Teaching Ethics
As teachers vote this week regarding whether they will withdraw all extra-curricular activities in response to their feud with the provincial government, it would appear as if the BCTF is targeting the wrong people: the students. Not only would I argue that bringing personal politics into the classroom would constitute a breach of ethics, I...
On Path to Fixing Education
The underlying and primary fault of the current education system is its flawed premise: that students need to learn in an institutionalized and controlled way, mandated by the Ministry, District, or in some cases, the teacher. I will not argue that there should be no standards imposed by any of the controlling interests, but the...
Idea: BCTF making job demands? Join #OccupyWallStreet
The BCTF has been pretty clear that they’re going to start skipping their own classes if an agreement isn’t reached. What isn’t so clear is what exactly they want. Even though they have outlined their demands publicly, after speaking with individual union members I’ve learned that the union members – or soon-to-be school delinquents –...
We Treat Our Students like Cattle, Yet Expect Them to Be More Than Globs of Meat
It’s nothing new to say that our current K-12 education system needs work. Schools are designed to process a large amount of kids in a linear, assembly belt format, much like factories make Twinkies or paper towel. Or perhaps a more appropriate analogy: this system is very similar to the production of cattle for consumption....
Idea: Ask Kids How to Fix Schools
School Districts have shown interest to try and adjust to changing times, to adapt technology, and to employ different strategies to improve learning. They hire speakers for Professional Development days, they query teachers for suggestions, they email parents asking for ideas, yet they seem to ignore the most logical route to take when it comes...
Reinventing the Media: the Twitter Surge
Over the past 10 years, there has been a clear surge in social networking websites and their popularity. One of the greatest effects this has had has been changing the way we all communicate to one-another in our everyday lives; electronic communication has been quickly becoming mainstream as more and more take to the more...
Letter to Parliament: Allow Teenagers to Vote
Below you will find the text of a letter I recently sent to my local MP, as well as to 2 ministers. If you share similar views I suggest writing to your local MP as well; considerable changes are often discouraged, even when legally justified, by politicians who don’t want to compromise winning the next...
Prisons Encourage Criminal Behavior
It’s no secret that our Criminal Justice System needs work; it’s focussed on obtaining ‘justice’ by making a perpetrator pay for their crimes. Its downfall is that it wrongly assumes that somebody being stripped of their liberty and placed in a prison will bring about 2 things: the person will not engage in criminal activity...