speed.
The school system IS responsible for educating…but they are not babysitters.
It sounds harsh, but when children are forced to tag along with a class that is progressing much too fast, they end up missing out on being educated, and they end up simply being ‘managed’.
It doesn’t make sense for a teacher to have their primary focus on teaching the standard curriculum to the majority of the students, and to keep children in an environment where they will not be the top priority. It simply isn’t practical.
It is better to have special education pros that do not have other priorities besides helping your child.
In regular classrooms, the teacher is responsible to the majority’s needs. It is impossible for the difficult cases to get the full attention that is required for the greatest level of success.
-Rob
Jody, I admire your fight. It`s a noble and worthwhile goal, to ensure that these children lead productive lives. You say it well, and I wish you all the best.
I`ve been in your position and I gave up. Time was passing fast for my child, and the time to help was right then, not when the school gets approval, when the ministry releases the funds, in two years ,whatever.
If you can afford it, try a private school with a focus on learning disabilities. There, your child will have small classes, individual attention and thoughtful help. Don`t misunderstand me – the quality of the teachers is the same, both in private and in public. It`s the small classes that make a difference, whatever some might say (hint hint). Yes, perhaps some children can function very well next to their 29 classmates. But not children with learning disabilities. I`m surprised that there`s so much resistence to admitting this simple truth.
Good luck to you and your son.
I will allow this comment but will ask that we focus back on the question: “But setting those aside for the moment, what is one thing teachers could be empowered to change today that would improve the school experience for them and their students?”
This brought to mind an image of a teenager talking to his/her parents:
“What you’re saying about getting chores done and earning privileges and all is fine, but setting those aside for the moment, can we get back to the issue of how we can make my summer experience the best it can possibly be?”
See, there is a flaw in the question to begin with…it basically says: “excluding the actual context of teachers’ experiences, how can they be empowered to make positive improvements?”
…and of course the correct answer to such questions is monkey delineate vacuuming antidisestablishmentarianism.
Context matters.
The recent explosion of social media websites has allowed for an influx of students from around the world to freely express themselves through words and images. In my opinion, this expression is poorly moderated and the damage caused has lead to an increase in cyber-bullying with little consequence. As an adult it is difficult to bounce back from such an experience, for a student it would be exponentially harder.
A key feature listed in the Education Plan is “learning empowered by technology”.
“BC’s Education Plan will encourage smart use of technology in schools, better preparing students to thrive in an increasingly digital world. Students will have more opportunity to develop the competencies needed to use current and emerging technologies effectively, both in school and in life”.
However, their action steps do not emphasize or even mention a connection between technology and the areas of social justice, integrity, and morally responsible behaviour through the use of digital technology.
I believe there is a growing need to educate students about the possible impact and/or consequences of their actions with digital technology. I would encourage the BC Ministry to consider this as an addition to their action steps.
In an effort to illustrate a way that teachers can lead change, I am currently involved in content/discourse analysis research of social media websites. The purpose of this study is to analyze content, specifically choices of words, thoughts and/or images presented through social media sites, in an effort to implement change.
Teachers should be given more professional freedom to break outside of the prescribed curriculum. This would allow them to create class content that is locally and chronologically relevant. Thinking in this direction, we could create a dynamic curriculum in which teachers have to meet a certain number of PLOs, but are given a month or two worth of flex time to teach in their own unique ways.
The ministry needs to “get out of the way” and actually LISTEN to the professionals in the field. Case in point: new science 10 curriculum 5 years ago. Teachers (including the BC Science teachers’ association) immediately complained that there were WAY too many learning outcomes and it was virtually impossible to cover them in any depth in the time allotted.
The ministry kept replying everything was fine and of course the hundreds of science teachers must be wrong and they must be right. It took 3 years of complaints before the curriculum was finally trimmed a bit to make it even remotely reasonable.
We need the ministry to trust the professionals actually doing the work more and stop using highly detailed, very prescriptive curriculum.
Science 10 is one of the courses that’s under active review right now. We’re aware it’s a problem for some teachers.
I agree that there needs to be more communication between the teachers, who are actually in the trenches of the classroom, and those in the Ministry. Teaching science has become an exercise in trying to fit the curricular needs with those skills that I think are important for the students to learn. I love science and science learning but I appreciate that a lot of what has to be taught to the students is a bunch of facts that most can look up on line and do not need to memorize. It saddens me to get students in my classroom who want to know the right answer instead of wanting to go in depth with certain issues because that is what they want they will be marked on.
Too many details in the curriculum leaves little time for teaching the majority of students on how to understand and think deeply with the material. The ministry needs to realize that memorizing the carbon cycle does not necessarily mean students will know how to be critical of climate change. I believe that collaboration with the ministry, and other teachers can produce a more effective and holistic view to learning rather than produce students who just do well on the provincial.
Khan Academy.
Why the ministry of education requires each teacher to develop their own teaching resources, and that some of the excellent teaching resources that have been developed are not made available and shared by all, has got to change.
The ministry of education should set aside some money to set up the exact same resource that Khan provides, but encompasses all content areas relevant to our Canadian education requirements. With personalized learning plans, the Khan Academy model allows the teacher to get away from content teaching and focus on engaging students in learning.
If you have not done some deep research into what Khan is providing to teachers and students, please take a close look. It goes way beyond just instructional videos and problems, but gives the teacher, called coach on Khan, the ability to really see what a student needs help with. Plus multiple teachers could have access to a student so when we integrate say math with Technology Education, then teachers are working together to build the students knowledge and abilities.
http://www.khanacademy.org/
I strongly disagree with the notion that Khan Academy, as practiced in their actual proposed settings, is good teaching or learning.
I wrote a blog post on this here: http://physicsoflearning.com/edblog/how-not-to-flip/ and I hope that my kids never have a classroom like Khan Academy. This is what happens when people do not use evidence based decisions. We have decades of research and findings that tell us that individual kids working by themselves on a computer screen is not good pedagogy, yet many people claim this to be the future of the education. This is why the USA is going to swing from fad to fad, and “solution” to “solution” as they try to right their education ship.
Can you imagine the forces at play in the USA right now, where Big Business are licking their chomps at the thought of entering into the $650 Billion public education market. Big Business cares as much about education as they do about families owning their own home (ie sub-prime…).
The success of last Saturday’s Growing Innovation in Rural Sites of Learning at UBC speaks to the power of teacher and field initiated innovations and ideas. 18 projects have been funded through this initiative, and projects were designed to meet 4 key criteria. You can learn more by going to http://www.ruralteachers.com and accessing Growing Innovation. One truly refreshing aspect of many projects relates to the impact on students and the authentic engagement many are feeling.
I cannot say enough about the power of such a grass roots, respectful approach to change and professionalism.
Teachers should be allowed to follow a student led path for course direction to allow for more student engagement in the learning, as long as learning outcomes are being met. Get away from IRP’s and allow teachers to find their own ways to delive content based on the learning outcomes and not the prescribed text or other material suggested. This way, as in our school, true student centred Project Based Learning can occurr, rather than the talk, reading, notes, homework,memorisation, test and repeat, which is happening now. Have teachers show how learning outcomes are being met as part of bother their lesson plans and quarterly assessment, but offer delivery and resource freedom. Tap into experts, community and others who can assist in student learning and support the teacher.
Speaking for science teaching and having been a scientist professionally before I became a teacher it is my experience that experts in the fields of science are lousy communicators in general. Kids don’t need to know the modern application details of science but the fundamentals which are without exception, again in my experience, much better presented by a teacher who understands kids rather than a scientist who often has not spent much time with kids at all. Project based projects don’t work for all subjects or learning outcomes.
I think that teachers need to stop teaching to the lowest levels in the class. There needs to be challenges for the higher levels in the class as well. So I think that there should be more support in the schools for the children that are not up to the grade level standards to bring them up while not holding the whole class back. A roving teacher(s) to spend one-on-one time with these students is a great idea.
Teacher learning is essential for student learning. As teachers experience learning they become more in tune with their student’s learning. As teachers move themselves forward they become more aware of the skills and strategies learners use. Teachers become stagnant if programs are the only form of learning they experience programs become the only learning their students have – no creativity, building on knowledge and real life – just a programmed world.
Less students in the classroom creates more individualized learning.
Giving teachers time to further their learning would help enhance the school experience for themselves and children. We have five pro-ds a year. If we want to pursue an area to improve at, one pro-d day every couple of months is not enough time to become an expert. Teachers are so overloaded with marking and prep for lessons that they do not have time to pursue professional learning on their own time.
I do all my pro-D in the summer and holidays…just saying.
I, too, do a lot of proD during the summer. Sometimes our district will offer workshops on special education at the end of the break and I like that. However, so many conferences and workshops are held during the school year, in fact, many organizations deliberately choose the October PSA day to offer their proD sessions. Educators from outside BC attend these conferences as well, so appealing to the orgs to change their dates to the summer would likely not be to their liking.
One thing I would like to see teachers empowered to change, is the amount of control they wield over unruly and disrespectful students who are constantly disrupting and destroying the learning environment for my children (and other children).
Having volunteered in my daughter’s Grade 2 class for the past two months, I must say that I am shocked at the lack of control the classroom teacher has over some of the more difficult students, as well as the lack of respect these difficult students show, not only to the teacher, but also to the school principal and volunteer parents (such as myself).
For example, just last week, while on a walk with my daughter’s class, and after growing tired of waiting for the classroom teacher to scold some boys who were throwing pinecombs at passing cars, I decided to take matters into my own hands and scold the boys myself (sure that a firm scolding from an unfamiliar adult would leave these rascals trembling in their sneakers). Well, what I surprise I got when the response I received from these boys was a tempered “screw off lady” – followed by the boys resuming their abnoxious and dangerous behaviour.
Anyhow, the experience left me never wanting to volunteer to help with my daughter’s class walk again.
I wish somedays that we could have schools in BC that are run by strict Chinese teachers, based on traditional Chinese discipline methods. That is my dream ….
Oh dear, it seems that this discussion has moved into the debate over which “values or world view” we need to control in our students. As an “elder” retired teacher, mother, etc. I wish that teachers could somehow have the power to dispel apathy, to install curiosity, to make learning for the sake of learning a value worth encouraging. I worry that our children have become the rope in this tug of war over thought control. Let us teach them how to learn, how to question, how to care about people and the world beyond themselves. Let us assist them in searching for truth, not in presenting our version of truth as the only true truth. Let us help them discover the interconnectedness of all things. This can be done within any curriculum as the curriculum should only set out what skills and basic concepts are to be taught. A talented teacher can design lessons to guide children in discovering their own truth.
Patricia:
You said
” Let us help them discover the interconnectedness of all things. ”
This sounds like a value system or world view (perhaps from your hippy days). You are accusing others of imposing a worldview and then proposing teachers imposing the one of your choice. Nice.
Please remember that everyone is entitled to their opinions and we encourage all opinions, but we also want people to be respectful in sharing their opinions, even if they disagree with others.
Ehh, I would say that line is really open to interpretation. I’m not a granola muncher and am subject to my own biases, so I read that more as “let’s focus on integrated education” where students will see a lot of redundancy across many subject fields because teachers planned a cohesive curriculum.
For example, students should learn about a buffers in chemistry then walk into biochemistry the following week and talk about the bicarbonate buffering system in the blood. Repeating the same concepts in different contexts are one of the best ways to wrap your head around an idea and differs greatly from “it’s 2:00 so let’s put Catcher in the Rye away and take out our math books” mode of disconnected learning that was all the rage when I was in grade school.
Ah, yes I momentarily forgot the bias inherent in reading. I say interconnecteness and you see “hippy new age thinking” I write it and see food webs, the ecology of a forest, the basic needs of all beings both plant and animal, and the ways we can teach children to view science as a lens to observe cause and effect and on and on. My worldview is to see the universe as explainable in scientific terms, with enough wonder left to inspire curiosity about the things we have not yet discovered.
I have great problems with those who pick and choose between facts because the do not suit some political bias. Denying climate change for instance because it might be controversial rather than teaching about the reason fossil fuels even exist, and the mechanisms that have shaped our climate over time. Teaching concepts like the water cycle, global air currents and so many other related topics would go a long way to helping students come to their own conclusions. Helping them look for the bias in what they read and hear and recognizing their own biases would also equip them for understanding complex questions that they will have to deal with. There was so much hidden beneath my use of that value laden word. I am simply hoping our teaches will be allowed to guide our students into becoming thinking, aware adults.
Case in point:
http://www.therevisionariesmovie.com/about.html
Peter:
This certainly establishes the pitfalls of a small minority having too much control over the curriculum.
Patricia,
How unfortunate (for students) that you are now retired, as you must have been a brilliant teacher.
Patricia, I think what you say can only be true in skill-based courses. At some point in some content-based courses, a curriculum needs to be decided upon. Thinking about Science 8-10, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Social Studies, History, and English literature, all must decide not only what skills and basic concepts their subject requires but also what facts figures are also to be taught. This makes it not quite so simple as you write. What several of us are arguing about in this thread is the degree to which bias plays a role in some teacher’s teaching, the degree to which children get the opportunity to debate the veracity of the truth claims they are presented with and other things. Relativistic arguments aside, no teacher can teach a child to “discover their own truth” in subjects that teach objective scientific principles and therefore objective truths or at least truth claims. If teachers would lead change in BC, then we need to preserve skills that teach students to find objective truths, tested by logical reasoning and observable facts. Part of this is scientific method.
In an effort to be brief, I perhaps did not make my ideas clear enough. I agree that children need a solid basis in science, math, and also the richness of world literature. Humans have been on this earth and learning about our world long enough to realize that toddy’s scientific truth may not be tomorrow’s. But we cannot be scornful and dismiss what is know today. Present knowledge will be what leads us to things not yet discovered. I hope our teachers have a broad enough educational background to see a broader vision of education beyond teaching only facts without an analysis of the significance of these facts. All teachers need to recognize their own biases and not let these cloud their teaching. But society should not expect teachers to teach only those ideas that suit the current political or social thinking. Positive change is a result of questioning the status quo. We must teach our children to question and not see this as a threat. Being mindful and respectful of other people and the ecosystem needs to be factored into the mix as well. Then of course the scientific method and skills needed to expand knowledge, I agree. But we need to remember that today’s logic may not always be logical.
If today’s logic is not always logical in the future, then it was never logical. To say otherwise, I’m pretty sure, is tautological.
The rest of your post I agree with and do not gainsay, but perhaps the general non-teaching public does not realize that curriculum is determined by the Ministry of Education; teachers do not have a say in what facts are taught today or tomorrow, and the delivery of said curriculum is no more or less at the whim of current political or social thinking than society as a whole is. The only thing that stops curricula falling sway completely to the whim of the present is the slow moving wheels of curriculum planning in the Ministry that, thankfully, wait until society has cogitated and dwelt on the issue for while to see if they are worthy to implement in teaching. I see this never changing and many alternatives are worse…
Agreed, Neil. However, to do all that smoothly, wouldn’t it be more helpful if the teachers pay attention to our “original” public education goal–inculcating the highest morality–especially when family structure has broken down, losing extended families and watchful villagers, and we are left with increasingly dysfunctional families and the families that are run by single mothers or fathers who would not necessarily have such parenting skills inherited. Other than insisting on the class sizes and political ideologies and so on?
No disagreement there, but I don’t think anything I am saying disagrees with it either. Teachers cannot solve the woes of our societal family structure. I think it is a huge influence on what teachers do that the children we teach are coming from an increasing percentage of broken families, but to try to address it more than we do is beyond our mandate and a recipe for disaster if we marshall thin resources in that direction. The only way we can manage the social pressures on each child as well as their educational needs (both primary and tertiary goals on different tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) is to have the time and case load that is reasonable. This is why class size is so vital. You can’t be a case manager for 30+ kids. You can just about do it for 24, as well as run science lab experiments, handle the marking and get to know your children. Schools cannot just be a cheap dumping ground to “occupy” kids for 7 hours of each day – there must be a vision for care, nurture and growth of kids minds and that vision must be hammered out in the halls of politicians before it can be realized in the classroom.
Sylvia:
Expanding the role of schools outside of core education issues like literacy + numeracy for young students, and science and industrial skills for those in their teens is not sensible. Households run so poorly that children are hungry/neglected/abused are the responsibility of families with the only role for schools being to flag true problems to the Ministry of Social Services. Further downgrading schools by making them another mechanism for deadbeats to avoid taking responsibility for their actions is an incredibly poor choice. Only fed and clothed children willing and able to learn, should make it as far as the classroom. To enable teachers to change the system for the better we need to stop throwing all the ills of society at them be they disability, poverty or disfunction. Limiting teachers’ mandates to training our functional youth in the most effective manner possible gives them a challenge they can win at.
Looking for more replies to this forum question?
Just click the “« Older Comments” link near the top left corner of the first comment on each webpage, or in this case you can simply click here.
The single most important thing teachers could change today that would improve the school experience for them and their students would be to abandon the power grab of determining what is to be taught. Control of curriculum belongs mostly to parents and somewhat to the population as a whole. Those who are paid to transmit our version of the truth to our children need to focus on how to effectively act as our agents. Undermining parental authority by teaching unproven theories as fact like the carbon based global warming hypothesis makes for a hostile and confrontational relationship with the community. Pushing subjective gender ideas on the children of the 85% outside of the atheist community contributes to the lack of trust and respect teachers presently experience. If the teachers can be guided to keep this political/social activism out of the schools they will find the public will be more accepting of them as partners instead of the present perception of them as government funded disruptors and troublemakers.
I’m not too sure I understand you. I don’t want other parents to decide what my children should or shouldn’t learn, nor do I want to be responsible for that decision for other people’s children. Furthermore, I don’t expect the school to teach my children only things I agree with. If fact it’s quite interesting when they come and ask for my opinion on certain matters and we have a fine debate. We don’t always agree – and how is that bad?
I don’t fear the teachers and their opinions – if they have proof that they’re right, let them show it. If students can find proof that the teacher is wrong, even better. This will make for an interesting discussion in class and at home.
An education system where parents choose the curriculum topics on the basis of their own subjective opinions and prejudices would be an unmitigated disaster.
PS: The theory of carbon based global warming has at this time enough scientific credibility that NOT presenting it to our students would be a terrible mistake. As future citizens of a global world, they deserve to know as much as possible so as to make wise and informed decisions when they grow up.
I’m sure all parents would agree with that.
Tereza:
You don’t want to determine what version of the truth children are taught. You don’t want other people to decide what your children are taught. This leaves nobody to decide what your children are taught! You perhaps consider teachers and unseen experts as a different species that has a direct line to the truth on all matters. As a seasoned scientist with many years experience determining truths I speculate that the teachers and supposed experts that determine curriculum are more politically motivated than representative of anyone but themselves. Enabling public, democratic and binding methods to define what our society teaches as shared truth will free up the teaching profession to fulfill their core mission of effectively teaching.
Bruce, you are misquoting Tereza. She said she didn’t want other parents determining what her children learn and she didn’t want to do it herself. Contrary to your assertion that that leaves no one to determine curricular topics, that leaves teachers and para-teaching Ministry professionals, which I think was her point. I agree with her. Further, no seasoned scientist with any pedagogic educational background would blithely state that teachers teach truth on any matters; teachers present and curricula is designed to present topics that a modern student of today must be able to contend with knowledgeably. Rather than truth per se, students are taught in a variety of subject areas how to content with truth claims, assess them, evaluate them and incorporate the ones they find acceptable. Political motivation inspires all manner of curricular choices no one set of which everyone agrees with – the global warming debate is an excellent example. All the more reason that students need to know both sides of any such topic. Enabling public access beyond what it has now and then binding methodology as you put it would allow an oscillating curricular choices that countervene that which came just a couple years before. This process already occurs at a slower rate now, but the Ministry does a great job, at least in sciences of retarding that process so that well-verified material stays in the public eye for a longer period of time and fluffy stuff is held at bay until it withstands some years of corporate scientific approval. Only decent scientists in Ministry employ do this.
Neil:
Almost all students under the age of 12 take what is told to them by their teachers blindly as being true. There is no Athenian style open debate. The exact composition of this material imprints itself on the developing minds. I myself have been compelled to deprogram Malthusian type propaganda about overpopulation and depleting resources from my children as early as the second grade. Given that what is presented in schools will often be used by our children as a basis for decisions they make, direct public control of this material is in the public’s interest.
What is presented in schools will often be used by our children – absolutely! Twas ever thus! I disagree that there is not Athenian style open debate in class. Of all the schools I’ve taught in and all the social studies classes I’ve sat in on I have many times seen students weighing in on ideas they have had presented to them, both disagreeing and agreeing. As a coach of debate and public speaking, I would say that children, devoid of preconceived notions that adults often have, are more likely, not less to engage in debate in right environment – one in which schools often supply. As for Malthusian type material, the pessimism that such an approach applies has long infused the environmental debate and the population policies of India and China. It is important to teach and the balance for such thinking is the policies of Marx and Lenin who firmly disagreed with Malthus. It would also be aided by more discussion around the justification for thinking that our population is too large – it leads to more discussion about euthenasia programs, doctor-assisted suicide, the sanctity of life relative to the quality of it. Surely, sir, you don’t think that children will graduate high-school being inculcated with such extraordinary ideas having never considered their validity in face of all kinds of evidence to the contrary? For what it’s worth…I don’t.
Neil:
My problem was with Malthusian theories being taught as facts and moral lessons IN GRADE 2!
point taken. I still don’t think they necessarily graduate 10 years later with that same kind of bias dominant in their minds because over the course of years they achieve balance in their teaching and their thinking.
NeilYou said:
>>Rather than truth per se, students >>are taught in a variety of subject >>areas how to content with truth >>claims, assess them, evaluate them >>and incorporate the ones they find >>acceptable
As far as I can tell, in the SS8 – SS10 my son was recently taught, a specific narrative of the history of western civilization from the fall of Rome to the founding of Canada was presented. This was not a series of discussions of several views of what took place. It was definately from a limitted point of view and was accepted by many students from non-engaged families as “the truth”. I considered much of the course material reasonable but detected cases where the writers of the courses clearly took sides in their presentation. Teaching the prevailing beliefs of the majority of the population is better than having mysteriously appointed experts that the public has no control over defining what our future society will believe.
Teaching skepticism is a descent into religion that should not be tolerated in our school system. Neither the atheist (skeptic), Christian, Islamic, Sihk or any other mindsets should have a priviledged position in our schools.
If your child is being taught such a limited point of view, and you contend it is not the prevailing perspective of the day, then I would suggest your child’s teacher is using a lousy text or is just perhaps a poor teacher. We all draw from what we see in education, but as a long time teacher I have to tell you that is not what I see. Perspective is unavoidable and I’m sure German texts regarding the second world war and Korean texts regarding the behavior of the Japanese in their country or even Pakistani vs Indian materials that talk about the Kashmir region would all differ with the world’s prevailing “truth”, but that is what makes up the diversity of the world and these positions will be tested as children change teachers, schools, jobs, countries and have conversations with you, their parent. I fail to see how you propose to change this, as you seem to want the perspective your children are being taught to be replaced with the one you hold to be true, which I and others may not. Teaching skepticism is one of the most vital things we can do for our children, along with theatres in which they can express their dissention, the manner in which they can do it and the outcome they can reasonably expect in doing so. Your perspective on religion is interesting too – you would have something that 2/3 of the world believes, that most of famous English literature of the last 500 years is based on the knowledge of, that our entire legal system and laws based on NOT taught in schools at least in some passing fashion? How odd and how contrasting that is from your other statement that “teaching the prevailing beliefs of the majority”. Lastly, the experts in the Ministry and not mysteriously appointed; they are former teachers and scientists themselves who get to work as teams with other such people to craft a curriculum that reflects the prevailing wisdom of society. Take the recent (2005) Science 10 curriculum for example that list and uses all kinds of relevant BC examples to teach BC kids with.
The curriculum that teachers are required to teach is mandated by the government that parents elect. All textbook and official resources have to be approved by the ministry of education or the local school board.
If there is something in the curriculum that you don’t agree with, then talk to your elected representative, or give input for the next round of curriculum revisions.
Anonymous:
Our part in the process is that we are able to vote on our MLA based on many issues of which curriculum in schools is a tiny factor. Given the fact that folks who are actualy able to set curriculum were appointed many years ago by MLAs whose mandate is long expired means the public input here is as good as zero. To do obviously sensible things that are supported by well above 80% of the population like keeping same sex propaganda out of primary school classrooms has been repeatably blocked by unelected officials. The selection of which historic genocides are taught in high school social studies and which are not is another case of non-public control of the system. Subjecting teachers to the wrath of the population by having them front unpopular policies planted by extremist pressure groups with miniscule membership makes their lives stressful and distracts from their true mission of teaching.
Part of the point I was trying to make, however, was that the teachers and the teachers’ union have virtually no control over curriculum. Rather, it is the ministry of education…
On a side note, can you give any examples of “same sex propaganda” in the actual elementary school learning outcomes that teachers are required to teach?
Mandatory high school social studies currently covers Canadian history in both grade 10 and 11, including a unit on Canadian involvement in the second world war in grade 11. What genocide would you like to be taught that is not already?
Anonymous:
The BCTF provides teachers with non-ministry generated materials that I have personally seen deployed:
http://www.bctf.ca/SocialJustice.aspx?id=17992
I believe that this sort of extremist advocacy has no place in the classroom and makes the schools a less pleasant and focused place for both students and teachers.
I have much to say on how poorly genocide is treated in BC schools but it is too far off topic for this forum.
I was not aware of those resources – I don’t know where they fit into a class. I know that many schools have extra-curricular activities for same sex students – just like they have prayer clubs which seems fair. I certainly wouldn’t use this in any of my classes… I wonder if you did a poll of teachers – how many would know these resources exist? Its definitely not part of the curriculum.
Public disassociation from such extremist material would be a great start for teachers to regain the public’s trust.
I agree that teachers should present things and encourage students to discuss things. However, if 25 students are going to come to the consensus that the Earth is flat (say, in a primary class), should the teacher sit by and say nothing?
I guess we are talking about more polemical issues like climate change (whether or not human do impact the weather or not) or capital punishment,… where things are a bit more grey, in which case I think usually teachers either remain neutral by asking a lot of questions (and not providing the answers) to make students arrive to their own conclusions, which might different than the teachers!
However, let’s take the topic of whether or not other races are superior or not. Not so long ago, there would be many children who could have stated that white people are or, as I have been told, Asian are, in some other communities. Should teachers sit by quietly and have her or his students agree with a racist point of view?
Peter:
I see education as the perpetuation of the knowledge and abilities existing in today’s adults to today’s children. You have correctly identified that having curriculum developed by the students themselves makes no sense as they do not have the experience to make sensible choices.
Sometimes no community concensus exists on issues such as racial differences, significance of aborigional culture, importance and responsibility for historical genocides, animal rights, environmental activism, abortion, euthenasia, gender identity, and the validity and role of religion. If there is no clear consensus on how a community wants one of these topics covered, referendums should be held or the topic and related material should be not covered. A penalty free mechanism to excuse students from approved content deemed offensive by their parents should be always available to avoid the “tyranny of majority”
Note that if our school system no longer allowed the classroom to be used as a place to promote minority positions on controversial topics, parents would feel less threatened by what happens at school. This would allow for the teachers and schools to upgrade their trust relationship with the communities they serve. An environment of trust improves the school experience for everyone.
So any topic which does not have a clear consensus in the public should be subjected to an expensive referendum or not taught in schools? That means any topic that the government wrestles with every day, any topic that stimulates debate and logical, adversarial discourse, any topic that might actually get a child interested in a particular subject precisely because of its controversy should NOT be covered in school? That would make for the most boring, irrelevant, pablumy coursework ever conceived by school systems anywhere! It certainly doesn’t sound like a progressive form of education to me – it actually sounds like regressive. Do you realize what you propose would sideline the War of 1812 (Americans and Canadians do not even agree who won), the value of the Canadian Charter (much argument still ensues over the relative value of our rights vs our responsibilities in this new post ’82 freedom), the value of calculus (Liebnitz’s work is seen as a waste of decent mathematics time), the Bible as literature (the most read book in the language in history), Environmental science and its components in Science 9 and 10 (fraught with controversy over global warming and human encroachment of natural habitats), solubility unit in Chemistry 12 (environmentally unsustainable from a certain point of view as it is mining chemistry) and the list goes on. This suggestion is outrageous. Teacher must not walk away from controversial material, but instead curriculum must always walk toward it if they can – that is where new solutions and new interest is found!
Exactly. Some opinions are not worth holding – and there are many parents who are ever so slightly racist (don’t tell me you haven’t met any:-) ) or believe in crystal healing or other nonsense.
I’d much rather have a curriculum decided by people who are educated in the matter and know what is important and TRUE.
Politicians – what do they know? All they want is to be re-elected, and to achieve that they’d say anything.
Read about the Indiana Pi Bill, in which American politicians tried to legislate the squaring of the circle(and hence a value of pi that was 3.2).
So who among us is to decide what minority opinions have worth? Gandhi held a minority opinion in trying to free India from Britain, Churchill held a minor opinion that Britain would survive the second year of WWII when his country was being bombed to desolation by the Luftwaffe, Fleming persevered for nearly 20 years in trying to convince the world that his discovery of Penicillin from a mold being useful before he received the Nobel prize for it in 1945, Pasteur was ridiculed for his theories on the real causative agent of rabies initially, Rutherford was laughed out of the Royal academy for his atomic model that proposed that negative electrons spin around a positively charged nucleus, Linus Pauling was condemned as a fruitcake for his insistence that vitamin C doses were needing to be much higher than modern nutrition suggested and he was instrumental in getting the RDI raised near the end of his life at the grand of age of 90 something. If we had a crystal ball, we’d be able to do as you suggest, but we don’t, so we must weigh each theory that comes along carefully and that is what a good education teaches children to do.
An awful lot of this discussion would be made unnecessary if we thought of science as a process that children need to learn (and to do that they do need to know some content…), and not so much a list of topics about which we can argue over which, and how much, and what vocab., and so on. I have taught science from grade 8 through university, and I can tell you that the part that still gets short shrift is the DOING of science. Content is pretty meaningless without process. We need to see science as something one does, a process, a way of searching for the truth that allows us to estimate, evaluate and manage uncertainty. If we do a good job of teaching that to kids, along with enough content knowledge to get them started, they will have the tools to search for truth, evaluate uncertainty, and think critically about “facts” all their lives.
Well said Peter, but let’s not put AGW issues into the debate. This is not a grey area. Something like 95% of climate scientists that publish (ie are actively working on the topic) agree that this is the case. In general, almost 80% of the scientific community agrees with this. Sorry, I don’t mean to drag your post off-topic but I think it’s an important issue.
Agreed, Doug…while an interesting discussion, it has moved away from the topic. I am going to allow this comment, but let’s get back to addressing the question: what is one thing teachers could be empowered to change today that would improve the school experience for them and their students?
In the name of teacher-led change, I think the principle of inclusion needs to be re-examined from an educator’s perspective. The original goals of inclusion did not include children with a degree of disability that prevented them learning at all. In a system that is cracking at the seams because of a lack of sufficient funding, we need to reclassify special needs designations. Presently, we have all manner of maladies that are characterized by whether they are low-incident in the population or high-incident. While I am fully aware that the quality of a human society should be judged based on how it treats the elderly, the weak and infirm, I think we have our funding formulas and allocations all wrong. If a child with a profound physical and mental disability, who is bed ridden, cannot speak, read, feed himself or control his bladder is placed in a classroom environment or even a resource room one, they will not learn anything there that they could not learn in the residential long-term care facilities they used to live in before they were deinstitutionalized back in the early 90s. After they “graduate” from school, they will not get jobs, start families or do anything other than return to a long-term care facility as adults. If a child with Tourette’s syndrome or dsylexia or even high functioning Down’s syndrome is in a classroom environment, they will learn, they will become functioning members of society. As we have spent so much money on aids and rooms and faculty to support the first example, we have run out of money to support the second. The redesignation of learning needs should be based on how well they will reasonably do in a classroom environment. Those that will not benefit sufficiently should come back under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health as they were once were. This would allow the diversity of the classroom to be lessened for the teachers, the space available in the classroom to be enlarged, the number of paid para-teaching aides to be reduced and teachers could actually deal with the educational challenges of teaching, rather medical ones. The real danger of Bill 22 is that it goes in the wrong direction to allow no strictures placed on how many children with special needs can be placed in one classroom such that a teacher trained to teach must now stretch themselves into some sort of nurse or care facilitator or babysitter. Let the nurses do the nursing and teachers do the teaching!! I am afraid this is not a very politically correct post, but look where pc thinking has got education so far…
Your comments may not be politically correct Neil; however, they had to be made, and I applaud your courage.
The BC and Canadian government need to start thinking more about ‘the GOOD of the COLLECTIVE MAJORITY’ by more appropriately linking resources/inputs (including financial resources) to programs/services, based on predicted outputs and outcomes (rather than assigning resources to programs/services based on political optics and correctness, and an overriding desire to appease special interest groups in order to stay out of the media hotseat).
What the government (and special interest groups) need to understand, is that, if the COLLECTIVE MAJORITY of citizens in BC and Canada fall, there will be no/significantly less money to help our special needs citizens .. and that is a really scary thought.
Re: above comment –
I should have qualified my statement to read: “…. based on evidence-based, predicted outputs and outcomes ….”