Wheat from the Chaff Blog -

Reflections on a 21st Century School

February 15, 2013 | Author: C. Welch

I recently had the opportunity to spend a day at Thomas Haney Secondary School in Maple Ridge, BC. The school is known for its commitment to flexible, personalized, learn-at-your-own-pace education, and is touted by many as an exemplar of progressive pedagogy. As a teacher curious about the phenomenon of “21^st century learning”, but also a little skeptical of the hype, I relished the opportunity to visit THSS and examine how it works. I had also taught many THSS students while I worked in distance education, so this was a school I wanted to understand.

One visit later, I am certainly no expert on the school, but I do think that some of my questions have been answered. Nevertheless, new questions have arisen, and in this post I’ll begin the process of sorting out what I know, what I don’t know, and what we can learn from Thomas Haney as BC’s education system pursues a reform agenda.

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Let’s be clear – the Thomas Haney model is not easily replicated in other schools:

A grade 8 to 12 school: the Maple Ridge school district uses an elementary/secondary system, and THSS therefore has five grade levels. One of the key benefits of this approach is that THSS can gradually introduce its students to the concept of self-directed learning. The Grade 8 students, for example, have very little choice and flexibility, but do observe older students using their time in a self-directed manner, and as they get older, students are given more and more “flex” time to pursue their learning. This gradualist method thus avoids a “shock to the system” for young people emerging from a fairly structured elementary experience.
- Challenge: How do you implement this gradualist approach in a school district with middle schools?
A linear timetable: To offer the best chance for success, open-ended schooling needs to give students as much time as possible, and THSS therefore works on a full year, linear timetable.
- Challenge: How do you reconcile this with a school and/or district committed to the semester system? [Hint: The flexibility offered by the Thomas Haney model may mitigate one of the main reasons in favour of semestered schools.]
An open campus: THSS operates as an open campus, especially for its older students, and therefore attendance is not taken except for seminars. [These have recently been introduced, as I understand it, to provide more structured contact between teachers and secondary students.] As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this open system – which goes well beyond allowing students out for lunch to Tim Horton’s – comes at a cost in terms of accountability and supervision. On the other hand, it helps that Maple Ridge has six secondary schools, so students and parents who aren’t happy with the Thomas Haney model have other choices.
- Challenge: How do you introduce an open campus in a community with fewer school choices? What if your local neighbourhood is opposed to an open campus? And is it possible to implement an open campus program (for example, a pilot project with just a few courses) within a larger, relatively closed school?
Thomas Haney is a school of choice: Though we were told that THSS is a neighbourhood school, roughly 70% of the students come from beyond the catchment area, and even beyond the district. There appears to be a high degree of self-selection amongst the students; according to the students and parents I met, Thomas Haney is considered an “academic school”, and probably derives much of its academic success due to the high quality of students who choose to attend THSS.
- Challenge: Is it possible to introduce personalized, learn-at-your-own-pace education to a broader group of students who haven’t committed to this approach? What do you do with those who abuse their freedom? And if it works better with a self-selected group of students, can it be introduced in a larger school where the educational system remains more structured?
- Point to ponder: Thomas Haney has been around since the 1990’s. If THSS is such a revelation, why are the other five Maple Ridge secondary schools (or schools in the rest of BC, for that matter) not following its model?
A lack of school district busing: Despite the large number of students coming from beyond the catchment boundaries, there are very few school buses arriving at THSS. Students either arrange their own transportation, or use public transit.
- Challenge: Will a lack of public transportation in smaller communities reduce the enthusiasm for this sort of schooling?
Year-end assignment dumping and power marking: I didn’t receive a clear-cut answer to this concern, but my general suspicion is that a great deal of marking piles up in May and June. Students who have procrastinated all year are suddenly faced with the prospect of failure, and thus a crisis ensues for both the student and his or her teacher. The student’s crisis is obvious, but the teacher’s challenge is enormous, too. When faced with a Mt. Slesse-like pile of completed assignments, the only solution is power marking: each assignment gets a quick read and a simple letter grade or percentage, with no feedback, no chance to guide the student to the next assignment, and no mastery learning. Moreover, as the crisis of time mounts, the allure of plagiarism looms ever larger, and more effort is spent chasing somebody else’s prior learning than assessing current understanding. I know all about these problems, because I faced them in distance education. It is a soul-sapping and demoralizing experience for a teacher, I can assure you.
- Point to ponder: I saw a lot of assignments on display that looked a lot like assignments from any other school. The assignments were prepackaged in some cases, and teachers offered some alternatives and choices, but how is this so different from other schools? Indeed, I didn’t really see any significant personalization of content beyond what I and most other teachers offer.

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Generally speaking, I don’t believe that Thomas Haney is a panacea to the straw-man “factory model” that progressives so detest. Like distance education, a realm in which I taught for eight years, I think an open, flexible school like Thomas Haney Secondary is a niche product for a niche market. This is not meant as an insult. What I mean to say is that it has some very positive possibilities for a minority of adolescents who genuinely love learning (particularly in more abstract disciplines) and are capable of learning with minimal supervision. But since I will never believe this applies to the large majority of adolescents, and there is ample research to support the general necessity of direct instruction, I simply don’t believe that the THSS model is “the answer”.

To be fair, I don’t believe that any philosophy or pedagogical approach is “the answer”. I personally favour a more liberal arts approach, but I know some students chafe under its demand for breadth. So, if flexible, individualized learning does have value for some students, the central challenge is how to incorporate it within a larger, more structured system. As Hamlet might say, there lies the rub!

Let’s Hope High School Won’t Be Your “Glory Days”

November 29, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

After another day of classes, and another round of adolescent glowering and truculence, I am reminded of Springsteen’s classic, “Glory Days”. Nobody said it so well: let’s hope your years in high school won’t be your glory days. If they are, then the rest of your life will be a big disappointment!

One of the most interesting things about adolescents is how many live totally in the present. In some ways this is positive: they live with an intensity that I no longer have, and which I envy. But it can also be overwhelming and crippling. Many teens are utterly convinced that everything they do is earth-shattering and monumentally important, and are incapable of viewing their lives proportionally from the vantage point of the future. I think this lack of perspective is why advice about their future often goes nowhere, and why a few, tragically, don’t survive their teen years.

So, in a weird way, one of my roles as a teacher is to assure them that their years in high school aren’t their glory days. These days are important, to be sure, but they are connected to a much larger thread. Hopefully, my students will soon realize how long and complex this tapestry of life actually is. And maybe – if my students live a bit more with the future in mind – they’ll have many more glory days in the years to come.

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Embracing Windows 8… Somewhat

November 4, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

The inner geek in me couldn’t resist. For $40, I had to try the upgrade of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 8, on my desktop computer. I’m not unhappy with Windows 7 – it’s a very solid OS – but I wanted to try something new, and see for myself what has become a virtual battle ground:

The upgrade part was very smooth. I downloaded an .iso image of Windows 8 Upgrade from the Microsoft site (you can pay via credit card or Paypal), burnt it to a blank DVD disc, rebooted my computer, and started the installation almost instantly.

Microsoft has really improved this process. Every step was clearly explained and no major glitches occurred. The Upgrade disc scanned my existing Windows 7 software and drivers, and the vast majority of them were compatible (or so I was told) with the new OS. A few programs, like Win7’s Windows Security Essentials, had to be deleted before I proceeded, and would be reinstalled as new Windows 8 programs. (In the case of WSE, Windows 8 comes with a built-in Windows Defender that looks a lot like WSE, but with the old Vista name.) A few other programs, like Camtasia, will need to be manually installed.

I had a new OS on my computer in about 20 minutes. This really is quite amazing. In prior Windows OS’s, the process often took hours. In this case, everything was up and running in under half an hour.

Well, not quite. There were a few things I had to fix.

First, I had to disable the login screen. I like jumping straight to the desktop, but Windows reasserted its preference for signing in. (This is a vestige of Microsoft’s enterprise heritage, I suppose.) Thankfully, the process of bypassing the login screen is similar to Windows 7.

Next I installed Stardock’s glorious little utility, Start8. In my mind, Start8 is indispensable if you own a desktop or laptop without a touch screen. For reasons I’ll discuss in a later post, Microsoft should have included all the functionalities that Start8 provides. First, it allows me to boot straight to the traditional desktop, and bypass the Windows 8 start screen altogether. Second, it provides a traditional start menu that Windows users have utilized since the 1990’s. Moreover, Start8 is a light program that integrates effortlessly into your computer, and is a steal at $4.99. Finally, it still allows me to use the new Modern UI, but only when I’m curious. I am not forced to use the new UI; this is something I think is going to hurt Microsoft if they don’t provide some immediate changes.

I did have to buy a new (paid) version of Stardock’s Fences, and I was annoyed the older free version no longer worked, but after two days everything else has lived up to the Upgrade’s promise of full compatibility.

I am now running Windows 8 just like I ran Windows 7. The new OS certainly cuts the boot and shut down times in half, and opening and closing programs seems slightly snappier, even though they were never really slow in Windows 7. After examining the system data (which is presented in a much cleaner format), it appears the OS is certainly more efficient with RAM and CPU power.

The next thing, of course, is to discover what all the hubbub is about regarding the Metro, er, Modern UI. So far, it looks great for those with tablets and touch screens. Unfortunately for those with powerful desktops, large multiple monitors and a preference for a mouse, Windows 8 appears to be a significant step backwards. I’m not against change, per se, because change is meaningless; it’s just an alteration of direction. But I am against bad change, and for people like me it looks like Windows 8 is bad news for “traditional” desktops and laptops. Nevertheless, I won’t provide a definitive judgment yet; in a later post, I’ll offer a more thorough analysis of Windows 8.

Presumptuousness in Education

October 13, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

Here’s a comment I made today on Scott McLeod’s progressive education blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. My response is to his question, “When will we view educators that opt out of the use of social media for professional learning as an aberration rather than the norm?”

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As someone who embraces many social media technologies but who also considers himself an “old school” teacher, I think part of the problem is the ethos that’s intrinsic to many so-called connected educators.

Let me blunt: many of these educators and “education experts” are presumptuous to the point of arrogance. Just jump onto Twitter for a few minutes, and you are sure to find another homily about the magical qualities of technology and/or 21st century learning, and the failure/incompetence/fearfulness of those teachers who aren’t on the bandwagon.

I rarely see any credible evidence, and usually it consists of other “experts” who repeat the same philosophical beliefs. And, of course, the echo chamber gets so loud that evidence – including that which favours direct instruction [for example, see here, here, and here] – really becomes irrelevant.

I know many educators – secondary school educators I’ve directly helped onto Twitter and blogging – who go online for awhile, shake their heads at the insulting dismissal of their practices, and tune out. [I’m stubborn, however; I like being a gadfly.]

As Keith has said above, there are many great teachers in our system who do not use social media. Their excellence ought to be part of the conversation, but I’m afraid the echo chamber rarely allows for humility or the exploration of old truths.

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Here are some of my previous education posts that you might find interesting:

Same Coin, Two Sides: Resurrecting the Liberal Arts Ideal

Individualized Learning = Pre-Packaged Learning

“Trades vs. Academics” is Obsolete

A Lament for the Provincial Exams

Questioning Progressive Education’s Sacred Cows

The Port Mann Mess

September 22, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

Pete McMartin has offered another masterfully lopsided argument!

It would be hypocritical of us “southsiders” to complain about the Port Mann toll if we had asked for a toll bridge earlier. But we hadn’t. We wanted the same deal everyone else was receiving, including the drivers of the new Sea-to-Sky highway, Pitt River bridge and Park Bridge near Golden: a bridge free of tolls and paid for out of general revenue. This would seem fair since the Port Mann is one of the most important regional crossings in BC, and one that is vital to Vancouver’s economy and the province in general. Moreover, southsiders have paid equally for all of those other toll-free edifices, so why not return the favour? [However, it would be hypocritical if we voted for BC Liberal candidates south of the Fraser and supported their tax-cutting agenda, and therefore undermined the ability of a government to pay for the bridge out of general revenue.]

McMartin’s either-or approach masks another reality: we need more driving lanes AND better public transit. Just one is simply not sufficient. The urban types seem to forget (or perhaps have never understood) how the Port Mann is a vital commercial link as well as a key regional and provincial artery. Most of this traffic simply can’t use public transit, and to wish otherwise is profoundly childish.

That being said, I wish the government had kept the current bridge, which by all accounts is still in good shape, and had twinned it. The money saved would have lowered overall costs, and helped pay for the Port Mann transit link (bus or rail) that is most certainly part of the transit solution for the Lower Mainland.

Some final thoughts: It would be fascinating to see the choices the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster would have to make if Surrey and Langley pulled out of TransLink. This I believe would be the ideal solution for those of us south of the Fraser. Not one penny more for Vancouver projects! No more lopsided contributions which the hipsters on Granville (or Main) take for granted!

And in terms of shopping, entertainment, and travel, the world north of the Fraser is becoming increasingly irrelevant anyway. Perhaps a transit divorce would make things more respectful.

David Stockman on Crony Capitalism

September 1, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

If anyone knows about “crony capitalism”, it’s David Stockman. Stockman was a Republican stalwart and budget director for Ronald Reagan who helped shape Reagan’s failed campaign of supply-side (or trickle-down) economics. In the following interview with Bill Moyers, Stockman discusses the fundamental corruption of the American politico-economic system. His assumptions are still quintessentially capitalist, but his insider’s analysis of America’s plutocracy is nevertheless fascinating.

The Rip Van Winkle Effect: Back in the Classroom after Eight Years

July 7, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

Last September I knew I had to make a change, and so I took the plunge and moved back into the classroom after eight years in distance learning.

I decided to leave DL because I really missed the classroom. I wanted to work face-to-face with students again, and embrace the challenges and rewards that come from working with adolescents. Also, to be frank, I felt myself getting a bit stale: the marking drone syndrome was starting to set in at my DL school, and I couldn’t see myself doing that for the rest of my career. It didn’t help that I wasn’t building curriculum any more; my courses required only the occasional tweak, I didn’t have time for major re-builds, and I didn’t want to develop curriculum in Moodle, our flavour du jour LMS. (It’s a content development platform I despise.)

So, after a year back in the classroom, what was it like to once again teach in a fairly average suburban school? I suppose the most noticeable change was cell phone use. Back in 2003, I didn’t deal with many cell phones in the classroom. Once I awhile a student’s phone might ring in her purse or his backpack, but the phones would be quickly turned off and the student would be contrite and embarrassed.

But no longer! I feel like a pedagogical Rip Van Winkle; I haven’t been asleep for 20 years, but times have certainly changed. Now the sense of entitlement has vastly increased. Of course I have the right to cell phones in the classroom! Of course I can [not may] text at will! At least most students still understand that taking a phone call is inappropriate. In any case, dealing with cell phones has been a major cause of expended energy, and a largely unwelcome factor in the harried life of a secondary teacher. I’m still considering my policy on cell phones, and I might write about the topic at a later date.

Another major change is the decline in leisure reading. This is not so much a major change as an acceleration of a trend that’s been developing since at least the advent of cable TV. I was aware of the decline during my tenure at DL, of course, but most students who succeed in online education are, by their nature, self-disciplined and relatively well-read. So I wasn’t quite ready for the degree of disengagement from reading exhibited by my classroom students. The majority of secondary students simply don’t read anything outside of school, except – at best – snippets of text or short, digestible (non-fiction) articles.* It’s really quite amazing.

And the effects are tangible. Their capacity to deal with elaborate sentence structure, advanced vocabulary and complex ideas is, I hate to say it, simply less than when I started teaching 20 years ago. If you want to teach literature, almost every unit requires an intense period of pre-teaching. Otherwise, students will have no context within which to frame their understanding. In this kind of world, irony recedes and allusion is dead.

Does this make me a cranky curmudgeon? If it does, then I offer my apologies. But there is simply no other way of saying it: our students have changed, and, academically speaking, not for the better.

This growing realization brings me to a final point. Much is being made of 21st century learners, and how we need to adapt to their “different learning needs”. However, isn’t this just a euphemism for cultural decline? And if so, is our job as educators to cater to those changes (i.e. to drop standards) or struggle mightily against the tide? I’ve commented on this before (here and here, for example), and will need to reflect on it more as another school year approaches!

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*Yes, indeed, this is anecdotal, but my conversations with students consistently support my generalization! Nevertheless, I need to spend more time on research. Here is an interesting starting point for further discussion. This might also help illustrate what I’m talking about.

UPDATE: My son alerted me to a fascinating academic article on the difference between “deep attention and hyper attention”, and the growing predominance of the latter. Thanks Brennan!

Skydrive: Slowly Working My Way to the Cloud

June 2, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

I haven’t been very keen to embrace the “cloud”, but in the last few days I’ve witnessed how simple and useful it can be.

Two days ago I downloaded Microsoft’s new Skydrive app to both my laptop and my home desktop computer. By allowing me to seamlessly synchronize data, this app extends the capacity and usefulness of Skydrive, and elevates my Hotmail account (which created my online Skydrive last year) beyond a mere dead email repository.

I installed the program in both computers, which in turn created a local Skydrive folder in each User profile.

Skydrive allows you to sync up to 7 gb of data for free, so the three work folders that I selected on my laptop (i.e. document folders for the three courses that I teach) had to be shorn of extremely large media files. That’s fine, since I rarely update these type of files, and Skydrive doesn’t upload any single file over 2 gb anyway.

I then moved the three work folders into the laptop’s Skydrive folder, and created three shortcuts to the desktop. The three folders are therefore back on the desktop, where they’ve always been, but now as shortcuts. At this time, automatic syncing only occurs for folders and files within the Skydrive folder, but with shortcuts nothing has effectively changed.

Skydrive started working automatically, by the way, and synced the folders to my online Skydrive account; the initial sync took about 30 minutes for about 5 gb of data. No longer do I have to manually upload files to Skydrive!

Later, from my home computer, I went to my online Skydrive account and downloaded the three folders to my home Skydrive folder, and made the shortcuts to the desktop (like on my laptop).

Now I can work on my home computer and save documents to the Skydrive work folders. That work will be saved automatically to my online Skydrive account, and synced to my laptop. And vice versa.

This is a good option for anyone who wants to have an automatic backup of key documents and photos, and a great option for someone who – like me – likes to create content on a powerful desktop computer (with multiple monitors) but use that content on his or her laptop.

I’m still working “locally”, but now I can work on either computer as if they are linked, and not have to worry about backing up or manually transferring files.

Give it a try. It’s free, and so far it’s been fast, intuitive and effortless. There might be something to this cloud, after all.

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UPDATE: I recently purchased an extra 20gb of sync storage for $10 per year. That’s right… per year. I looked around to the other storage solutions, including Dropbox, and Microsoft’s prices are definitely the most value for the money.

The Shock Doctrine Documentary

May 27, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

Though it’s been out for a few years, the documentary on Naomi Klein’s The Schock Doctrine remains a powerful and illuminating summary of her ideas. I thought I’d post it again.

Klein has faced some criticism by those you might consider to be her natural allies on the progressive left. Perhaps it’s because she is an attractive woman, or maybe it’s because she’s a celebrity reporter rather than an academic. Whatever the case, I think the criticism is unwarranted.

Her central thesis remains sound and useful. Shock and crises do not cause neo-liberal “eruptions”, but they do provide excellent opportunities for neo-liberal academics and politicians to push through drastic policies on a stunned and exhausted populace. As such, disaster capitalism becomes a vital window that exposes neo-liberalism in its rawest and most vicious form.

Pollution, Productivity and Pundits: Giving Up On Competitiveness?

May 19, 2012 | Author: C. Welch

After years of decrying the productivity gap, Canada’s corporate elite and their media partners are starting to show cracks in their united front. In a remarkable guest editorial by Eric Lascelles, a senior economist from RBC Global Asset Management, we see a sharp reversal of a narrative that’s been spun for well over a decade.

The narrative has long been described as a problem (a poor record of economic productivity and competitiveness) with a reductionist solution (corporate tax cuts, especially to income tax). The problem is that these tax cuts haven’t worked. What we’ve seen in the last decade are massive improvements to the corporate bottom line, but little willingness to invest these profits. In April 2011, The Globe and Mail published an article that debunked the connection between productivity and corporate tax cuts. An examination

of Statistics Canada figures by The Globe and Mail reveals that the rate of investment in machinery and equipment has declined in lockstep with falling corporate tax rates over the past decade. At the same time, the analysis shows, businesses have added $83-billion to their cash reserves since the onset of the recession in 2008.

The official Corporate Canada response to this failed narrative is to remain perplexed. The article above, for example, admits that “there are no easy answers when it comes to measuring the impact tax rates have on job creation”. The TD Bank’s well-known study of productivity in 2010 shows a similar disorientation: “It is perplexing that substantive policy reforms moving in the right direction have been met by slowing business sector productivity growth”.

So, Lascelles’s solution is easy: don’t worry about it any more. Lascelles argues that “[t]here is very little that can be done about Canada’s gaping competitiveness shortfall” and, moreover, “Canada’s poor competitiveness just doesn’t seem to matter very much”.

Except, of course, that billions of dollars have now been removed from the federal government’s coffers… with little to show for it collectively except for rising inequality. One could argue that neo-liberal ideology has failed, but those tax cuts aren’t going to be given back (at least, voluntarily), so the purveyors of this ideological narrative are winners. Yes, they’ve already won, even though their central argument is a self-serving failure.

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Another interesting feature of Lascelles’s article is that it inadvertently bolsters Thomas Mulcair’s current fight with, well, the entire Canadian establishment over the negative effects of tar sand production. Lascelles opines that our productivity gap is unimportant because it is “the unavoidable consequence of being a nation endowed with resource wealth during a commodity boom”. The resource boom inflates our dollar, and therefore almost “three-quarters of the gap is due to the soaring loonie, which is out of our control”.

On one hand, this reinforces Mulcair’s central thesis that oil exports are a major reason for the climb in the loonie, a climb that consequently hurts our value-added manufacturing sectors. However, Lascelles also believes we can’t do anything about this. Yet Mulcair’s point is that we can do something about it, since Canada is choosing not to enforce the true cost of tar sand production costs, including “the cost of the greenhouse gases, the cleanup of the tar sands sites, and the cleanup of the lakes of poisonous residues and the waters of the Athabasca River”. These costs have never been “internalized into the final price of the product”.

I should also mention that Mulcair’s political and media opponents have twisted themselves into pretzels in order to attack his “Dutch Disease” argument. Some have simply flip-flopped their position. For example, Jeffrey Simpson – a long-time defender of the downtrodden Establishment – argues that “Mulcair should drop the ‘Dutch disease’ rhetoric”. Simpson agrees with Mulcair’s analysis “that pollution costs should be factored into the product’s final cost”. But then he decries Mulcair’s supposed divisiveness because Mulcair misunderstands the consequences:

To say, however, that Alberta and Canada are acting like Nigeria in regulating the industry is political nonsense. [Notice how Simpson doesn’t explain why this is nonsense, and is content with a “horse laugh”.] As is his wider critique that Canada is suffering from “Dutch disease,” whereby high prices for commodity exports drive up the Canadian dollar which, in turn, hollows out the manufacturing industries of Central Canada.

This “Dutch disease” analysis is simplistic in the extreme. Worse, for a potential prime minister, it deliberately targets one part of the country for special (and wrong) blame, which is not what a serious national leader should do in a highly regionalized country.

Of course, Simpson has no problem with the Dutch Disease thesis when it helps him bash Ontario Liberals and demand neo-liberal discipline:

For most of the past decade, Ontario’s growth rate lagged behind the rest of Canada. From being an economic motor for the country, capable of sharing its surplus, Ontario became a drag, incapable of sharing but still required to do so by the perversity of various federal-provincial programs.

Worse, Canada entered into a form of the dreaded “Dutch disease,” whereby the currency soars on the back of high commodity prices, thereby diluting the economy’s competitive position. Ontario has suffered from the Canadian version of “Dutch disease”: High oil prices and large oil exports keep the currency high, causing competitive problems elsewhere.

Simpson’s unmitigated hypocrisy is buttressed by the predictable straw man critique that Simpson and other corporate hacks love to use. They imply that Mulcair’s “simplistic” argument ignores other realities. In other words, Mulcair is blaming the entire problem on the tar sands, and this is easily refuted by Simpson:

The reasons for the strength of the Canadian dollar go way beyond the fact that Canada exports oil. It also exports natural gas, minerals, potash, forestry products and hydro, especially from Mr. Mulcair’s own province, Quebec. Those products (except maybe forestry these days) are in high demand, especially in Asia. When demand is high, prices tend to track demand.

But, as you might imagine, Mulcair doesn’t put the entire blame on the tar sands. He argues that it has a major role to play, but is not the only problem:

“The rapid expansion of the tar sands has contributed to a 40 percent increase in the value of the Canadian dollar since 2004, as an artificially high number of US dollars flow into Canada to purchase that heavy oil.”

Call me crazy, but “contributed to” doesn’t sound like the tar sands is Mulcair’s sole target.

In the end, I am enjoying the hornet’s nest that Mulcair has stirred up, and I hope he can continue to pursue economic policy as the NDP’s central agenda. We can learn a lot about our country’s tax policy, productivity and resource economy when progressive leaders are willing to confront the economic myths that have sustained Canada’s elites for too long.

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Here are some other good links regarding Mulcair’s “brouhaha”:

Wheat from the Chaff Blog

Reflections on a 21st Century School

Let’s Hope High School Won’t Be Your “Glory Days”

Embracing Windows 8… Somewhat

Presumptuousness in Education

The Port Mann Mess

David Stockman on Crony Capitalism

The Rip Van Winkle Effect: Back in the Classroom after Eight Years

Skydrive: Slowly Working My Way to the Cloud

The Shock Doctrine Documentary

Pollution, Productivity and Pundits: Giving Up On Competitiveness?

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