One of the problems with being an old, retired teacher is that one’s opinions regarding education are rarely taken seriously.
Rather than being assumed to be old and wise, one is assumed to be old and out of touch, or old and crotchety, or, well, just old.
The cynicism that is often associated with aged teachers is better described as experiential guarded enthusiasm based on years of observation of educational reforms that have been at best ineffectual and at worst detrimental.
In response to declining student performance at the high school level, standards of evaluation were eased, core courses were watered down and elective courses added that would appeal to current student interests.
In 1970, guidelines of high school student evaluation in British Columbia mandated that in academic courses five per cent of students be awarded A letter grades and 20 per cent B grades.
Today it is not uncommon to see academic classes, such as english and math, in which 20 per cent of students are awarded As and 40 to 50 per cent Bs.
A casual observer might think that students are performing better than they were in the 1970s. Ministries of Education and many school boards and school administrators would like you to believe that. In fact, just the marking criteria has changed.
Now the BC Ministry of Education has introduced a new BC Education Plan containing five elements guaranteed to reform and improve education:
1. Personalized learning for every student, 2. Quality teaching and learning, 3. Flexibility and choice, 4. High standards and 5. Learning empowered by technology.
In a column in last week’s Grand Forks Gazette, Teresa Rezansoff, Boundary school board chair, encouraged readers to look up the plan online and read the details. Please do so. You will find that it is not a plan.
A plan describes how to accomplish something, like a house plan which contains complete blueprints. The BC Education Plan is a list of nice things. Calling a list a plan does not make it so, unless you are a politician. Then you can go on TV and tell the electorate that publishing a list is the same thing as implementing a “plan.”
The ministry is crossing their fingers that Element 5, the use of technology, will allow them to achieve the other four elements and at the same time, save money.
By using computers online (Element 5), they are hoping that students will be able to choose (Element 1) from a wide variety of online courses (Element 3).
They are trusting that the online courses, created by private enterprise of course, will be of high quality so that Element 2 can be achieved, therefore leading to the elevation of standards that will allow B.C. students to compare well with students from other countries ( Element 4).
The role of teachers is now being seen as mere guides or coaches, directing students onto paths of autonomous-learning.
How ironic that at the most prestigious schools and universities, the ones that really do have the highest standards and the best educated graduates, teachers are considered by far the most important asset, far above technology or any program of incentives or inducements dangled before students.
The president of Sarah Lawrence College – the most expensive post secondary school in the U.S. at over $50,000 a year tuition – stated on the CBS newsmagazine program Sunday Morning that the costs were that high because, in order to maintain the teacher-student contact that was at the heart of a good education, class sizes of 17 or less were required.
I would add that the only meaningful improvement in public school student performance will come from increasing the time that good teachers get to spend with students.
That means smaller classes and more interaction, not larger classes and more computer screen time.
But I’m old, so what the heck do I know?
– Jim Holtz is a columnist for the WEEKENDER and a former reporter for the Grand Forks Gazette.
