Category Archives: BC Politics
A Lament for the Provincial Exams
I’ll be honest: I’m a dinosaur. Or at least that’s what I’m labeled by the progressives who make so much noise in the field of education. To them, teachers like me are throwbacks, anachronisms, conservative reactionaries, Sisypheans who roll the rock of futility up (and, like me, over) the hill. I also suspect we might […]
Exploring Direct Instruction
One of the deepest tensions in modern education is between “student centered learning” and “teacher centered learning”. I’m interested in exploring more about this topic, and today I will set the framework for my exploration. The student centered or “minimally guided” approach is characterized as self-paced and interactive, and aims to replace “lectures with active […]
Ramping up the Rage: You know it’s contract time when
… BC’s corporate media sector starts ramping up the rage against teachers. Yesterday, the two BC dailies – both owned by the PostMedia group – headlined two separate anti-teacher stories. The Province featured an article about certain BCTF bargaining demands, based upon the employer’s utterly compromised interpretation. The Sun then offered a College of Teachers […]
More ruminations on 21st century learning and the concept of change
As usual in the distributed learning (DL) world, the month of June is absurdly hectic. Students who’ve enjoyed the right to create their own learning schedules realize, at the end, that no right exists without a corresponding responsibility. And now – as their asynchronous bliss meets the realities of graduation, post-secondary timetables and the rigours […]
Personalized Learning? Unlikely…
The latest buzz-phrase in education is “personalized learning”. Like so many other education bandwagons, it has enjoyed a surge in popularity in university education programs, the provincial Ministry of Education, and recent education conferences. In December of 2010, the BC Ministry of Education and the Premier’s Technology Council [PTC] published its Vision for 21st Century […]
Dogs, Children, Culling…
Don’t get me wrong: I like dogs. But our society’s love for dogs sometimes goes over the top. Is it because they are a substitute for the children we haven’t had for decades? Or the children we will never have, period? Whatever it is, it seems wholly disproportionate to the other challenges we face, especially […]
Ben Levin’s thoughts on education
The presentation below, by Ontario professor Ben Levin, makes some interesting points about modern education. The first point is that many of the elements that differentiate the education systems of Canada and the USA – and lead to better PISA results in Canada – are macro-factors outside the control of individual teachers. Levin points to […]
Media bias: yet more evidence
Right-wing corporate media bias is pretty strong in Canada. From the type of stories chosen and emphasized, to the spin and language used to differentiate NDP policies from Conservative, it’s hard to consistently hear and read progressive perspectives in this country. And though ownership and management are by far the most important elements of media […]
The NDP vote in BC
The following chart from Will McMartin’s most recent Tyee article offers some interesting insights into BC politics: The first thing one notices is that the NDP’s support has remained relatively constant over the last 40 years, aside from the 2001 debacle. In 9 of 10 elections, the NDP share of the popular vote has […]
Another Fraser Institute Joke
I’m pleased to see that Craig McInnes of the Vancouver Sun doesn’t take the Fraser Institute’s latest salvo against Canada’s surgical wait lists too seriously. A 16% return rate on a voluntary survey makes a mockery of any official conclusions. Little wonder that the report’s authors fail to mention the response rate in their section […]