By Pepper Parr
November 21st, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
The graphic below is disturbing to me.
Nothing wrong with the six commitments that are going to be given attention – making them a commitment is important.
But I can’t see a word about reading, mathematics, history, science; all the subjects that are critical if today’s students are going to succeed, thrive and prosper.
The closest the list of commitments gets to an education is the one that says: Learning, Engagement and Achievement.
The hope is that we will teach enough science for them to understand what is causing the climate change that could make the planet we live on uninhabitable.
The need to teach them enough history so that they will be able to not make the mistakes made in the past again should be paramount.
No mention of critical thinking either.
A number of years ago the Halton District School Board introduced the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) program at Aldershot High School. Registration night the school was packed.
Has the focus at the Board of Education changed?
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column reflecting the observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 12th year as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
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I’m betting I am not the only one sputtering with indignation and chagrin – this plan is appalling. It is insulting to the children who will be subjected to this nonsense. When did all of this blah-blah become acceptable as an actual plan for educating children? Most of this belongs as a few modules in a social studies program, certainly not the focus of an entire education plan. Where are the fundamentals? Where is the mention of reading, writing, history, math, science, music, art? After reading this, I went to the HDSB’s website to see if any of these are still being taught, but it seems it’s the fundamentals that are modules in a much larger program of useless busy-ness.
Pepper, miss what mark, all is see is more word salad. Time to defund our education system as it is and allow the money to follow the student. The HDSB at least left off any commitments to travel even though they do so to recruit foreign students.
Editor’s note: The concern was with the Multi Year Plan that Board has in place – readers are concerned about the lack of serious core courses.
This leaves me both speechless and enraged. How dare they propose such a meaningless batch of drivel as this? I have lost all faith in a woke culture that fails to provide children with the means of flourishing in society. I have two grandchildren in the Halton secondary school system and neither has any idea of what Confederation was, can’t read cursive and know no history that is not indigenous. My eldest was enrolled in the iSTEM program and, believe me, it is really not as advertised. The objectives are wonderful; the execution is horrible. We urgently need a return to fundamentals and a curriculum that addresses the realities of living in the 21st century. Creating a generation of helpless empaths serves neither the students nor the world in which they must live.
I don’t think students are ready for how hard university and college will be.
Having taught at the post-secondary high school level I can confirm that graduates from Ontario’s education system are not well-equipped to compete in the business world. I have students from Korea, China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria who read, write, speak and have better overall math and analytical skills, than kids from Canada. The reason for this is simple: other countries spend much more time ensuring students are grounded in the fundamentals.
Ontario’s education system is suffused with an underlying political agenda that bears no relationship to the real world. DEI, ESG, and Indigenous rights, aren’t going to help students get a job or compete in an increasingly competitive workplace. Our competitive position in the global community is steadily deteriorating, and all the silly word salads, WOKE homilies, EDI “happy talk”, and assorted nonsense being spewed by institutions like the HDSB won’t position students for success.
Rather than ordering municipalities to shut down bike lanes Ford and his government would do better to set a common framework for all Boards of Education across the province to follow. In the interim, HDSB should dispense with spending time on Multi-Year Strategic Plans which bear no resemblance to reality.
A woke neo-Marxist agenda with a fancy bow, we are not fooled by this nonsense. The world is moving on and our kids will be left behind and some unfortunately will be indoctrinated. Large corporations will start to reduce and/or eliminate their DEI programs, small business owners screen out candidates that display woke characteristics. Business is shifting back to a meritocracy.
This plan does not look forward and only looks backward.
Don’t these clowns understand where the jobs will be?