In Support of Public Education

Recent events by UBC’s AMS executive have brought the question of tuition fees into the public light.  The students have focused on the manner by which their executive did this.  Leaving aside student political infighting the fact remains that tuition fees and the associated costs of post secondary education in Canada have been flying up with the net result of narrowing the window of accessibility.  For many students this is not much of a problem as they rely upon parental resources to both prepare them for university and to fund them while they are at university.  But and especially in the face of a growing downturn in the global economy tuition becomes a structural barrier to those potential students without parental resources.

I’ll pause right here to acknowledge all of the people who have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, the Jimmy Pattersons of this world who provide the content to the story that if only you try hard enough anythings is possible.  I will also acknowledge that there are indeed a variety of funding programs from scholarships to bursaries that attempt to open the door a little bit wider for those who are seen to merit it.  All this being said the structures of class power and privilege are such that unless they are explicitly targeted these structures still work (in spite of the one off examples) to exclude many people from accessing post secondary education.

The Ubyssey wrote about what they have called the tuition debacle (not debate) in which mention is made to the doubling of tuition fees at UBC since 2002, student protests elsewhere, and the avenues open to students to engage on this issue. Yet there was a tone to the article that seemed to suggest the issue of tuition fees isn’t really that important to many UBC students.  One wonders.

Homework, and how much of it, is a perennial issue in education and parent circles.  There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium.  Many educators say there is too much homework, but it is being demanded from parents. But then one comes across stories like the one quoted below about the Calgary couple who found that there was too much homework being issued from the school.

A Calgary couple signed a unique contract with a school this week that prevents teachers from giving their children homework, the Calgary Herald reports. Tom and ShelliMilley negotiated the deal because their pre-teen kids were spending as many as three hours each evening on homework, the paper says. (Read the full story on Janet Steffenhagen’s blog: Calgary couple signs no-homework deal with school – Report Card)

In the Calgary story is seems that a policy designed in the school to limit homework -a quota of 10 minutes per night- became transformed into ten minutes per subject per night.  The net effect was an ordeal of several hours of home work for the Calgary family’s young children.

Of course, ‘ordeal’ might sound a bit much and when one reads of the couple’s jam-packed itinerary for their kids it might be that they had a bit much already on the go.  Nonetheless, the issue of how much, what kind, and how effective remains a continuing debate -especially in the elementary grades.

I certainly recall the issues around homework for my sons in the primary grades, especially the feared ‘dictee’ practice for my son who was in French Immersion.  I also recall being critical of the route learning approach and the clerical nature (i.e. recopy such and such) of a lot of that earlier homework.  There is a place for doing activities at home which support learning in the classroom.  However, I am of the opinion that what is most important are activities such as reading to one’s children, engaging in activities that combine literacy and/or numeracy activities in play,  guided support of in-class activities and all of this supplemented by activities outside of the home that involve more than organized sports or extracurricular lessons.

There is much to be said about unstructured play and exploration outside.  Yet, the culture of fear (see also) has corralled parenting activities into organized supervised scripted activities.  It’s time that we support our children in finding their own capacities and opportunities through less scripting and letting them have the gift of failure at a stage in life when it is a benefit and not a risk.  Releasing children from an over burden of homework, from overly scripted activities, and into unstructured activities outside of the garrison that has become the North American home is ultimately in our children’s best interests.

Teach 2010: alternatives to mindless corporate culture

This is a collaborative website for teachers to post and find resources for teaching the 2010 Winter Olympics from a critical perspective. If you have a lesson plan idea, upcoming events listings or links to articles or organizations please send us an email at contact@teach2010.org.

This website is also being developed in collaboration with the Teaching 2010 Resistance project, which has developed a critically-minded Olympics workshop for students. This workshop is being presented in schools throughout Greater Vancouver beginning in October 2009.

Columbia University professor, Herve Varenne, wonder’s about the pedagogic and health effects of Oprah.  In a world in which ‘experts’ are often derided, criticized, or just plain ignored, Varenne’s comments are a healthy inoculation to the reign of ‘common sense.’

In an earlier post, I asked a question, with a tongue in my cheek: “how could we tame Oprah?” I did not specifying who ‘we’ are, on what grounds ‘we” should try to tame her, and whether taming Oprah (and others like her) is something that could be done. After all, they are wonderfully extra-Vagant (as Boon, 1999, might put it) and likely to escape most forms of social control.

I leave the questions open for the moment in order to expand the puzzle triggered by a critique of the advice Oprah dispenses on matters like vaccination. There is every evidence that, from the ‘official’ public health point of view, her shows can be dangerous, particularly when she discusses vaccination. She may endanger the health of individual children not getting vaccinated, as well as the health of the public as these children get sick and may sicken others. At least this is what us, sober headed experts in public health as driven by medical research, might say (and have said). As a highly schooled expert myself, and someone who generally accepts what other experts tell me, I am uncomfortable at any challenge to my expertise, particularly when it comes from someone as powerful as Oprah. But I am not writing her to complain. I continue here to puzzle.

Read here for the rest of the item: “on taming the ignorant powerful …”  From: On anthropology, education, culture, and more …

The recent issue of the BCTF Teacher published a refreshing, if hard hitting, look at aboriginal education and what might be the core factors impeding success.  Former northern BC teacher, Deb  McIntyre has this to say on the subject:

It is no secret that our Aboriginal students trail behind their non-Aboriginal peers in school achievement. The grim facts show up in standardized test scores, school completion rates and overall emotional satisfaction. (Aboriginal Report 2003–04 —2007–08 How are we doing? www.bced.gov.bc.ca/abed/performance.htm) Typically, a lot of blame gets tossed about. The more liberal excuses tend to blame the conditions of poverty. I have heard other teachers suggest poor parenting is involved. Some complain about an essential lack of inner motivation. We even blame the media for promoting “gangsta” lifestyles over scholarly pursuits. I would like to offer a radically different perspective. What if the problem is really a symptom of something that nobody wants to talk about; what if our educational system was inherently racist?

Read the full story here: “A different look at the problem of Aboriginal student achievement”

The Tyee — Bud Mercer, the Olympics’ Top Cop

He was on the frontlines of some of B.C.’s most notorious moments of civil unrest, and now the security of the 2010 Olympic Games — and the nation’s reputation for peace, order and good government — may well rest on the decisions he makes if tensions arise during the games. Geoff Dembicki of The Tyee and Bob Mackin of 24 Hours Vancouver collaborate on an in-depth four-part series looking at Mercer’s controversial past, and present responsibilities.

The interesting thing I learned today is that some research units at UBC have their own hired guns in the media wars.  Maria Loscerbo, the principal of the private communications firm Epic PR, is in charge of “mak[ing] sure that there is a coordinated message and to ensure that it’s done correctly so it isn’t fractured” (see her comment on the Report Card).

This became an issue on Steffenhagen’s blog after Ms. Loscerbo inadvertently sent a chatty message telling the academics to sit tight until she got the story straight (my gloss, not her words).  Steffenhagen posted the email.

What has me curious is the fact that the Hertzman project is so big that they have hired outside help in managing their message.  Research across universities is fast being driven in the same direction as business firms, larger, more complex, integrated and oriented at generating revenue.   UBC has recently hired a former Best Buy exec to run the university’s finances.  WHIle some suggest this is a good thing, the rest of us our left wondering about the real state of affairs when cost efficiencies and coordinated messages take the high seat over real research and teaching.

Class Notes: Crafty thinking

Education is sometimes measured in math scores or English skills, but my visit to the Vancouver School Board lobby Monday morning proved student accomplishment comes in countless, and sometimes surprising, forms.

In this case, wooden forms

Maria Loscerbo, a communications consultant (and amateur pilot, skier and media consultant to the premier on youth issues, and a range of other random google traces . . .) working for the  Human Early Learning Partnership, really blew it and has drawn the ire of the Vancouver Sun’s education reporter, Janet Steffenhagen.  Drawing the wagons close she ‘inadvertently’  sent an email to Steffenhagen that basically tells a UBC research group to keep their mouths shut until they craft a common story (see email below).    Ms Loscerbo apparently holds not special concern for UBC staff communications personal either as she unceremoniously implies that Senior Manager, Privacy, Strategic Operations (Mapping) & Knowledge Management, Michele Wiens jumped the gun.

Steffenhagen posted the errant email on her blog with her own commentary on the matter:

Here’s my suggestion: Nobody should return Janet’s phone call until we decide what to do – Janet will probably try to call Clyde first, then Paul and Joanne.
“Let it go to voicemail, or, if you accidentally answer the call (Janet works from home so her actual name should show on your call display) , simply say you’re ‘not available to talk right now and will get back to her’. Get her coordinates and call me. Then we plan next steps, ideally schedule an interview with Clyde for Monday.

“Michele didn’t release any new EDI data – only background info that has already been published so we’re okay.”

Loscerbo quickly phoned to apologize. She said she is a communications specialist organizing release of the information, and the organization is not ready to talk about the new EDI. Wiens had “jumped the gun,” she added.

Read the full storyy: Avoiding my calls at UBC – Report Card

By the way Janet, I’ll answer your phone calls without having to call upon a high-price consultant to tell me to be quiet.

When is small, too small?  When does preserving small schools start to equal undermining medium to large size schools?  Irrespective of the merits of having pleasant small, neighbourhood schools where your children and one or two of her/his best friends attend, what are the demerits of keeping schools open.  Small school struggles in Vancouver, as opposed to small-school struggles in rural areas, seem to be about preserving boutique experiences for parents able and willing to spend the time to campaign and lobby.  In her education blog for the Vancouver Courier, Naoibh O’Conner talks about the Garabaldi Annex situation.  Charged with increasing enrolment to a minimum of 77 from 41, the school has achieved 58 students in two years of work.

The future of the Garibaldi annex is up for debate again.

The East Side kindergarten to Grade 4 school at 1025 Slocan St. faced closure in 2008 because of its dwindling student population, which stood at 41 that year. It has room for 165 students.

Parents rallied to save the elementary, arguing the prospect of closure was scaring families away from registering.

The Vancouver School Board agreed to keep it open until September 2010 if it attracted at least 36 more students. In September 2008, enrolment grew from 41 to 49, then to 58 in 2009. That’s still short of the 77 students needed to meet the school board’s expectation.

The cost of keeping its doors open is $114,742, according to school board staff. Read the full comment here: Class Notes: Closing time?