By Pepper Parr
April 15th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
A number of weeks ago I heard a CBC interview about a book that talked about the concept of disruption and education.
Disruption has bitten deeply into retail markets and has all but killed local newspapers.
Uber turned the taxi business upside down.
The Ontario government is now thinking about disrupting education and teaching both elementary and high school students on-line.
Halton District School Board Superintendent Julie Hunt Gibbons, who will be retiring in June after a long career as a teacher, did a review of Failure to Disrupt: Why technology alone cannot transform education
Her review led us to changes the provincial government is actively pursuing.
The Hunt Gibbons interview appears in the Gazette today – the scoop on what the provincial government appears to be planning will be in the paper on Friday.
Here is a glimpse of what the government is discussing internally at the Ministry of Education.
The full report will be published on Friday.
A portion of the documents being used by Ministry of Education Consultation group.
I really hope that the idea that all schools should be on line is a big, ugly JOKE.
Imagine our children not socialIzing with their peers. How would they learn to be kind, empathetic and able to learn that everyone is different but special. What! No hugs, sharing, ort touching? It would be a crime! We owe to all children to not let this ever happen!!
Today’s Spectator’s editorial cartoon summarized it well, IMO: without “bricks & mortar” schools all that valuable real estate can be sold to Doug Ford’s developer friends, fewer teachers will be required, operating costs will diminish, large segments of education will be privatized if they are deemed profitable, etc. Rich people will opt for private schools to avoid the ensuing chaos.
Ford will probably follow the Mike Harris example of getting rewarded with lucrative private sector corporate board appointments after retiring from politics. The flawed Harris policies caused serious harm to Ontario’s Long Term Care system – res ipsa loquitur – and Ford is now poised to do it to Ontario’s education system.
The education segment of Ontario’s budget will shrink significantly, but so will the quality of education and the socialization which is so important for our youth.
It has become crystal clear in the past year that in-class learning is essential for high quality education and smaller class sizes are as well. The ideologues leading the Ontario PCs do not have the understanding or competence to change the excellent education which Ontario is so fortunate to have. It must be protected from those who see it as a means of making a profit.