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We pretend to teach 'em, they pretend to learn

MARGARET WENTE

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 12:21 PM EDT 18/04/09

Giving students a no-consequences education will have plenty of unpleasant consequences for us ...Read the full article

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  1. Thinkingman FromCanada from Canada writes: The workforce is a different world. When the people who are paying you are not pleased with your performance, they get rid of you. This is called the school of hard knocks.
    With Kindness. Kevin.
  2. W MacKay from Canada writes: What a surprise, the old folks think the world is going to pot and the young people have no idea how the world works. Play a new record (I won't say CD to be consistent with the adage). Margaret, this theme has be mined to death. The world is in good hands.
  3. A C from Canada writes: The kids who don't hand in assignments, who cheat, who have no goals, and who live their lives without consequences do so because they have crappy parents (who parent at arms length and don't set appropriate standards). That pretty much accounts for 99% of the students who are like this. I saw it all the time when I was in grade school and I saw it when I entered university and these guys failed out in their first year - and proceeded to become aimless dependants. There's nothing schools can really do about crappy parenting (as long as the parents are feeding and not beating/neglecting them then there's nothing social services can do either). Plus, I don't really believe it's the school's job to raise the kids, only to teach them. If we want kids to do better in school we need to parent them better - plain and simple.
  4. Pamphleteer . from Canada writes: Maybe life in easy in some arts programs, but if there is no handholding or leeway given in the science faculties. There are right and wrong answers with no in between. Either you answered the calculus question correctly or you didn't. Either you solved the organic chem question correctly or you didn't. People can and do fail or do poorly in the sciences.
  5. Jay D from Canada writes: The universities are hypocritical at best. They had the ability to set lower admission rates to be more selective about who they admit. Further, collectively they could demand university entrance exams to screen applicants. However, all this would cut off the vast numbers of tuition paying undergraduates who help fund graduate activities and research. If the universities do not like the quality of students then they should do something to make that complain meaningful.

    I tend to agree that schools cannot compensate for absent parenting, and this is the main source of student failure. If the provincial government mandates that students pass at a certain rate then teachers are forced to make concessions they do not like.

    For comparison's sake, consider the French system where students often take several YEARS of post high school study just to be able to pass the exams required to get into selective programs. I'm not sure if that is the best use of time for youth, but as the polar opposite of the Ontario system it is worth comparing to see what could be learned. In general the French system doesn't just hand out A's. They use a 20 point grading scale, and doing 'well' means getting a 12 (less than 20% of the student population). A 15 means you are a genius, a 16 is virtually unheard of. This is nice system, I think, because it allows rewarding outstanding achievement. Also, students are aware that there is always more to learn or improve on. The consequences of such a system are twofold. One, students who succeed tend to be very independent and capable of building and defending their work. However, the downside is that due to the fact school is very tough and being wrong has consequences, as an adult population they are more risk adverse than North Americans and more prone to spend an ungodly amount of time studying a problem before deciding on a course of action.
  6. Stan W from Winnipeg, Canada writes: It is good to see an educator is finally waking up to the fact that our education system is in part a wasteful fraud.

    Young people should not be hyped into entering programs (university or community college) that don't suit their needs and abilities.

    What I see is an education industry that looks for the easiest way to the most money.

    - Reduce hard-to-teach/learn subjects like math, hard science and grammar.

    - Promote professional and occupational programs regardless of whether there is a good job market in that occupation.

    - Drive difficult disobedient high school students to drop-out.

    My recommendation:

    1. Departments of education should survey graduates 1 and 5 years after graduation asking for their feedback on:

    (a) the programs and courses they took and

    (b) the teachers and teaching methods they encountered.

    2. Find a way to pay teachers based on performance, on the improvement they bring their students.

    All that said, I'm not surprised few of his students know what 'tenements' are: Canadian students won't be familiar with old US-English words.

    I bet few of them are familiar with the UK-English terms 'mews' or 'council houses'.

    3. Seriously look at whether (some/all) boys and girls will do better in 1-12 classes segregated by sex.
  7. Tom G from Canada writes: Students in South Korea also have a no-fail policy, but they are hammered to death with tests, tests, tests, and after school programs and clubs drowning their free time and play time. Let's not envy them or their horribly shoddy education system. It's all rote memory and excruciatingly long study hours. Of course, they're going to seem better prepared, but it is all one big scam--and at the expense of even one original thought.

    A university degree is what most students want. They really don't care too much about the education. It is the qualification and what it represents; which isn't a h*ll of a lot these days, but it does put them in a respectable class of people, no matter how dumb they really are.
  8. Stan W from Winnipeg, Canada writes: A C writes: 'The kids who don't hand in assignments, who cheat, who have no goals, and who live their lives without consequences do so because they have crappy parents (who parent at arms length and don't set appropriate standards).'

    And these kids go on to become multi-millionaire sales people and financial industry CEOs.
  9. Stan W from Winnipeg, Canada writes: Most young people are reacting to the expectations and beliefs of adults when they choose their post-secondary education.

    Students want a university degree because we (parents, teachers, journalists) tell them a university degree is what it takes to get ahead to have stability in this world.

    It isn't something they are dreaming up on their own.

    And there is established wide social recognition with a university degree that you do not get with a journeyman's certificate in trades like plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, iron work. It is how it is in North America.

    We are going to have a big shortage of trades people in Canada.

    In some countries in Europe, such as Germany, the trades are better respected by society at large. But Canadian kids grow up in Canada and pick up on the values of their Canadian parents.

    As for passing kids unconditionally, sad to say, from what I have heard some teachers favor this because they want problem children to move on to become someone else's problem.

    And for a child with an IQ of 90 or more, not being able to figure out a 10% discount is not due to lack of intelligence. Rather it is due to improper teaching.
  10. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Wente's column is 100% correct. The problem starts with government pressure to improve the graduation statistics and is aided and abetted by the 'educrats' at the university faculties of education, the school board administrators, and the teacher's unions. (Most who have never taught in a classroom!)

    The end result in business is that if you want some assurance that a young person can communicate reasonably well (e.g., write a letter or answer the phone), and do a little bit of simple arithmetic, then some post-secondary education is required. A secondary school diploma means absolutely nothing anymore and everyone knows it.

    The Canadian universities also have a business model built upon volume instead of excellence. Society would be better off if we gave the universities 50% less money and cut their enrollment by 75% so that only truly excellent students attended. Funding applied colleges, apprenticeship, and Polytechs for career oriented education would make more sense for the majority of high-school grads.

    Stan W from Winnipeg: Great comments. I couldn't agree more with you.
  11. Diane Schweik from Edmonton, Canada writes: .

    'More will mean worse' said Kingsley Amis regarding the planned expansion of UK university places years ago.It seems to have universal application.
  12. Roop Misir from Toronto, Canada writes: '10 per cent off.' = '10% of'?
  13. Gardiner Westbound from Canada writes: .
    Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. When not on strike professional high school teachers make a lousy $94,000 for a four hour day and three month's paid vacation. Now the TDSB wants them to supervise halls an extra three minutes a day. O' the cruelty!
  14. S.C. Davis from Canada writes: Try asking a kid how much change you get back from a twenty for a tab of 12.93. They can not do it.
  15. N Dawg from Canada writes: Some good comments have been made here.

    Firstly, as has been mentioned, the trades or so-called blue collar jobs do not carry the same prestige in Canada as they do in other countries and that is a shame. I envy anyone who can work with their hands. Remember the ice storm we had in Ontario 10 years ago? It wasn't the lawyers who saved us, it was men climbing up ice-covered poles in the middle of the night to re-string your hydro cables.

    I also think boys need to be taught differently than they are being taught now. Boys cannot sit still in a classroom hour after hour. Maybe they are beaten into submission in other cultures, but I don't think that is the role model we should emulate here. It would be interesting to hear from educators as to how we can engage boys more effectively in school.
  16. Steve French from Windsor, Ont, Canada writes: Most people lack 'critical thinking' skills, just read the forums any given day. Most people are little more than talking monkey's, who believe their opinions which consist of a collection of platitudes and logical fallacy, are just as valid as anyone else's. Kids in university are light years ahead of this primitive belief system.
  17. charlie bistro from tranna, Canada writes: Gardiner Westbound from Canada writes: .
    Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. When not on strike professional high school teachers make a lousy $94,000 for a four hour day and three month's paid vacation. Now the TDSB wants them to supervise halls an extra three minutes a day. O' the cruelty!

    ------------------------------------------------------

    So what's your proposal then??? any ideas, other then 'unions suck'? my wife is a teacher who has worked in the public and private systems, and believe me, the mismanagement and pushing kids through the grades happens in the non-union private system too. These anti-union rants are getting tired, like a broken record, no substance, no solutions.
  18. on the Plateau from Montréal, Canada writes: Right on Margaret. The Québec government constantly points to Ontario for their 'success' at increasing graduation rates and further dilution of our standards is predictable to follow Ontario policies. The wake up call is University where students arrive with no concept of actually having to work and plagiarism is rampant. We do not actually fail them, but everybody knows that a C average student should rather learn something practical than loose his time. The first actual job can be brutal then as the pink slip does not come with a system of counselors or 'special needs' programs for kids who can not possibly write their exam in a room with 100 others. It would be nice if parents actually told their kids that life is tough, but I guess that this is not en vogue any more.
  19. Uncle Milty from Burlington, Canada writes: Ontario high school education is not designed to enhance learning. It is designed to SPEND the provided funding for the pedagogy of the day. Teachers are then forced to implement this pedagogy even though many are at odds with it.

    Right now, that funding is directed at 'student success.' What that means is, the bottom 20% of the students can do no wrong. The 'rules' have been changed to assist them with making it through high school.

    The middle 60% are being NEGLECTED. These students need to be 'pushed' and encouraged to strive for success. Instead, these new rules allow them to have a work ethic similar to those who lived in the command economies of the Soviet Union; yet they still pass with flying colours because of the new 'modal' assessment system.

    These are some comments that I have personally had directed at me by senior administrators over the past 5 years or so...

    'If you want more students to sign up for your classes, make the material less challenging'

    'It is not our job to prepare them for university'

    'This is a great program...look at all of the funding they are giving us'

    The current direction we are taking in our secondary schools is going to create a generation of individuals who are devoid of critical thought. They are 'spoon-fed' and walk around with a general sense of entitlement.

    Oh yes, The top 20%?

    ...As the prof said. They are just fine!
  20. john smith from Canada writes: I am sometimes shocked how little people learn in canadian high schools. especially in math. but I believe it is a worldwide trend.
  21. Carlo Picano from Canada writes: As a tutor to many high school students, many of whom have aspirations to become teachers, I am truly amazed by the criteria used in choosing this profession. A love of teaching? No. A love of imparting information to the young young? No. A well paying job with lots of time off? Bingo! If this past week's revelations of our current student's unpreparedeness for university life is so newsworthty, one must also look at the role highschool teachers play in this current scenario and the 'unprepared' habits they bring to the class room. Some of these habits include: Modern history being taught through contemporary films which take weeks to watch with little relevance to the subject matter - no wonder modern history seems end in 1945 as the term runs out of time. English teacher's who have never read the material they are teaching or can even bother to read in order to prepare - imagine a teacher admitting they have never read Oedipus Rex, therefore dropping it off the reading list and telling the students they are doing them a favour? What a missed opportunity to introduce students to the ancient world. No wonder when they arrive at university they think Homer is a cartoon character or a sports announcer who rants about the home team? Chronic and epidemic absenteeism among teachers who attend union meetings during school hours and take time off to deal with personal problems, some year after year after year. Assignments that students have to ask for so they know what marks thay have going into university, some are never marked, are lost, or are never returned. I could go on and on, but ... hey, why bother. Summer is around the corner and from what I've heard Oedipus Rex is not on many teacher's summer reading lists, even though it is on the high school reading list.
  22. rablais rabble from Canada writes: And is the USA system better? For years USA kids have not known that Africa is a continent, not a country, famously.

    But they have always beaten the world where it counts; commerce and military invention.

    In the end, maybe it is about political leadership and strong wills, not education at all.
  23. Gregory Latiak from Stella, Ontario, writes: Having watched my son struggle through school trying to memorize the provincially mandated science books, I can concur with many of the negative comments made by Margaret and the other posters. These texts were a waste of the taxpayers money. Physics, chemistry and biology works the same whether it is Ontario or Alberta or even (gasp) the U.S.. I see no rational reason for the churn of provincially-specific text books. We dug out my old university texts to show how an orderly development of concepts help -- but it ended up hurting him because, of course, it conflicted with the government-mandated text. It may well all be a sham, but in the end if our children do not know how to learn and we choose to do other things than try to help them down that path, we all loose.
  24. General Wolfe from Wolfe Island, Canada writes: I have to disagree with the favouable comments about Ontario's technical colleges in the article. I've never understood the role of these colleges in training people for trades. Suppose you're an 18 year old high school graduate who wants to be a licenced carpenter. You can go directly into an apprenticeship, earn money and after 5000 hours of working as an apprentice you can obtain your licence. The second option is to spend two to three years of study at a college, pay substantial tuition and graduate with a diploma. Then to be a licenced carpenter you must complete a 5000 hour apprenticeship. What's the point of attending college if it doesn't advance you towards licencing in your chosen trade?
  25. Healthy Sceptic from Canada writes: In Ontario I believe, if you don't graduate from high school you don't get your drivers license. (or there is or was some sort of tie-in.) Right there is a glaring example of the wrong-headedness of our education approach. As so many things that are done simply to be able to report the 'right' numbers, public education is just another macro strategy to make working parents THINK that their kids are ok and that they can therefore turn the bulk of their attention to their paying job. There is an excellent math program out by John Mighton, called JUMP Math. In the workbook Mr. Mighton says that (I paraphrase here) if a child doesn't understand something he assumes that he hasn't taught it in the right way. I think that comment provides a critical insight. Children learn in many different ways and a one-size-fits-all strategy is doomed to fail many children. But that is the best you can ever hope for with institutionalized education on a budget. If you want free-thinkers, with a robust interest in things and loads of ingenuity get to know some homeschoolers. No matter what style of homeschooling they have, homeschoolers almost all begin with a certain amount of resourcefullness, dedication to their children, and an I-can-do-this attitude. (Those who homeschool for religious reasons may be a different matter, I don't know)
  26. boz dobbs from toronto, Canada writes: Maybe we should apply the same professional standards that High school teachers have to the medical profession,can you imagine the drop in cancer cases if tests and x-rays could be ignored and patients could be sent out the door,thanks to the make believe world of unions and Dalton McGuinty.
  27. W Price from Canada writes: The concern about 'student success' and 'empowerment' is well said. Front-line educators deal with increasing attendance, manners, late assignment, and test issues from a substantial number of students. This major problem has, for some time, migrated to the college and university levels. The usual anti-union, anti -teacher bleaters appear quickly in these posts and ignore that AMATEURS in government/administration/ parents presume that they know best for this profession, but not any others.
  28. Fabien Nadeau from Canada writes: I have been a teacher all my life. I see two reasons to the situation.

    First, we, the teachers. I was raised in a small village, and when I decided to go to high school, every one concluded it was to be a priest. Usually, after grade 7, one goes on the workplace.

    I would say that my teacher formation was bottom line.

    The other reason is that the state decided that everyone should go to school till the end of high school, and that everyone should have the same education.

    I have been teaching to 120 students every year, during a 35 -year career. Like your university teacher, I would say that the top 20% were great, smart, etc. But most had no books, no newspapers at home...

    Now that I'm retired, I have the chance to be asked to tutor some students with reading and writing difficulties. Now I can see how THIS mind works.

    When teaching to a class of 30, you teach for the middle ones, and lose both ends.

    I guess that we should go back to some kind of special schools, some for the intellectually gifted, some for the manually gifted.

    I have been a happy teacher, I have fond memories of some of the brightest students I had the chance to work with, and some C students with hearts big as the world.

    But then, I also suffered from my own limits, and the limits of a system which gave me an impossible task.
  29. Tom G from Canada writes: Many students who attend community college to train for the trades do get the hours spent in classroom applied to their apprenticeship hours. The problem with community college education is that it is really crap. Many of the teachers, for example in electrical technician programs, should not be anywhere near a classroom. They are incompetent. They are tradesmen who are completely ill-equipped to teach students outside of practical skills. They are not trained to teach, unprepared, and often inarticulate. Let's not paint community colleges as some kind of panacea for all that ails Canadian youth.

    I did the community college route before going on to university in frustration and disillusionment. I tried it all, architectural technology, journalism, x-ray technology, electrical technology, even bricklaying. I know what I'm talking about. I think back on the scam education at several schools that I attended with regret, let me tell you. Bottom line is this: Teachers at whatever level of tertiary education should be trained to teach. You just don't pick it up as you go along--and expertise in a field means very little when it comes to good teaching at high school, college or university. Teaching requires rigorous training and aptitude.
  30. The World Doesn't Owe Me from Calgary, Canada writes: From the article:

    '...It's pretty hard to flunk out of university, so long as you show up most of the time, hand in your assignments eventually, and write the (multiple-choice) tests. You don't have to work very hard, and the culture of disengagement is rampant.'

    Obviously Ms. Wente is referring to a BA. I have an engineering degree and then went back for my MD degree, and the last time I had a multiple choice exam was in grade 12. In the programs I completed, it is very easy to flunk out. I believe the failure rate in first year engineering was around 30%.

    The culture of disengagement is rampant everywhere in a society where the individual wants complete freedom but does not want to take any of the corresponding personal responsibility.

    I didn't find this a well balanced or thought out article as Ms. Wente really only looked at life thru the lens of select faculties or programs.
  31. Colin Campbell from toronto, Canada writes: The key issue revolves around parental involvement in the education of their children and pre-school child rearing practices. If this is not dealt with up front, the endless finger pointing assumes that this deficiency can be overcome by other means. It can't. The most successful charter schools in the US such as KIPP and preschool interventions such as Early Start require extensive parental involvement as well as heroic teacher or organizational efforts. If this is something we value then appropriate funding should be allocated to deal directly with this issue. From a cost-benefit point of view the returns are actually irresistible (actually far better than virtually all business hurdle rates). The finger pointing should all be directed towards why this isn't happening.
  32. Sassy Lassie from Canada writes: Our current educational systems are set up to 'Indoctornate' children, instead of teaching them the three Rs we are teaching them to be professional leftwing advocates. Commonsense has been replaced by feelings and emotions, children are sheltered from the consequences of their actions because it's always someone elses' fault, usually the teachers. Two generations of children tought to be victims instead of educated, they are often refered to as the 'ME' generation for obvious reasons.

    Dawg your post is nonsensical, educating males differently than females is pure hocus pocus socialist's tripe. Poor wee lads can't sit still perhaps we should teach them some leftwing loopy course on how to make pots.
  33. puffin wrangler from Montreal, Canada writes: Government funding was reduced for universities, which led to increased undergraduate acceptances to make up the loss in tuition fees.

    School teachers spend more time setting/assessing students' and classes' weekly, monthly and yearly goals than preparing materials and actually teaching.

    When I was in highschool, late '80s, I failed a math course due to family problems, failed, as in less than 50% for final grade. Solution? Summer school: smaller student:teacher ratio, feelings of shame ('I blew it.') followed by feelings of empowerment ('I can do better!'). You learn the meaning of the word consequences without destroying your life.
  34. Peter Brown from Geelong, Canada writes: 'A physicist may be an an accomplished violinist, but it is rare to find a violinist that can solve differential equations.'

    The sciences are full of high standard students - as it is hard to dilute them in those fields. The arts are equal, but standards have to be upheld, or arts degrees are demeaned.

    My great Uncle in England has a degree in French Literature - but he had to pass difficult courses in first year university calculus to get it. Perhaps in modern Canada and Arts degree should require rigorous first-year math courses, and a science degree should require rigorous first year classics/literature - both marked without knowing what the student's field of major is.
  35. Roger Cooper from Canada writes: Margaret Wente has hit it squarely. Our education system is lagging because our policy makers are setting foolish standards. It isn't the number of students that graduate, it is the quality of those that do.

    Life is competitive; so should be our schools and universities. Provincial departments of education should introduce province-wide testing at matriculation. The tests ought to be tough, as they are in other countries, and they ought to be the basis for university admission.

    Spoon-feeding our children does them no favour.
  36. YTA YTA from oakville, Canada writes: I think the point is being missed completely. It's about the desire to learn. Note the comment 'the top 20 percent are great. They are smart and self directed and they'll succeed anywhere.' The key is 'self directed'. They know what they want, and they motivate themselves. You cant legislate motivation-just as you cannot legislate against a kid being overweight because he eats the 'wrong' foods. You can't outlaw burgers and fries-you have to show kids that they can't be staple foods-and show them the results of doing so. The same goes for smoking. Making the cigarettes not available to kids of a certain age doesn’t work either. They can get them anytime they want to-through friends. If they want to smoke they are going to. I've struggled with motivation my entire life-both in food and effort. You have to want to succeed-you have to have a goal and want to achieve it-no one can instill that in you-except yourself. I think that one thing that really destroyed my motivation was that early on I was extremely lucky and 'succeeded' too easily. I had to rebuild it from scratch. Not only that, you have to understand what the goal is and how hard it is to get there-and that it has to be done step by step. By making it easy enough to not fail, you destroy the real lessons that have to be learned-and that is that nothing is achieved without hard work, discipline and persistence. Intelligent kids will learn that it is easy to get by without any serious effort. What we are grooming is generation after generation of people whose efforts are geared to 'getting by'. What is missing is the desire to learn. I know of an extremely intelligent 16 year old who has a private tutor, and a mom who is ripping her hair out-and spending a great deal of money-trying to support him, but he still keeps bringing in bad grades.
  37. YTA YTA from oakville, Canada writes: Why? He doesn’t see the point. With very little effort, he gets what he needs to not fail, and that's it. She has tried everything, punishment, cajoling, scare tactics-like telling him he will be working at a menial job in the future; and even blackmail-i.e. trying to tell him he will only get his reward if he succeeds-but all to no avail.Why? Because the desire to learn is not there. And because kids resent being treated like a dog that has to do tricks in order to earn his reward. First, students see the curriculum as out of date and not relevant to the world around them. Second, they do not feel-as I did when I was younger-that life is about having lots of money. They want something more.They need to see a purpose to their lives. We all need that. Anyway, why bother to really work hard when you can just finance anything you want with such easy credit?
    It's all about motivation. Making them see that effort and success is its own reward-it's about being productive-about feeling good inside. Notice how good we feel when we have done something useful-such as contributing to society. We all have to feel that we are doing something of value-that is where the motivation lies.
  38. Paul Howe from Medicine Hat, Canada writes: Eventually the 20% will be runnng things, the 30% or so who learned practical skills will have the middle level jobs and the rest will work in the service industry. You just have to love our approach to education.
  39. Just A Thought from Canada writes: 'Our students today are just as intelligent and capable and competent as before, but there's been this cultural shift,' one high-school teacher says.

    If students today are just as intelligent, capable and competent as before, then regardless of cultural shifts, the problems discussed in the article should not exist.
  40. Ted Harrison from Canada writes: Margaret Wente is correct on provincial policies regarding non-submission of assignments. If you don't hand stuff in, late marks are not to be deducted, and zeros are not to be given. The assumptions seem to be that we do not live in a world bounded by time, and that it is possible to separate behaviour from other indices of educational attainment. It has to be flat out the stupidest policy to hit educational practice in a very long time, and this in a field that has embraced more than its share of idiotic ideas.

    Often I find Wente overly simplifies complex situations, but in this case she's dead on. The current approach is essentially a way to lie to the public about educational attainment.
  41. Art Chao from Canada writes: From what I can see - the majority of students are not there in the universities to become scientists, professors or engineers.

    If they can't do well with their grades - that's no big deal -as long they learned to work hard.

    But very unfortuately - Canada's school system before unversitiy levels can't teach kids the importance and principle of hard-work.
    Instead - kids are swamped with vulgar hollywood style of success.
    Beautiful girl, big hourse, nice cars and oversea trips. Or Terrors, violence and war.

    Turn on you TV - everyday some vulgar commentators will be sitting
    in front of you and talking BS. With some fake commericals break in every few minutes to make things worse.

    Today's kids knows all these - but they have no control of it.
    Long gone are the days that a mailroom clerk by sheer hard work and dedication - can make it to the top - to be a president of big company. Now days we have smart Harvard MBAs or EMBAs without much practical experiences working as CEOs

    Those left behind don't have much hope - through their hardwork.
    They are not given a chance. And they are not mentally ready for any hardwork. They will become losers
  42. david langford from toronto, writes: As a resident in one of Toronto's most affluent neighbourhoods (with a grade 12 education I might add) I am aware of many local university grads & dropouts who are adrift, having taken only courses they could get admission to, i.e. arts, psychology. They appear apathetic but their ever hopful parents keep fronting tuition fees for further educational avenues for them to fail at. It is not unusual for some parents i know to vet or even compose their childs university papers. especially law school as the parents are often lawyers. Happily our son took queens science & at 22 is working in europe for a multinational. He is ambitious, personable and expects little from his parents but support . the way it should be.
  43. Ted Harrison from Canada writes: One other point... There seems to be an expectation that everything a student is to put into an assignment has to be specified before hand. My recollection of schooling was that I learned a lot from what I got marked down for after the fact. Part of growing in this world and learning to create involves making mistakes, accepting the consequences for these mistakes, and incorporating them into a revised worldview. From what I've seen the majority of students who have moved on from high school would agree with this, and I think we do them a disservice by catering to the minority that don't want to take responsibility for their actions (and who are aided in this abdication by overbearing parents and gutless leaders). Along this line, if someone cheats, and somehow missed the memo that this is wrong, it strikes me that an effective way to relay this message would be to give them a zero first time it happens, along with other consequences, and raise the ante from there.
  44. Matthew Crooker from Kentville, Canada writes: I think that a large part of the problem outlined by Wente is the way kids are dealt with in schools (elementary, high school). They can do whatever they want and say whatever they want and there are no consequences. Many of these kids are foul-mouthed and lazy with a sense of entititlement i.e. to good marks in school with little to no work. They learn this at home but the education system plays a role too. The disipline has to be better. We can't and shouldn't go back to 1900 but Ms. Wente indirectly decribes what things have come to by letting kids run rough-shod over the teachers (as well as parents treating the education system like a service industry thinking if their kids marks are low it is anyone's fault but the kids'). The other part of the problem is touched on too. How can students get a solid and unbiased education when it is in the university's best interest to pass their sub-par work to maintian revenue in the form of tuition. Such a conflict of interest. I also agree with the people making comments about the need for skilled tradesmen/people. Our society has become obsessed with the university degree. University degrees are great but if you want to get a job after you obtain a basic arts or science degree, you have to further your education. This means either getting a trade, going to med or law school or whatever, getting an education degree etc. As someone told me who had a basic degree when applying for a job, the employer said 'that's great, but what can you do?'
  45. nela bujic from Canada writes: 'pushing kids through the grades happens in the non-union private system too'

    even more so in the private system... parents are on the phone to the administration all the time demanding higher grades (' give him/ her another test, , and another.....' until he/she gets it right i.e - a desired mark).
    It is made clear to teacher who pays their salaries -
    the 'boss' are the parents , and you 'better' make sure they get their monies 'worth' : the high marks ( deserved or not) for their children.
  46. Ian Fleming from Toronto, Canada writes: This article hits the nail on the head, I run my own business and when hiring someone straight out of school I'm very wary as you usually have to teach them what to wear, how to talk on the phone and that they may have to do overtime to get their workload done - they're shocked.. . and I find university grads generally worse than college grads..
  47. Eye Sore from Dog Pound, Alberta, Canada writes: Already in 1987, Professor Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind had deplored the cultural illiteracy he saw prevailing among the students he was teaching -- I mention this is in response to the good professor who told Maggie Wente it was necessary for him to pause in his lectures and inform students of what, for example, 'tenements' and 'steam locomotives' meant. Ditto for such expressions as 'the patience of Job,' 'worked like Trojans,' and 'Is the pope Polish?' [now, sadly, redundant]. Speaking of redundancy, there is a mindset among students
    and even their parents (apparently) that not only dinosauric gadgets, but also vast swaths of our cultural patrimony belong in landfills somewhere. The not-knowing is preceded by a 'modernistic' attitude of it's not even worth knowing about. I recall the dismay of a mother who shared her surprise on learning that Shakespeare's Macbeth was 'still' being taught to 11th graders, in a class that included her son. She said: 'They were teaching that old stuff when I was in Grade 11, years ago. When are they going to move on?'
  48. Michelle Moon from Toronto, Canada writes: YTA YTA from oakville, Canada writes: I think the point is being missed completely. It's about the desire to learn. Note the comment 'the top 20 percent are great. They are smart and self directed and they'll succeed anywhere.' The key is 'self directed'. They know what they want, and they motivate themselves.' I would argue that the motivation isn't just an airborne bug that some catch and some don't. In my view, motivation and dedication to learning come from environments (familial, cultural, etc.) where standards and expectations still exist, where responsibility is acknowledged and assumed at all levels, and where there are no epistemological motivations provided as opportunities to do the least amount of work - if any - in exchange for the most one feels entitled to demanding. The culture of entitlement to effortlessly obtained rewards is what festers the mediocrity entrenched in the Canadian educational system. Competing for money and status should not be the primary motivation for learning, yet students are sold on jobs, i.e., monetary rewards, for performing mindlessly in a society where basic humanity, connectivity, solidarity, and intellectual enrichment are less and less part of the social fabric. The language of rights surely enables such an approach since there are only rights (invoked to describe privileges) and no responsibilities. The students are surely not responsible for their learning, neither are the teachers, or god forbid, the parents, whose demanding and bullying attitudes only sustain and solidify their offsprings'. North America is on a self-destructive path where success is defined as increased access to privilege and status, and that constitutes the wrong kind of motivation even where it appears to be beneficial to some individuals and beyond. Creating and maintaining appearances at all levels (Canada's ranking according to international standards, for example) is what prompted the implementation of a few artifices in education.
  49. Ground Working from Canada writes: I agree wholeheartedly with the assessments that the top 20% of students are great, and that only the top 40% belong in a university.

    But university professors shouldn't be quick to criticize. Just as the critical thinking skills of most students are absolutely brutal, the unwillingness of senior professors to learn about technology has opened up a massive plagiarism culture that allows many from the bottom 60% of students who shouldn't be there to get higher grades than the top 20%.

    Until most professors are on-board with plagiarism detection technologies, and until the major universities start banning students permanently for a first major offense, I don't think university-types have any moral high ground over the regular education system.

    The plagiarism culture is giving rise to ethical problems that are stinging us in law, accounting, business administration, and finance.
  50. Ground Working from Canada writes: PS: Conrad Black used to joke that he got his start in business 'selling papers' to students at Upper Canada college. At least he was expelled for it. Nowadays, universities are graduating these people and giving them degrees, even if they get caught cheating in the course of their programs.
  51. Boreal Moose from Canada writes: This board sounds like the Monty Python Old Farts Club, whining about kids today not believing how their elders snowshoed uphill both ways to university reciting latin......

    The best students today are likely better than they have ever been before. My father was a prof in Canada before moving to a State University in the US. He warned that eliminating grade 13 in Ontario was stupid. And it was. But he also came to see how good he had it in Ontario when he began grading papers down there.
  52. Steve French from Windsor, Ont, Canada writes: Wrong. Very wrong. EVERYONE deserve a chance at university, it is not reserved for the elites. Desire alone should be the critical factor, not money and not subjective 'achievement' based on any criteria.
    Many kids today lack that desire, have no interest in their education other than the 'good job' it might provide in the future, as some other posters have pointed out. This is a result of the class-based education system that revolves around money.
    The object of higher education is to make better people, not churn out specialized 'skilled' so-called 'professionals' to suit corporate and government interests, or 'compete' with China/India whomever in some absurd faux world-wide competition for its own sake.
  53. Boreal Moose from Canada writes: University used to be for the academic elite. People griped about elitism. But elitism is simply a matter of having standards. What has happened academically is no different than what would happen if anyone who tried out for the football team at Florida State was allowed equal time to play. The really good players would still be really good (and they are) - but they'd have have a harder time finding a place to play elite level ball. Academically its called grad school. Let anybody in as an undergrad to make cash, and then reserve the real deal for the those who rise. The academic bar used to be raised after high school, now its after undergrad.
  54. David Pinson from Canada writes: Universities pretend to want students with critical thinking skills and the students pretend to have critical thinking skills. But what babysitter wants to be criticized by the baby? The sole exception are Sociology students who take various courses in Marxism. But the chances of obtaining a good job with a BA in Sociology are slim to none. But as long as students can regurgitate the professor's propaganda, they'll get by. So long as they can say, 'Would you like fries with that, plastic OK?', the military-industrial-education complex is satisfied graduates will always be usefui idiots and won't become burdensome welfare recipients. As for the few critical thinking Sociology graduates, their idealism, critical thinking and desire to change the world will make them very useful scapegoats.
  55. Boreal Moose from Canada writes: Steve French from Windsor, Ont, Canada writes: Wrong. Very wrong. EVERYONE deserve a chance at university, it is not reserved for the elites. Desire alone should be the critical factor, not money and not subjective 'achievement' based on any criteria.....This is a result of the class-based education system that revolves around money.
    ____________________________________

    You are out to lunch dude.
    We have one of the most affordable and accessible university systems in the world. The Irish and Scottish systems are great because they're cheap. And all you need to do to take advantage of that, is write insanely competitive national level exams and beat your fellow countrymen. Same in Japan - where it is not uncommon for kids to kill themselves over their results. Would you like to be admitted to the most elite school in the world, the Indian Institute of Technology? Fine. Just be among the 3000 students with the highest marks in a country of 1.2 billion people. Want to get into the Julliard School of music? MIT? Stanford? Canada is doing quite nicely with accessibility.
  56. Canadian Pom from London, United Kingdom writes: I struggle to match this article against my experience in Mathematics at a Canadian university, where the class average in my first year algebra was 54%, and there was a definite 'weed out the weaker students' policy. I similarly remember struggling engineering students heading home for Christmas in first year dreading that mid-break call that might tell them not to bother coming back. Perhaps this is an article about Arts students and biologists? ;-)
  57. We won't get fooled again from Whoville, Canada writes: The last time I checked, it was the universities who were setting the requirements for who they let study in their hallowed halls, and not the high schools.

    If you don't like the students you're getting, reduce the number of seats and heighten the competition. Universities that are large just to maintain funding, in spite of mediocre students, will become mediocre and their own credibility as a post-secondary institution will drop. University of Toronto (where I went) is a prime example.
  58. George George from Canada writes: Are teachers still operating under the delusion that their job is to educate students, producing a class of literate and numerate critical thinkers?

    What folly.

    The teachers are merely the point-men in an education system designed by the corporation, for the corporation. The teachers job is to promote conformity and compliance, the next generation of easily cowed workplace drones and wallymart consumers.

    School is about indoctrination, not education.
  59. Centrist 1867 from Canada writes: An article of half truths. This generation will have on average 6 years more education than the author's generation. In order to apply for the same jobs that once required high school we are now looking towards masters degrees and 'life long learning' with evening courses.

    Competition is fierce to get into university in S. Korea - once you're there there is a lot of socializing and drinking to make up for your lost high school years. Maybe instead of worrying about education equivalency we can match their 6 day work weeks with one week off a year - if we are worried about competitiveness. So many decisions.
  60. Steve French from Windsor, Ont, Canada writes: Well, the NASCAR mentality will naturally equate education with a car race. Sports fans, will think education a competitive event. I think education is like health care, we should aim for the most good for the most number of people.
    Real education will never transcend current pedestrian idiocy until it adopts cooperation over pointless competition, which has achieved exactly nothing since WW2.
  61. Boreal Moose from Canada writes: Steve French from Windsor, Ont, Canada writes: Real education will never transcend current pedestrian idiocy until it adopts cooperation over pointless competition, which has achieved exactly nothing since WW2.

    _______________________

    Dude, if you think competition as an educational paradigm is a post-WWII happening, and that Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, Albert Einstein and Hegelian philosophy came from some kind of pre-war spirit of groovy cooperation you are on some wicked hallucinogens!
  62. YTA YTA from OAKVILLE, Canada writes: My point is that life is not just about monetary reward. Kids have to feel as if there is something really worth putting the effort out for. Motivation comes from 2 areas: external-the desire to survive, and internal: the desire to produce value. I lost my way as a result of my own success-once I achieved what I was supposed to achieve-what society told me was right-and when there was no more need to struggle-I found my life without meaning-and it lead to my marriage breaking up-and a long period of being lost without direction-and not really caring about anything. I have 3 children from a previous marriage-who have been looked after in the form of a trust fund. I left that for them because it was my responsibility and because I did not want them to be without. The problem was that as a result of the divorce, they became aware of that. Without monetary reward as a focus, they are all struggling to find purpose in their lives. I was a ‘hippie’ when growing up. At that time, we all believed that life was not about materialism. Yes, money is important to survive, but it is not the purpose of our lives-and without deeper meaning we feel our lives are empty-hence we lose the motivation to study and work hard-unless we can find something of greater value-such as contributing to society. When you have all the mp3 players and video games you could want, you get bored-especially if it comes too easily.
  63. YTA YTA from OAKVILLE, Canada writes: And, it’s not about a work ethic only. My wife was Chinese. In general, the Chinese have a very strong work ethic. Yet, the new generation, those whose parents struggled to stay alive, find their lives much easier, and the result is plain to see. They don’t have the same drive, the same motivation. That’s why drugs, crime, and promiscuity are on the rise-in every developed society. I love my toys and my gadgets, and they cost money, and I am willing to pay for them-but it is not that gives me satisfaction, that makes me want to get up every day. We have lost touch with our purpose in life, and have misdirected our attention. Give the kids a reason to live, to work, and they will-just like we all did.
  64. Thomas Toronto from toronto, Canada writes: Thank you for this critical look at our public education system. I have been aware of this since leaving the Ontario system for a private school education in Quebec and British Columbia.
    It was my understanding that our public, primary and secondary education systems were 'preparatory' arena for a post secondary education at institutions of the students choice, not an indoctrination system and employment centre for teachers and a source of pension sucre for bureaucrats.
    The private sector jails perpetrators of fraud, how is this system any different.
  65. Boreal Moose from Canada writes: Thomas Toronto from toronto, Canada writes: It was my understanding that our public, primary and secondary education systems were 'preparatory' arena for a post secondary education at institutions of the students choice, not an indoctrination system and employment centre for teachers and a source of pension sucre for bureaucrats.
    The private sector jails perpetrators of fraud, how is this system any different.

    ____________________________

    University is what you make it. If you give a minimum effort, then your marks, your contacts, the number of people going to bat for you after graducation, writing letters on your behalf, will all reflect that lack of effort. Put forth real effort, and you'll be educated and helped by generous intelligent university personel as you go forth in life. Universities do this now, and do it well.

    The only way out of the current `make enough money by letting em all in' scenario, is to use more tax dolllars to fund more elite standards at universities. And that'll go over bigger than Stephane Dion's green policies in the last election!
  66. Boreal Moose from Canada writes: Thomas Toronto from toronto, Canada writes:
    The private sector jails perpetrators of fraud, how is this system any different.

    __________________________

    No. The private sector creates the conditions and crimes under which its criminals are then pursued by tax-dollar-paid government officials who drag them kicking and screaming to courts of law. What planet have YOU been living on these last 10 months?
  67. Thomas Toronto from toronto, Canada writes: Ms. Wente is shinning a light on a very important institution that is supposed to serve our community, children and the general welfare of our society. There is nothing wrong, whatsoever, is exposing the short comings of these very expensive services especially when they refuse measurement and accountability. The public is forced to pay for it, is eventually accountable to its failures and the end results will be everyone's responsibility. Critical review, analysis and discussion only makes the system better. Our school boards are a laughing stock, most often simply a stepping stone for higher government office and not a source of continuous improvement. Parents that are seeking the best education are turning to private, independent sources in ever increasing numbers since this is the best gift they can give their children, regardless of the double taxation.
    Your personal vexation and diatribe of Ms. Wente shines an interesting light on your stale view of the status quo.
  68. D. Armstrong from London, Canada writes: Nobody here understands: High school is the new middle school and university is the new hgh school.
    As someone who left secondary teaching because I was so fed up with it, I can say that Great Gazoo and Matthew Crooker nailed it.
    First off, there needs to be discipline in the schools - which there isn't anymore. Second, we have to get rid of educrats/adminstrators who believe that self-esteem is derived from making students' feel good about themselves, rather than learning to overcome difficult obstacles by working hard. Third, students need to be allowed to fail, and also to be suspended for poor behaviour.
    As a society we've decided that these things aren't important anymore, that's why we have a problem here. Well done Wente.
  69. Chris Defend from Canada writes: Saying that students entering university are less prepared than they were a few years ago may be correct but what is missing is a comparison of how students in various disciplines perform.

    Certainly a student majoring in history, sociology or the humanities will not command excellent math skills (he/ she would not be studying history if that was the case). Besides university is a place for sorting.

    Further, What is the drop out rate for students majoring in engineering, economics, business, the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities in universities accoss Canada compared to years ago? This would provide a better analysis.

    It is also possible that the curricula is most Canadian universities have become more advanced due to the global integration of research and their labour force. Much more is required for students to succeed in universities today than was required years ago because foreign professors bring higher standards to Canadian schools.

    Additionally, Canadian high schools tend to be provincial in terms of training while universities are global in scope.
  70. Thomas Toronto from toronto, Canada writes: Thank you, D. Armstrong from London. I wish there were more teachers in our system like you, I know there are and I know there are suffering through until retirement.

    The 'social black flies' in our community have leveraged their influence beyond purpose and, whereas, I have not taught or been engaged within the system other than as a parent, I have employed the results, to my dismay.

    Thank you for your comments.
  71. Slumdog ArtsGraduate from Ottawa, Canada writes: What I learned at university:

    -everyone else is a victim and I am the culprit

    -lots of stodgy university jargon I could never use in regular conversation and clever, meaningless sentence fillers for essays on Nordic footwear

    -that any politician daring to question the all knowing Noam Chomsky is a knuckle dragging endomorphic bigot

    -that professors use my tuition dollars to travel all over the world while using this to demonstrate to students just how cosmopolitan they are

    -that somehow those learning practical trades will be the ones polishing our Nobel Peace prizes

    Do I make use of any of this knowledge while working at an overnight gas bar and living with my parents to pay off these loans?

    BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! Hell, no!
  72. T. Bradley from Mississauga, Canada writes: I feel out of place posting in this thread without an onion on my belt.
  73. A Peon in the golden boy's court from some place where we know the value of a $, Canada writes: This is a good synopsis of what’s happening. When in high school, a lot of my successful classmates were “spoon-fed” by parents & a lot of unsuccessful classmates weren’t encouraged to push themselves. I was in the middle, encouraged to push myself, but left to my own devices since my parents weren’t educated & didn’t understand how our education system worked as recent immigrants who didn’t finish high school. Today I see the same thing with my own kids, but it’s worse. I have to push them otherwise they’ll be able to coast along doing the bare minimum. And I honestly don’t push them as much as I’d like to because I worry about pushing too far; they get good marks, but I push them on their critical thinking & keep them away from mind-numbing activities like computers, video games & watching TV. We spend thousands of dollars every year on books in our household & all my kids are huge readers, as are my wife & I. My 10 year old reads at a grade 9 level & my 12 year old at a grade 11 level!! They write at least 2 or 3 years above their grade level & it’s a result of cutting off cable & forcing them to read 20 minutes a night for 1 month – it took 1 month to get them to become readers, now it’s a habit. I’ve thought long & hard about doing the same thing with mathematics & science & am strongly considering enrolling my oldest into a math & science program with professional tutors to ensure her skills are solid & she doesn’t fall behind. I guess my point is that the system allows your kids to coast & slack off & if parents don’t push their kids, most of them won’t push themselves unless they really feel good about doing well & have done well. The school system has problems; I see it all the time, but it’s made worse by the lack of active parenting when it comes to schooling. Too many parents don’t place reasonable expectations on their kids’ schoolwork.
  74. Rob Swanson from Edmonton, Canada writes: There is a business lesson in this.

    There are a limited number of ways to statistically improve the quality of a product.

    You can increase the number of widgets, thus diluting the number of failures statistically, to an arbitrary number.

    You can rigidly increase the raw material quality going in and assume your process is still capable of turning out product ready for market demands.

    You can also focus on the process itself, knowing that you will face the law of diminishing returns, as failures are inevitable.

    Looking at that, which process provides the most for the least?

  75. bobby brown from victoria, Canada writes: margaret,my world is collapsing.I am so accustomed to nasty jibs in the comments from your stories,but most of these people agree with you,as do I,and that shakes me up,and has left me somewhat confussed,where have all your detractors gone?
    If you want to see how this new math has really got us by the short hairs,look no futher than the judicial system,no consequences for even the henious crimes,a revolving door because everyone deserves at least 25 chances,and when those are used up,it was probably the victims fault.
  76. Ed B from Calgary, Canada writes: When I was growing up (in a relatively uneducated demographic) there was an expression for kids who went away to university - they were 'going through for a teacher' or 'going through for an engineer'. I used to hate that expression because it inferred that education was a process and you just had to show up and be processed for 4 years and bingo - you were an engineer. Now it appears that that is exactly what is happening - the triumph of process over result. 'Go through' for four years and get the certificate and you have it made. What a rude awakening awaits these grads. Even the lofty MBA's are a dime a dozen these days, doing menial jobs, while those who can think and act and lead even without much formal education will blow right them. I am all for education but don't confound university education with job training. Graduation is just the beginning, not the end.
  77. con hack loser PM is bad for Canada from Canada writes:
    In Alberta, grade twelve students must take provincial exams worth 50% of their final mark in all their core courses.

    An 80% in English, Math, Social Studies, Chemistry, etc. in Alberta is a true 80%.

    My wife teaches grade twelve, and says students' class grades are compared with their exam marks every year - anything outside of a 3-5% difference is frowned upon. Let it happen more than once or twice, and that teacher doesn't get to teach that course anymore.

    So this business of 'getting A's and B's just for showing up' might apply elsewhere, but not here.

    Unfortunately, what it does is unfairly hamstring our kids when competing for scholarships and university spots with kids from provinces with less stringent systems.
  78. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: Thank you Margaret for introducing us to a topic that deserves much more vetting. I have enjoyed all the posts and have only a couple of compents to make.

    Pamphleteer . from Canada writes: Maybe life in easy in some arts programs, but if there is no handholding or leeway given in the science faculties. There are right and wrong answers with no in between. Either you answered the calculus question correctly or you didn't. Either you solved the organic chem question correctly or you didn't. People can and do fail or do poorly in the sciences.

    Sorry Pamp, as a lecturer in Plant Design for 3rd and 4th yr chemical engineers, our science is not that black and white. The course I teach tells students there are many solutions to a given problem. The final solution is to determine which solution best meets the economic criterea envisioned for the next 20 years ... namely economic plant design.
  79. A Peon in the golden boy's court from some place where we know the value of a $, Canada writes: What’s worse is that this trend carries into the work force. I work with plenty of people who aren’t very capable & who were allowed to coast for various reason; some were allowed to coast because they were talented athletes & the coasting has continued into the workforce. Some were allowed to coast because they were poorly parented. It doesn’t end with high school though – coasting becomes a lifestyle!

    There really is a silly rampant belief that university is the pinnacle of achievement & that other forms of education are inferior, even applied technology!! I’m pretty sure all of my journeyman friends make at least as much money as I do & they didn’t study nearly as long. They deserve to be treated with respect because they work hard! That’s a value that’s disappearing from our society – the value of hard work.
  80. Slumdog ArtsGraduate from Ottawa, Canada writes: While teaching English to children in Bucheon SK, I was commanded not to give any student any grade below B in order to keep parents from pulling their students out of our school in favour of a more 'generous' hogwan. Consequently, there were no children with learning disabilities or ADD. Sounds as though this mentality has reached our shores.
  81. little bowpeep from Money, hard work and intelligence in Canada are not synonymous, Canada writes: They're nice kids, and they're not dumb. Low effort, High reward Who would have thought, let see who these kid are. Well most of Canada's low income kids and lower middle income kids don't go to university, yet most upper and rich kids do. The upper income groups in Canada are dominated by baby boomers, civil servants and many business industries that are frankly, uncompetitive. High income in Canada is often gained by nepotism in both government and business hiring. Furthermore, the grade school system is designed and dominated by the baby boomer generation unions. Interestingly the 2 stated references above, appear to also describe the Canada's upper income baby boomer generation to a tee. As far a the Darwin reference, I'm sure that gen X and Y would tell you that if Darwin's principles were in play, the albino deer would have been eaten long ago or stuck by a fast moving vehicle.
  82. Mike Michaels from Orlando, United States writes: The school system is really just a place to warehouse young people. Those that are indoctrinated best, get the highest grades and best job opportunities. Some even go on to be University professors, to repeat the process.
  83. joanne mandry from Canada writes: Wente states:

    'It's pretty hard to flunk out of university, so long as you show up most of the time, hand in your assignments eventually, and write the (multiple-choice) tests.'

    I am a university professor (doing research that Wente doubtlessly finds useless, as per her column last week). This is not, and will never be, the way I run my classes, and I resent Wente's reductionist approach. My classes are rigorous, writing-heavy, and very involved. Many students struggle, and some fail. I have never written a multiple choice test because I find them to be too simplistic, and they do not demonstrate student's understanding as well as short answer or essay questions. I will, however, write one here.

    Margaret Wente's recent columns on university life reflect:

    a) inadequate research and sources
    b) her ignorance about higher education
    c) her bias toward technical and community colleges
    d) all of the above
  84. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: General Wolfe from Wolfe Island, Canada writes: “ I've never understood the role of these colleges in training people for trades.”

    That’s pretty obvious General, sir. What most people fail to realize is that our post-secondary education system really has 3-5 pillars.

    Apprenticeship is one pillar and most of the learning occurs on the job. The in-school portion however is content delivered by colleges, private schools, or trade unions and this content covers applications in the trade that not every employer uses and the theoretical component. The final trade exams are written and a 70% minimum pass mark is required across Canada to achieve a “Red-Seal”.

    The other pillars are college diplomas, college or university degrees, and then the professional schools (e.g., Law & Medicine).
  85. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: I have had the privilege of earning a Journeyman’s Red-Seal in Welding, graduating from college as an Eng. Technologist (3-yr program), and later graduating from university with a B.A.Sc. in Engineering. I can assure you that the “best” education that I received in my life was from the faculty in the colleges (including tradesmen, technologists, and engineers). All of them had extensive industrial backgrounds and this made the education much more interesting than anything that I had in either high-school or university.

    This is why I’m a big advocate of re-inventing the Polytechnic model for career education (all the way from the trades to nursing & engineering). I think that they could provide a much better and more integrated system than our current post-secondary mess.
  86. N Dawg from Canada writes: Sassy Lassie from Canada writes: Our current educational systems are set up to 'Indoctornate' children, instead of teaching them the three Rs we are teaching them to be professional leftwing advocates. Commonsense has been replaced by feelings and emotions, children are sheltered from the consequences of their actions because it's always someone elses' fault, usually the teachers. Two generations of children tought to be victims instead of educated, they are often refered to as the 'ME' generation for obvious reasons.

    Dawg your post is nonsensical, educating males differently than females is pure hocus pocus socialist's tripe. Poor wee lads can't sit still perhaps we should teach them some leftwing loopy course on how to make pots.
    ******
    Actually, your rant is nonsensical. Google something like why are boys failing in school and open your eyes.
  87. M Sakel from hogtown, Canada writes: Margaret Wente's column is the red light for an educational system that has grown consistently complacent. As Margaret indicates, some children's backgrounds may include inferior or even abusive parents. But despite their backgrounds a number of students go on to excel. The values of excellence and decency and learning what's right and wrong start with the mother (95% of the time) at home. How mant young mothers now have the time to spend teaching their kids from an early age the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of life and the 'a, b, c's'? A number of young mothers living in present-day tenements have no self-esteem to pass onto their children. I have seen children defy incredible odds and with backgrounds unfavourable to their [later]academic excellence. But one thing they had in common: A loving parent with a healthy self esteem who wanted her child to supass expectations. I have seen 'yuppie' professional parents spend money for extra tutoring for their kids and even going to the extent of writing their applications to University and their essays! They think they're helping their children. And these indolent, self-absorbed, egotistical and spoiled offspring go the university and make a mess of this world! Thanks, Margaret for the red light everyone's going through as if it's green. Social myopia rules!
  88. David Gibson from Hamilton, Canada writes: The Canadian ruling classes embrace an ideology which produces mediocrity. They are paid well.
  89. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: I continue with my few comments.

    Moose writes, 'Would you like to be admitted to the most elite school in the world, the Indian Institute of Technology?'

    I'm not impressed with these so-called elite Indian Schools. I have had a number of students from same. At best, I would describe their engineering skills as sub-average compared to our best NA schools.

    In fact, I have recently flunked one in 4th year chemical engineering. After a three year hiatus, he reurned as a graduate student taking his Masters in the same department. He even thanked me for flunking him. It was his wake-up call as he thought he was entitled to pass being part of their elite system. I still wouldn't hire him as a Masters student. His attitude still reflects a caste system.
  90. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: With respect to Chinese engineering students, again, I am not impressed with their engineering skills, even upon graduation. Many have to repeat their course in NA and even then they struggle with simple design concepts. Much of this can be attributed to their ability to handle English. Compounding this, they simply do not receive instruction in the engineering jargon we use in NA.

    Recently, I bumped three Chinese students from below 50% in a third year final course with the provision that they attend my personal summer school course. I gave them each 20 design assignments and expected written solutions. First off, I had to mark their English. Once we got beyond the jargon, they started to twig. However, it took many repeats of each of the 20 lessons before they got the simple stuff down pat.

    In fourth year, they all blossomed (graduated and returned to China) and one even became the group leader in her fourth year design group. All professors wondered how they had blossomed when they all had floundered in 3rd year? Point is, they all thrived on a mentor based program where the professor nurtured them.
  91. Reality Seeker from Harrow, Ontario, Canada writes: I retired from teaching in Ontario 4 years ago. Since I had a good reputation in the community, in my last few years I told parents straight up that I would give zeroes for incomplete work or cheating. I would also keep parents informed. Even though it was against the rules set down by the government and the board of education, I received not one complaint, not one. Parents and teachers need some guts, and they should stand up to the insanity of the times.
  92. steve robinson from Canada writes: If allowing cheating and passing kids that don't even bother to do an assignment is what it takes to raise graduation rates 9% to 77%, then what is it going to take to reach 85%? Perhaps they should just put diplomas in bags of chips.
  93. Christopher Hunt from Hamilton, Canada writes: Right on, Margaret!
  94. Richard ay from Picton, Canada writes: Roop Misir from Toronto, Canada writes: '10 per cent off.' = '10% of'?

    Methinks you just made Peggy's point.
  95. garth mckenzie from Canada writes: Steve French from Windsor, Ont, Canada writes: EVERYONE deserve a chance at university, it is not reserved for the elites. Desire alone should be the critical factor, not money and not subjective 'achievement' based on any criteria.

    I can't tell. Is this satire?
  96. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: IMHO, our educational system is out of wack at each and every level. My wife had multiple paths she could have taken at UBC. Honors Math or Honors Physics and even Phys Ed. She chose a B.Ed. specializing in elementary edication. However, her roots showed as she landed her first job in a kindergarten class (by default - she moved with me to Dow in Sarnia, thank God). Her first few years were free of Gov. direction. She taught her wee ones to develop their own dictionary and to learn their numbers. She was recently recognized in Facebook by a group of Errol Road Roadrunners who have graduated at the University level. Many commentors of the group are now medical doctors and all recognized her teaching skills in Kindergarten. Later, she was told to follow the Government program which was watered down to be meaningless. The second area needing repair is the lack of accountability at the high school level. We must return to Provincial Finals. I went through them at the grade 9 level and at the 13 level. Flunk the provincials and you're out. Finally at the University level. Research and teaching are incompatible. Most profs in engineering find teaching an imposition that interferes with their research. Few know how to teach and few want to. The students are the losers. This has to change. BTW, I lecture ... following 33 years of industrial experience. I do not do any research. I love my job. Ask the students at UWO, chemical engineering, how they feel about this. We get ranked every year by the students, rightly so.
  97. J. Hangdog from Canada writes: It's imply not true --at least at the Ontario high school where I teach-- that students 'won't get a zero' for not handing in assignments.

    In the lower grades, nine and ten, failure to submit an assignment means a phone call to parents, extra help. and a revised, 'contracted' due date.

    In the senior grades: parent contact, offers for support, cajoling --but ultimately zero if the work's not in.

    Grade inflation:
    Many parents say they want 'tougher standards' --but only for other people's children. Main cause of grade inflation: parental pressure. Main reason teachers have to back off from 'zero for plagiarism' -- parental pressure --and in one case I know of threat of law suit.

    Graduation rates:
    There is government pressure to get more kids to graduate -- but this means that struggling kids on the margins can with support and a few breaks, eke out a high school diploma (for whatever good that does them).

    What sorts of skill --at what levels-- should employers really expect from someone who graduated high school with a 55% average?
  98. Jim Black from St Catharines, Canada writes: We have lost sight of the purpose of education. School Board Trustees have been charged and convicted of terrible things while school administrator are paid astronomical amounts of money for administering programs that are questionable at best and misleading at the least. Do the literacy tests really test literacy? Ask any teacher over a couple drinks and you may find they have a few opinions. What ever you do don’t tell any one who told you the information, the teacher source will likely be charged for professional misconduct and brought up before the Ontario College of Teachers. Less then 3% of teachers in the Province voted in the Ontario College of Teachers election. That means 97% of teachers think there is something wrong with teaching. Even the very simplest issues such as student safety is questionable in the educational system of Ontario. Speak up and professional life ends!
    http://www.canadians4accountability.org/news/main-e.html#jb
  99. garth mckenzie from Canada writes: And don't get me wrong. I appreciate all the brainiac engineers who design our leaky condos, our dangerous highway overpasses, and the petroleum-based products that are killing us. I really do.

    But spare me the 'we're the hardest-working university students' shtick.

    You don't even have to pass a high-school-level English course. You get cranked out after four years of heavy drinking, unable to design a basic compressor, design anything without AutoCad, or communicate in a basic written correspondence.

    But you can calculate the angle of an incline. Good for you, 'geer heads.
  100. Weigh In from Canada writes: I do appreciate Ms. Wente's attempts to diagnosis the illnesses besetting public education today, but we always end up with no real remedies.

    There are two outspoken critics of the system in the U.S. today. The first is Charlotte Iserbyt, former Senor Policy Advisor with the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration, who has written a book called 'The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America', in which she states that the purpose of education in the U.S. is to produce illiteracy and destroy morality. The second is John Taylor Gatto, author and former schoolteacher, who, with his own program of instruction, has taken ghetto kids and turned them into high achievers.

    Both can be seen on youtube. Their coments are startling but well worth noting, and I hope Ms. Wente and educators reading this will look them up.
  101. Jim Black from Niagara, Canada writes: We have lost sight of the purpose of education. School Board Trustees have been charged and convicted of terrible things while school administrator are paid astronomical amounts of money for administering programs that are questionable at best and misleading at the worst. Do the literacy tests really test literacy? Ask any teacher over a couple drinks and you may find they have a few opinions. What ever you do don’t tell any one who told you the information the source will likely be charged for professional misconduct and brought up before the Ontario College of Teachers. Less then 3% of teachers in the Province voted in the Ontario College of Teachers election. That means 97% of teachers think there is something wrong with teaching. Even the very simplest issues such as student safety is questionable in the educational system of Ontario. Speak up and professional life ends!
  102. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: Weigh In, I can appreciate your statement, 'The second is John Taylor Gatto, author and former schoolteacher, who, with his own program of instruction, has taken ghetto kids and turned them into high achievers.'

    In fact, my solution to a major problem at Dow Chemical regarding the ineptitude of recent engineering graduates to be able to solve problems on graduation, was to introduce an apprenticeship program where we could take top students out of highschool and train them to be productive engineers in 5 years, thereby saving Dow the cost of retraining graduate engineers for 5 years following engineering graduation.

    I could have done it. I was never given the chance.
  103. Weigh In from Canada writes: It would appear that if you are a teacher and your students perform brilliantly, or at least well above their expected level, you are 'disciplined'.

    I understand that students today are being taught, above all, to be 'team players'. This means not to raise questions, not to think independently, or better yet, not to think at all. And should any idea mysteriously pop up in a student's mind, he must be unable to commit it to anything resembling English prose.

    Is the purpose of education NOT to educate? There is something very sinister at work here.
  104. Sassy Lassie from Canada writes: Dawg wrote: Actually, your rant is nonsensical. Google something like why are boys failing in school and open your eyes.

    End quote:--------------------------------

    Read my keystrokes Dawg I believe in gender equality and that includes the educational system unfortunately you seem to think male children should be treated with 'Supremacy' and segregated away from us lasses not very Canadian of you lad. We lasses are equal in this country alas no sitting at the back of the bus, no segregated class room one for boys one for girls. It's the 21st century Dawg walk into the light there is no place in Canadian Culture for your apparent 'Misogyny'.
  105. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: Weigh In writes, 'I understand that students today are being taught, above all, to be 'team players'. This means not to raise questions, not to think independently, or better yet, not to think at all. And should any idea mysteriously pop up in a student's mind, he must be unable to commit it to anything resembling English prose.'

    Nothing could be further from the truth in my 4th year engineering plant design class. Where ever did you get this concept?
  106. Ray Luft from Mississauga, Canada writes: Hon Kathleen O. Wynne: I'm trying to understand why it is a good thing to have class sizes of 20 for over 40,000 students in a second year of Grade 12 (for which there is no curriculum) and an equally good thing for the same cohort in first year university to have class sizes of hundreds and even thousands in some instances.
  107. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Ian Fleming from Toronto, Canada writes: 'This article hits the nail on the head, I run my own business and when hiring someone straight out of school I'm very wary as you usually have to teach them what to wear, how to talk on the phone and that they may have to do overtime to get their workload done - they're shocked.. . and I find university grads generally worse than college grads..'

    This exactly has been my experience as a front-line supervisor in an industrial firm. The secondary school diploma isn't worth the paper that it is written on and it is only getting worse as the graduation stats ('student success rates') rise.

    In the last year or so I've had to dismiss several young workers because they are addicted to their cell-phone/text messaging/video game toys. It has become a very serious safety issue, not even considering the productivity problem.

    …and yes, I do wear an onion on my belt (as was the style at the time).
  108. Weigh In from Canada writes: Richard Hawrelak: As I mentioned above, I've been reading and listening to what Iserbyt and Gatto are saying in the U.S. about public school education at the primary and secondary levels. I only hope it does not apply to Canada.

    Gatto, who lectures around the world, has compared programs offered in the elite private schools in the U.S., the schools that produce presidents, senators, CEOs and so forth, with what is offered in the public school system. One emphasis in the private schools is on active literacy, that is, not just being able to write a proper English sentence, but to get up in front of an audience and debate an issue. Another emphasis is on a knowledge of the great works of English and European literature, as well as on art, architecture, and music, which includes an ability to draw (sharpens one's powers of observation) and to play a musical instrument. (These were considered 'frills' where I was taught.) Another emphasis is on manners and social graces. (As Gatto says, these will take even a ghetto kid anywhere.). Oh, I could go on.

    Apparently, teachers in the public system today are discouraged from correcting their students' foul language, which makes trips on the TTC unbearable.
  109. David Pinson from Canada writes: The public education system is based on the authoritarian system created by Otto Von Bismarck, the Iron Chacellor of Germany in 1870. Bismarck was a militarist who believed that Germanic dictatorship was the best system for a strong unified state. His educational system was about indoctrination to authoritarianism through obedience, uniformity and conformity.Canada's system today is little different, despite some liberalization in the 1960's. Lip service to individuality, a nod to creativity, but actually about mass conformity. Kids are shaped to be cogs in the economic machine, ever more so since the 1980's when corporatism became the dominant force and the public domain began to be dismantled. It's easy to see how this sort of obedient indoctrination in corporate business ideology inevitably leads to widespread corruption, enormous income disparities, loss of democracy, wars, economic meltdown.
  110. D K from Canada writes: 'The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes:

    …and yes, I do wear an onion on my belt (as was the style at the time). '

    Too funny... and your post was disturbing as well
  111. Weigh In from Canada writes: David Pinson: Exactly what I've been reading recently. Thanks for this.

    Education nowadays is all about conformity. 'All the better to control you, my dear', said the wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.
  112. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: 'the ineptitude of recent engineering graduates to be able to solve problems on graduation'
    and...
    'Research and teaching are incompatible. Most profs in engineering find teaching an imposition that interferes with their research. Few know how to teach and few want to. The students are the losers'

    Herein lies the problem with under-graduate engineering education. Most of the prof's have no industrial experience as engineers; they are more akin to research scientists.

    I firmly believe that the solution to this problem is the creation of Polytechnics that would employ faculty with extensive industrial backgrounds. Laddering programs for gifted trades and technology students could also be facilitated. Top notch graduates could continue graduate studies at a university if they so desire.

    I believe that he same scenario would apply to other professions requiring a four-year baccalaureate such as accounting and nursing.
  113. N Dawg from Canada writes: Sassy Lassie from Canada writes:

    Read my keystrokes Dawg I believe in gender equality and that includes the educational system unfortunately you seem to think male children should be treated with 'Supremacy' and segregated away from us lasses not very Canadian of you lad. We lasses are equal in this country alas no sitting at the back of the bus, no segregated class room one for boys one for girls. It's the 21st century Dawg walk into the light there is no place in Canadian Culture for your apparent 'Misogyny'.
    *********
    You obviously didn't do your reading assignment. In addition, no one is talking about supremacy, giving boys something girls don't get, or sitting at the back of the bus. Boys simply do not perform as well as girls in our school system. There are many examples of this. And it is not only in Canada. The question is, why is the present day school system not appealing to boys and what can be done to improve it for them. This does not mean doing something at the expense of girls. I never said that. Use your critical thinking skills.
    BTW, your misandry is showing.
  114. Steve French from Windsor (Flint, North), Canada writes: Gatto is exactly right in his evaluation of the current educational farce, an authoritarian system based on the Prussian model of obedience and indoctrination - unclear however as to what to do about it. Kids know this very early on, know they are pretty much wasting their time with all this rote memorization nonsense, know they are being conditioned, but kids are helpless pods born into a system beyond their control.
    I want quality of life for the greatest number of people possible, who cares what the corporations or government think about anything.
  115. Rob Dahling from Port Coquitlam, Canada writes: It's no surprise to me that this is the case, but the idea that the educated Chinese will outdo us is rather circumspect. If anything, the Chinese compete with us in terms of education quality, and while the government may be pushing Ontario (and no doubt the other provincial governments are doing the same) teachers into passing high school students, Chinese universities do the same thing, a process which entirely devalues the Bachelor and Masters as degrees.

    The philosophy in China is very similar to what I've seen in this article - I had to fight my superiors to hand down zeros to two MA students who were blatantly plagiarising, and my fourth year BA students were to be given retests of finals they failed, tests that were given after I left to assure they were marked 'judiciously' rather than properly. We are not the only system in place that under-prepares students.

    But I agree that many university students are woefully under-prepared. Case in point, one of my co-English majors took a class with me and announced at one point that she didn't anticipate doing well because she had no idea what a nouns or verbs were. Still, the problem lays just as much with the standardized syllabus as it does with any Ministry manipulation - taking away the freedom of teachers seriously limits the degree in which they can stretch students.

    It seems in many ways that education should be taken out of the hands of the various Ministries of Education - either that or a new mandate should be introduced that promotes actual learning and application of knowledge over simply looking good and saving face.
  116. Karen Chan from je_reviendrai_à_Montréal, writes: The grass is always greener on the other side.

    The G&M; seems to be on an all out crusade to 1) scare the living day lights out of people vis-à-vis our education system and 2) promote Asian education systems as the be all and end all of all possible models of learning.

    A previous poster tried to pop that bubble but knowing the G&M; that's unlikely to change things.

    I have taught in Hong Kong. I taught Hong Kong students who are just as lazy as any of the lazy students in Canada. The Chinese students I taught we're very motivated but as the previous poster mentioned, it's all rote learning. I was teaching English, and I must say that rote learning only goes so far when you're trying to learn how to use a new language.

    But I'm sure all of those who swear only by test results will continue to ignore the nuanced truth of the matter.

    So the beat goes on....
  117. Steve French from Windsor (Flint, North), Canada writes: re: the exceptional

    As far as this idea goes, by far the greatest thing we could do in the area of education is to educate the greatest number of people possible, not focus . The truly exceptional are not located among the moneyed ruling classes, they come from all walks of life. Einstein was a patent clerk, son of a middle bureaucrat. One of the greatest tech schools in Europe laughed at Nikola Tesla - guess he showed them, huh? Point is, genius cannot be manufactured like so many widgets.
    Thus the best thing we could do as a society is exactly like health care: to encourage as many people as possible to get as much education as possible - channeling funds into pointless 'competition' that produces exactly nothing is therefore a waste of resources.
  118. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: Gazoo, in NA engineering schools are classified as either Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) or Bachelor of Science (BSc). From 1960 and onward, schools tended to drift toward the BSc degree as this stressed research more than the application of engineering. For us at Dow Chemical this became a major problem. Lately, many schools (U of T is one of them) are orientating back to the basic BASc as this is where the demand is, and has always been.

    As far as calling it a Polytechnic with professors as lecturers that have 30 years plus of industrial design experience ... I am one of them ... and I totally agree, naturally ... sigh ...
  119. Jim Patton from Canada writes: The article refers to Canadian kids competing with kids educated in India, China and South Korea.

    Look at the facts. Literacy in India is 61% compared to China 91 % and South Korea 98 %. Canada has 99 % literacy.

    Over 480 million Indians do not have access to electricity; that is 44 % of the population of India lacks a basic necessity of modern life. By contrast, in China with a slightly larger population, only 8 million people do not have electricity.

    How can people get a modern education, operate a computer and connect to Internet without electricity?

    India has to elevate the education of its people to become a serious competitor on the world stage. To be sure India has some very good high-learning institutions in a country where literacy is still low and a poor infrastructure.
  120. BeerBelly Buddah from Wpg, Canada writes: Dearest Maggie,

    An ardent critic of many of your columns, I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with the way you have framed this issue. Good column.
  121. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: From a little seed, great oaks grow. I have taught hundreds of engineers at Dow and at UWO. Engineering genius just does not materialize out of thin air. You start with the basic design tools and you try to show them how to experiment hoping that innovation will happen. Once in a blue moon, an idea developes and a genius is born. Such was the case of Noubar Afeyan, the top engineeing student at McGill, a Gold medal Winner, circa 1984. Noubar worked for me for one summer before he graduated top of his class. He was impressed with our work at Dow at that time and we rehired him after his graduation to work with me in developing computerized engineering solutions for training and application ... a solution to our original problem mentioned above. After a short time, Noubar was accepted to MIT and he sadly left Dow after 1/2 year. At MIT, he connected with a prof to develop one of the first artificial heart pumps ... very basic chemical engineering. I visited Noubar at one conference at MIT and we had lunch. He offered me a job to run the MIT department he was in ... so he and his prof could focus on research of the design of their pump ... one of the most simple chemical engineering unit operations one could ever think of. Noubar worked on developing a better 'mouse trap'. Pure innovation personified.
  122. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: From a little seed, great oaks grow. I have taught hundreds of engineers at Dow and at UWO. Engineering genius just does not materialize out of thin air. You start with the basic design tools and you try to show them how to experiment hoping that innovation will happen. Once in a blue moon, an idea developes and a genius is born. Such was the case of Noubar Afeyan, the top engineeing student at McGill, a Gold medal Winner, circa 1984. Noubar worked for me for one summer before he graduated top of his class. He was impressed with our work at Dow at that time and we rehired him after his graduation to work with me in developing computerized engineering solutions for training and application ... a solution to our original problem mentioned above. After a short time, Noubar was accepted to MIT and he sadly left Dow after 1/2 year. At MIT, he connected with a prof to develop one of the first artificial heart pumps ... very basic chemical engineering. I visited Noubar at one conference at MIT and we had lunch. He offered me a job to run the MIT department he was in ... so he and his prof could focus on research of the design of their pump ... one of the most simple chemical engineering unit operations one could ever think of. Noubar worked on developing a better 'mouse trap'. Pure innovation personified.
  123. Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: From a little seed, great oaks grow. I have taught hundreds of engineers at Dow and at UWO. Engineering genius just does not materialize out of thin air. You start with the basic design tools and you try to show them how to experiment hoping that innovation will happen. Once in a blue moon, an idea developes and a genius is born. Such was the case of Noubar Afeyan, the top engineeing student at McGill, a Gold medal Winner, circa 1984. Noubar worked for me for one summer before he graduated top of his class. He was impressed with our work at Dow at that time and we rehired him after his graduation to work with me in developing computerized engineering solutions for training and application ... a solution to our original problem mentioned above. After a short time, Noubar was accepted to MIT and he sadly left Dow after 1/2 year. At MIT, he connected with a prof to develop one of the first artificial heart pumps ... very basic chemical engineering. I visited Noubar at one conference at MIT and we had lunch. He offered me a job to run the MIT department he was in ... so he and his prof could focus on research of the design of their pump ... one of the most simple chemical engineering unit operations one could ever think of. Noubar worked on developing a better 'mouse trap'. Pure innovation personified.
  124. BeerBelly Buddah from Wpg, Canada writes: @ Jim Patton

    re: 'Look at the facts... Canada has 99 % literacy.'

    Wrong. Better you made an effort to be accurate. Functional literacy in this country hovers around the 65-75%, dependent on the region. If I could append all the pdf's on my computer that prove this I would. However, since you are evidently 'literate' I trust you will be able to arrive at the truth for yourself. Hint, start here: http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/cs/comm/reports/literacy/index.shtml
  125. cold air from Ontario, Canada writes: Maybe the students aren't the problem.
    Perhaps when your political system involves 2 main parties ... in Ontario, one of which eliminated grade 13, and the other now insists kids tolerate school through grade 12, teenagers realize they can join this society without any more knowledge. That has meant instead of 50% of students doing a fifth year of high school, 25% do. Our savings as a society. Well, nothing really. Most universities went to primarily 4-year degrees after grade 13 was cut ... and if you do the math all that has been accomplished is the same time is spent in ecucation institutions, but less of it is fully financed.
    No posters seem to have noted that the top 20% the professor notes will be fine seems to refer to 20% of the students who enter university.
    That would be 10% of high school graduates. How are the reforms going Ontario.
    Want your kids to think more? Perhaps you should start.
  126. Jim Patton from Canada writes: To BeerBelly Buddah from Wpg, Canada.

    The figures I quoted were all for basic literacy. They are the easiest stats to obtain. The figure you quote is for functional literacy a different concept than basic literacy. Canada’s is usually pegged at 75 % to 80 %. And functional literacy in India is much lower than the 61 % figure for basic literacy. So, it is all relative.
  127. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: joanne mandry from Canada writes: “I am a university professor (doing research that Wente doubtlessly finds useless, as per her column last week). This is not, and will never be, the way I run my classes, and I resent Wente's reductionist approach. My classes are rigorous, writing-heavy, and very involved. Many students struggle, and some fail. I have never written a multiple choice test because I find them to be too simplistic, and they do not demonstrate student's understanding as well as short answer or essay questions.” Joanne, I suppose that you wouldn’t understand the irony of a person defending the status quo and bashing Ms. Wente’s “inadequate research and sources”, and who then proceeded to use the logical fallacy of anecdotal evidence to make a point about the entire university system. “I am a university professor…” “I run my classes…” “My classes are rigorous…” “I have never written a multiple choice test…” Well I suppose that that 'settles' the argument; and yes, you certainly do remind me of so many of my old university professors!
  128. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Oh and a message to all parents of young children...consider a home schooling program for them before the school system destroys their little minds.

    My wife home-schools our kids and in our local home-schooling association it seems that the majority of parents who have gone this route are disaffected teachers. Do you suppose that they might know something that the rest of us don't?
  129. Reform Reform from Niagara, Canada writes: My father left a one room school house in grade 6 to help support his family financially. My mother left her formal education shortly afterwards at the age of 13 to help balance pressures at home within her own family. After I completing a MBA and a LLB several years ago, I remain convinced that my parents were 'smarter' than I am. It is time to pay critical attention to the educational system instead of the students who are merely actors within it.
  130. Sassy Lassie from Canada writes: You obviously didn't do your reading assignment. In addition, no one is talking about supremacy, giving boys

    End quote:-------------------------------------

    Really I didn't do my reading assignment, how dare this female not bow and simper before her male better. So let me get this straight you edict I must do research in an area you deem relevant and if I don't you scold and berate me like a child. I hate to break it to you Dawg but in Canada men can try and issue edicts but I don't have to follow your orders like a common servant or slave. Miss the Mother Country much? Do women regularly ask how high not 'WHY' in your culture buttercup? Perhaps little boys can't compete with females in your subculture because they are tought they are superior instead of our equals?

    No more homework assignments Dawg, I don't take orders from men. Regardless of what culture they hatched from. LOL fidgety little man syndrome is the problem not socialist indoctornation, sure it is.

    Children who are home-schooled surpass government schools academically for a reason, they are educated not indoctornated into the marxist mindset of 'Victimhood' and 'Entitlement' and 'Unionism'.
  131. Keith Chicquen from Duncan, Canada writes: Where's the news? This story has been repeated since Universities were created. Has anyone considered that the world has changed and the way university professors (most of whom have no training in assessment or teaching for that matter) assess students might be part of the problem? The practice of assessment has barely changed since school was invented.
    The world we are preparing students for isn't really interested in what we are measuring in schools - perhaps never has been. Universities (and high schools for that matter) continue to prepare students for their ultimate goal - to become university professors. This is the pinnacle of education. Perhaps we need to ask the rest of society what should be measured and how. Or we could fail all of those students who 'shouldn't really be in university' and have the least educated population int the developed world. Yes, that would be a much better option.

    And for those who say that the Asians will eat us for breakfast - perhaps they will. Let us not forget that that was also predicted when the Japanese and their highly competitive education system was propelling their national economy. Where are they now? The US has a much less successful education system than Canada and they have managed to turn out the most creative and productive graduates in the world.
  132. Weigh In from Canada writes: I'm sorry to have to refer constantly to U.S. programs, but whatever they do there, we seem to do here about a decade later.

    I've just stumbled upon a youtube video, 'Think What We Think... Or Else', about thought control on the American campus, in this case the University of Delaware. Students were told that (1) systematic oppression exists in our society; and (2) because of this, their duty is to dismantle the system of oppression.

    In other words, pure Marxism - hidden, as always, in a cloak of virtue. Who is behind this?

    The 'political correctness' now rampant on campuses is simply another form of speech and thought control, forcing students to conform to officially mandated beliefs. Didn't something like this happen at the University of Ottawa?

    This video is well worth watching.
  133. Peter Sudbury from Canada writes: As a parent and an educator I have to agree that our political masters have let us down when they encouraged the cultural shift in education so that we now have students who have developed learned helplessness. Today's students believe that they are entitled to be spoon fed and they are not responsible for their own learning let alone the work required to master it. There are no apparent life lessons taught and there are no consequences when they fail to do as they are required to do as students. School is basically a playground for them. What I wonder is how will the coming generations of students handle being asked to do a a task by their boss, and when they do as they do in school, they fail to meet the deadline with a casual shrug of 'no big deal' thereby they will be fired. Is that what the politicians and ministerial directives really want for our society?
  134. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Keith Chicquen from Duncan, Canada writes: “Universities (and high schools for that matter) continue to prepare students for their ultimate goal - to become university professors…..Or we could fail all of those students who 'shouldn't really be in university' and have the least educated population in the developed world.” So Keith, what is wrong with career focused education such as apprenticeship, college, or even degree-granting Polytechnics? The people that enter these programs or institutions are under no illusion that one day they will be university Professors, and are actually very goal oriented towards using their education to earn a living and contribute back to the economy. This misconception that the pinnacle of a high-school education is to get into university is one of the fundamental problems with our system. As was clearly stated above in other posts (and in the article) there are many young people who are in university who would have been better served by an applied education. Unfortunately too many of them find out after graduation that they really prefer something more practical and then they return to college after all. About 10% of the students in the college system in Ontario have already attended university. What a waste of time and resources this poorly designed system has created.
  135. Comments closed, censored, hidden, deleted, disappeared from Peso-onie land, Canada writes: As far as I am concerned, when it comes to the Canadian education system, the epitome of mediocrity was revealed when two professors (one man, one woman: genders are equal!) recently declared publicly, after decades 'training' future teachers (the man did it for 30 years, no matter what!...), that they would never want to see one of their students teach their grandchildren... --- Imagine THAT being your stupendous achievement, after spending 30 years of your life teaching teachers. There are days when I still have some difficulty believing I heard that man say what he said to journalists, on Radio-Canada.
  136. Weigh In from Canada writes: Correction to my 9:02 post above, re political correctness on campus.

    It was not the University of Ottawa, but rather Carleton University in Ottawa, I believe, that had monitors in the halls and dorms, listening in on student conversation to make sure everything was PC.
  137. Bang the Drum from Toronto, Canada writes: Ms Wente is easy to take pot shots at, but the alarm has also been sounded by the Anton Allahar, a sociology prof at Western from the other end of the political spectrum from our scribe. Grade inflation is the problem coming into university. But children are also generally raised in an atmosphere of overpraise and having their every word hung on, no matter how mundane. A child can scarcely draw a stick figure without it being praised as an 'amazing!' piece of art. Self-esteem, true self-esteem, comes from taking your lumps and learning to do well despite falling down and bruising yourself repeatedly. Life is as much about failure and mediocrity as well as success. We don't do kids any rewards by pretence that life is a Wonderland populated by unicorns and teddy bears.
  138. Neil Bixby from Canada writes: A much-needed article. There should be more journalism like this.
  139. Misodzi Sithole from Canada writes: It is a whole system that is corrupted. It also has to do with the quality of teaching in the schools and assessment method. It is common knowledge that there are hard and soft schools and teachers and that some of the marks are negotiated between students/parents and teachers/school administrators.

    I am a new Canadian coming from a country with rigorous instruction and standardised exams marked by anonymous examiners and where teachers and school administrators have a lot to answer for if the curriculum is not covered in a comprehensive way. I therefore find it shocking and dishearterning to know that there are very hard working and competent students who get their marks the honest way but are discarded for some students who use these underhanded methods to get in through mark inflation.

    I can only speak for Ontario as I have had brief experience teaching here and have been very frustrated at the pampering students are expected to get and the resulting overblown sense of entitlement. I have since left teaching. However, as the province sows, so shall it reap; a harvest of mediocrity.
  140. BRIAN MEIGHAN from Canada writes: M.Wente has presented a very important article. Do not shoot the messenger since there is a huge voluminous literature on the corporate (big business) mandate and roles of universities and the diluted secondary school education attainments. M. Wente has presented some of the facts and a baseline scenario for which citizens have the option to open the debate to discuss directions to advance for an educational system that recognizes its inherent issues and institutional problems.
  141. Will Farnaby from writes: The comment from 'A C from Canada' is correct. However, it has become harder and harder over time to practice good parenting. In the great majority of families, both parents now work and must constantly struggle to stay above the line. Canada has joined the globalization race to the bottom, and suffers the pernicious effects of decades of right wing idiocy and corporate control.
  142. Fake Name from Canada writes: 'N Dawg from Canada writes: I also think boys need to be taught differently than they are being taught now. Boys cannot sit still in a classroom hour after hour. Maybe they are beaten into submission in other cultures, but I don't think that is the role model we should emulate here.'

    They can and should be beaten into submission (figuratively). The rest of the class shouldn't be disrupted because little Johnny can't sit still and behave.

    Now, the article was mostly good - but the prejudice against wikipedia is misplaced. It's already been shown to have fewer errors than the Encyclopedia Britannica, so accuracy isn't a valid complaint. I think what the instructors have against it is that they feel it makes research 'too easy' - but for that, they have no one to blame but themselves. A reasonably competent professor can design questions that aren't that simple to research - simply check the wiki on the topic they're assigning, and if it's covered in the article, modify the question. Really, insisting people beat their heads against a wall with inefficient research tools because you can't be bothered framing your questions with care isn't going to elicit much sympathy from me.
  143. Fake Name from Canada writes: Weigh In, I believe you're thinking of Queen's, actually.
  144. Fake Name from Canada writes: 'Sassy Lassie from Canada writes: Children who are home-schooled surpass government schools academically for a reason, they are educated not indoctornated into the marxist mindset of 'Victimhood' and 'Entitlement' and 'Unionism'. '

    Fortunately, they haven't (yet, at least) found a way to corrupt the only subjects that really matter (math and science) with politics.
  145. Will Farnaby from writes: 'Great Gazoo' is correct, I think. Would-be engineers, for example, may be well-served by doing their first couple of years at a college in the relevant technology program. They'll enjoy the benefits of smaller class size and in general less requirement to share lab resources, and more hands-on practice.

    'Misodzi Sithole', provincial education systems do need to be cleaned up. A great start would be cutting out the horde of self-serving but otherwise useless and expensive executives and administrators in School Boards, etc. Put the resources into teaching, in the context of progressive, genuine educational programs that actually operate fairly and produce results for students.
  146. Fake Name from Canada writes: Richard Hawrelak - did I understand that correctly? You said that a graduate student offered you a job as a department chair at MIT?

    Doesn't that rank up there with 'Hey, buddy, I've got a bridge to sell'? That kind of hiring decision is just not made by a grad student, no matter how brilliant they are.
  147. Dana Cruickshank from Canada writes: I agree with this article, people come to school and feel entitled to certain grades.

    The government is making huge mistakes by (I don't know if they already did), taking calculus out of the ciriculum. That is unfathomable. Calculus is not easy, especially when you first learn it, but honestly, if you are planning on doing anything relating to science, math, engineering, accounting or even economics, a firm grasp of calculus is necessary.

    And the student to prof ratio is high, but by the time you get to university you are expected to learn on your own, and the people who can't do that drop out. Look at the student to prof ratio in 3rd or 4th year classes, or better yet graduate level classes.
  148. Ellen Weber from Rochester, United States writes: You make some excellent points here and having read the book you reference, who could disagree. There's more though.

    Add to this concern for failing higher ed however - the fact that:

    Great opportunity exists if higher education chooses renewal over regrets.

    While it takes risk to lead an amazing way forward - we've never been more ready for university leaders to forge into horizons for a new era.

    We know more from brain sciences that would help us renew for more winning results. Lectures work against the human brain, for instance, while students bring multiple intelligences to class that only get engaged by faculty who guide from the side rather than cling to their sage on the stage positions.

    Just another 2-bit thought to add to a great discussion.Thanks for raising this key topic!
  149. Fake Name from Canada writes: Dana - I'd go one further and say that the person responsible for taking calc out of ontario high schools should be flogged out of the ministry.

    By all means, don't require it from those who have no interest in pursuing math / science further - but making it unavailable even to those who want to take it is cutting the knees out from under any would-be mathematicians, scientists, engineers, finance majors, etc. This is going to have major and lasting impacts on the ability of Ontario's students to compete - both at university against those from other jurisdictions, and beyond university, as a result of our universities having to waste time teaching the domestic students baby steps instead of real math.
  150. D Peters from Alberta, Canada writes: I learned more during recess than I ever learned in school.
  151. Z M from Canada writes: Gardiner Westbound from Canada writes: .
    Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. When not on strike professional high school teachers make a lousy $94,000 for a four hour day and three month's paid vacation. Now the TDSB wants them to supervise halls an extra three minutes a day. O' the cruelty!

    If it's so sweet...why don't you teach? Tell me that? I was a banker...made some pretty sweet money with some pretty sweet hours. Now I bust my chops like never before as a teacher, making less I might add. So...again...if it's so great, go back to school, get a degree if you don't have one, go to teacher's college, supply teach for 2-7 years or more, then enjoy the dolce vita. I love it, gave up my house to become one....would you do the same?
  152. D Peters from Alberta, Canada writes: Fake Name from Canada writes: Dana - I'd go one further and say that the person responsible for taking calc out of ontario high schools should be flogged out of the ministry.

    ==============================================

    Having taken calculas in high school, I have yet to use it in real life. I have yet to do any painfully exhaustive study of English poetry outside of school either. I use my home ec lessons everyday though, as well as carpentry, welding, the stuff that makes the world go around.

    Many moons ago I sat in the dean of engineering's office at the U of C and he put it pretty bluntly. Some people are just not mean't to go university, 'some people' being me.

    Maybe it was all for the best.
  153. Orest Zarowsky from Toronto, Canada writes: This is way too funny, given Maggie's consistent support for private schools. And now we see the result of this in the public schools. But wait - what is the role of the parents; let alone the pundits - in the failure of the public education system?

    And why is it acceptable to refuse to hold our children to account? Which is the effective consequence of the line that Maggie has been pushing for so long.
  154. Orest Zarowsky from Toronto, Canada writes: 'We are forced to PRETEND to teach them and they refuse to learn' would have been the more correct headline. And the likes of Ms. Wente are exactly why this is true.
  155. Mr. Toronto from Canada writes: Orest Zarowsky from Toronto, Canada, very well said, I believe that MW would better serve as a poster girl for No Child Left Behind. It would also mean she moves back to the States and no longer writes for the GM! It really is a win win situation.
  156. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Mr. Toronto from Canada writes: “MW, Universities teach people how to think. Community college teach people how to work. MW, do you have a clue?”

    Nice myth Mr. Toronto. If this were true, why then do the universities fight so hard to keep the colleges out of teaching applied degree programs such as nursing, engineering, accounting, business, etc? Should they not be happily turning these applied, career oriented, undergraduate programs over to colleges/Polytechs?

    Why did the universities fight so hard to take nursing programs away from the colleges only a few years ago? Is that career better served by having “professors” teaching nurses how to be nurse rather than having an experienced nurse teaching a nurse about that career?

    Why are the universities actively creating new applied programs such as “Digital Media” (whatever the heck that is)?

    The universities are in it for the money. End of story.
  157. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: The core problem at the post-secondary level is that we have “overbuilt” our capacity in the university system, yet the expansion continues unabated. The university business model is now quantity over quality as the bachelors degree becomes the new grade 12 diploma and anyone with a pulse is eligible to attend.

    We need to redesign our post-secondary system now to maximize the use of existing institutions and facilities. For example we should combine some of our smaller universities with their local college to form degree-granting Polytechnics (e.g., Brock & Niagara College, or Guelph & Conestoga College). Some universities should be amalgamated to save admin costs (e.g., York & Ryerson, Waterloo & Laurier).

    The demographics are already causing a marked drop in elementary school enrolment in Ontario. When this hits the post-sec system in 10-15yrs the universities will have to drop their standards even lower (if that is even possible) to keep their lecture halls full.
  158. pants 7 from Japan writes: I am really curious as to exactly what faculty organization released this survey. They are completely off base on at least one point. It is 'impossible' for an 18 year old, entering university to do any critical thinking as the part of the brain used, the frontal cortex, is still not fully functional. Asking an 18 year old to do critical thinking is like asking a 4 year old to read, it just can't happen in 99.9999999% of people.
    The part of the brain used for reading is not myelinated until between 6 and 10 years old. It is possible to train a 4 year old to do pseudo reading but not real reading, the 4 year old just memorizes the story and can say the words but can't really read. Likewise for 18 year olds and critical thinking. The frontal cortex is not developed until around 20 or 21 years old. It is possible to train an 18 to do pseudo critical thinking and have them turn out for some demonstration but it is not and cannot be true critical thinking.
    A university is exactly the place where young people, when they have the proper capacity, to do critical thinking. Eighteen year olds should just be taught how to jump through the hoop until they are 20.
  159. Levap K from Canada writes: Ms Wente I absolutely agree with you. It is what I have been saying for the past thirty plus years and ever since my boys left High School. When it comes to education it is farce what my children were and grandchildren are learning. Just to think that the present day school has to be entertaining!! It would be very long and endless story. Bullying? We all been through this, but it all stopped like a magic by the time we entered High school almost sixty years ago. I guess students were growing up lot faster in those times. Discipline? We were forty-three in the class, but it never came to what you can see in lot smaller classes here today! We would never dare to behave like they do today. Union is highly detrimental to education. They all think more about teachers pension investment, than about what they should teach. Fault without any doubts is on parents as well. They are unable to enforce discipline at home! I wouldn't dare to bring teacher's note home. My parents would deal with me, and they even wouldn't even have to go and see a teacher. Parents nowadays run to school to fight teachers how dare they are to say this about their children. Just a small example. Look at children in India, Africa and so on and how thirsty they are for education and knowledge! It is only matter of time when we all will be surpassed by them. It is sad story to watch where we are all going. Everybody knows how to scream for jobs, but nobody wants to work too hard!
  160. Orest Zarowsky from Toronto, Canada writes: @ The Great Gazoo: Re University vs Colleges: you're wrong. The critical difference between a university and a community college is the emphasis on theory vs hands-on.

    The fact that most college programmes are only two years long should be your first clue that there is a vast difference between the two classes of school. Even those college programmes that have a third year option are limited. That option thing is actually critical. This is why the universities are much less than enthusiastic about having community colleges teach things like engineering, nursing and accounting, among others.

    As for Polytechnicals, well I am a graduate of Ryerson. When it was still a Polytechnical. I also went to U of Guelph for a while. And I have many friends and acquaintances who went to, and teach at, community college. So I have a really good idea of how it actually works.

    More critically, I have a very good practical knowledge of the difference in skill set and knowledge base between the graduates of a community college, Ryerson and university based on the business I am in - that would be analytical chemistry. AKA Lab Techs. Trust me, the community college grads - even the ones who did the optional third year - are seriously lacking in the theoretical knowledge that would enable them to go beyond being 'button-pushers'. At that, most of them have seriously exaggerated opinions of their skill set.

    And then there's Ryerson. Which is somewhere in between University and Community College. The reason Ryerson was 'upgraded' to a University was that the bulk of employers had no idea of how to handle graduates from that institution. But Ryerson hasn't changed in any significant way since being reclassified as a University from when I graduated when it was a Polytechnical Institute. Funny how that works.

    Gazoo, your 'observations' about the post-secondary education system are shallow and foolish. What we really need is a real apprenticeship programme.
  161. Bernard Anderson from writes: If you think this is bad, undertake an analysis of the non-trades programs at community colleges.
  162. Alex V from Toronto, Canada writes: There is only one answer here: admission exams. I went to school in Romania, and I had to pass admission exams at the end of grade eight (so I could enter high-school), at the end of grade ten (so I could move on to grade eleven) and an university admission exam. Actually, all three were competitions, as there was a limited number of places and the best high schools and universities had more applicants than openings. That would eliminate 'grade inflation' in both high schools and undergraduate programs (for those who want to go on to post graduate school). It's true that during my grade eleven and twelve I did not turn the TV on. Not even once. Calculus, Geometry and Physics were my only entertainment for two years.
  163. cold air from Ontario, Canada writes: Pants 7, nice post.
    Gazoo, your 'observations' about the post-secondary education system are shallow and foolish. What we really need is a real apprenticeship programme.
    You do know the Ontario government has apprenticeship 'police' to ensure we don't have too many trades people?
    It might be less shallow and foolish to listen to Gazoo (although I'd be mad at him too, if he suggested my alma mater merge with York).

    Ontarions ... calculus was a grade 13 subject, before you decided to soak your kids for an extra year of university tuition and bittch about their intelligence following the final year of an abbreviated curriculum.
  164. Jeff Dewolde from Canada writes: If Canada is doing such an awful job of educating our youth, how come in 2006 our fifteen year old students ranked 3rd in science, 4th in reading and 7th in mathematics globally? This according to PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA(studentassessment)

    Seems to me that our universities are being handed some of the best students in the world!

    Margaret Wente can have her opinions, but the hard data talks.
  165. cold air from Ontario, Canada writes: Jeff Dewolde, it's a good point.
    Possibilities I think of are inertia (the culture of teachers primarily), and, alternatively, some dishonesty in selecting the students taking the PISA tests.
    There doesn't appear to me to be a lot of commonality in the systems of the top ranking countries (although I've seen some evidence the pay of teachers is a factor).
    To dwell on a point, how is it we revised a system in Ontario (where Ms. Wente writes and the professor quoted in the article resides), which did score well internationally without measurements in place to determine whether the changes were detrimental.
    And I will point out that while Canada's rankings were strong, Alberta's were the strongest in Canada, while Alberta also has the highest drop-out rate. So again, from a selfish Ontarion, what are the measurements to determine whether or not forcing kids to stay in school has a detrimental affect on kids who want to be in school?
    The last test was also 2006, and I don't believe there was much change from 2003. The students the article refers to will be the product of a curriculum which would first be measured in this years' testing.
  166. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Orest Zarowsky from Toronto, Canada writes: 'The fact that most college programmes are only two years long should be your first clue that there is a vast difference between the two classes of school. Even those college programmes that have a third year option are limited.' Sorry Orest, but you don't what you are talking about. In Ontario many college programs are 3-yrs (e.g., Engineering Technology) and many now also offer 4-yr bachelor's degrees too. (Why don't you do a little research before you criticize my posts; start here: http://www.ontariocolleges.ca/portal/page/portal/ONTCOL/FindProgram ). Some of these four year degrees look a heck of allot like engineering degrees and I think that that is the direction that they are heading. Nursing used to be a 3-yr program until they universities and the nursing union pushed for a 4-yr degree requirement that cut the colleges out of these programs. (Is teaching a nurse how to give an enema learning how to think or learning how to do?) I've completed an interprovincial apprenticeship, a THREE-YEAR engineering technology program in Materials Engineering, and later I went back to school to due a B.A.Sc. at university. When you have had all of those experiences with the three-pillars of the post-secondary system, perhaps then you would be qualified to discuss something besides universities.
  167. Garble Benton from Eastern Canada, Canada writes: Gardiner Westbound from Canada writes:
    Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. When not on strike professional high school teachers make a lousy $94,000 for a four hour day and three month's paid vacation.

    Gardiner, this statement may apply to teachers in some parts of Canada, but not to teachers in many areas. In my part of Canada, a high school teacher of calculus with more than thirty years of experience a) does not have the right to strike, b) earns $30 000 a year less than the figure you quote, c) works considerably longer than four hours a day and d) has a contract that pays only for the days that they work (the two month summer vacation is unpaid).
  168. Howie and Dixie Normuss from London, Canada writes: There are many problems in the school system. I always felt that in high school there was too much homework. Not enough time left for creating 'well rounded' people....people with some general knowledge outside of schoolwork. A chance to get a part time job and learn the value of money...how esiy it is to spend it and how hard it is to make it..again all the homework is a problem. Boomers have apparently demanded all this as they project their ultra competitive world onto their children. It really boils down to the quality of the parenting and the way the family lives. As a parent it's your job to cut through the nonsense and teach your children what you think is right. I let me sons take time off after high school because they felt burnt out (homework) and they didn't have a clue what they wanted to take in school. They worked at jobs and continued to read and learn about things they were interested. The elimination of Grade 13 in Ontario certainly didn't help. Try to notice if your children are thinkers or like working with their hands. I have a College education and have no prejudice towards university or college because at the end of the day, it's up to the kid, and they must be where their interests give them the greatest chance of succeeding.
  169. Sol Bass from Canada writes: I completely disagree that it is hard to fail out of university. That is completely the opposite of my experience. Not only did I have to work my absolute butt off, but something like 30% of students flunk after first year in some of these tougher programs like engineering and computer science.

    If there are specific programs that really are that easy, that would tell those programs need to be made more difficult. But as a blanket statement - completely untrue. LOTS of people flunk out. Thousands every year.
  170. N C from Canada writes: Excellent column Ms Wente, but it is the teachers unions that control education ....
  171. N C from Canada writes: To see how the unions are controlling the government's education policies just take a look at the ETFO website....
  172. N C from Canada writes: The link to the Elementary Teacher's Union website is here:
    http://www.etfo.ca/Multimedia/Webcasts/Pages/default.aspx
  173. N C from Canada writes: Now judge who is running Ontario's education system in the formative elementary years? See section on the Special Education Handbook (by the ETFO not the Ministry) and the link to 'Special Education: Practical Strategies to Address Common Student Needs':
    http://www.etfo.ca/Multimedia/Webcasts/SpecialEducation/Pages/default.aspx
    Now the union propaganda says that every normal child in Ontario has special education needs.....this is what the education system has become..
  174. N C from Canada writes: Fact is children can't succeed when they are told that there is something wrong with the way their brains function:
    http://www.etfo.ca/Multimedia/Webcasts/SpecialEducation/Pages/default.aspx
    The special ed system in Ontario is a powerful multi-billion dollar operation. The Ontario Ministry budget alone is $2.2 billion this year and growing.
    Fact is children are worth much more as potential failures to the adults with vested interests in Spec Ed (includes teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers. educrats at Ministry and school boards, teachers unions), which produces the perverse incentives we are seeing in Ontario today as summarised in Ms Wente's column.
  175. ehTeacher inOntario from York Region, Canada writes: Woody Allen once said, '90% of life is showing up.' I've been teaching high school for 5 years now and I've amended that quotation to, 'I showed up. Give me 90%!'
  176. Fake Name from Canada writes: D Peters - again, I'm not saying that calc should be mandatory for everyone. Ageed, the majority of people won't use it.

    But it's EXTREMELY important for the ten percent or so of students who will go on into fields that use it to get a start on it before university. The option should be there for those students to do so. Taking it away is only going to accelerate the dumbing-down of ontario's science and math students.
  177. Sue W from Canada writes: N C from Canada writes:.... failures to the adults with vested interests in Spec Ed (includes teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers. educrats at Ministry and school boards, teachers unions).....

    The Truth about Teachers Unions
    '...Our public education system is a slow-motion car crash, driven by the same union special interests that brought the auto companies to the brink of bankruptcy....'
    http://vimeo.com/2439019

    Dismantle Public Education
    The real reason our standards in education are falling isnt lack of money but a government monopoly......
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swl8frWSNEQ
  178. N Dawg from Canada writes: Fake Name from Canada writes: 'N Dawg from Canada writes: I also think boys need to be taught differently than they are being taught now. Boys cannot sit still in a classroom hour after hour. Maybe they are beaten into submission in other cultures, but I don't think that is the role model we should emulate here.'

    They can and should be beaten into submission (figuratively). The rest of the class shouldn't be disrupted because little Johnny can't sit still and behave.
    ******
    Not acceptable.
  179. A. Nonymous from United States writes: No worries. The world always needs ditch diggers, and minimum wage workers. Not everyone gets to be what they want to be, or gets to have all those fancy things. We need renters too.
  180. Jeff Dewolde from Canada writes: Cold air from Ontario, Canada writes: Jeff Dewolde, it's a good point. Possibilities I think of are inertia (the culture of teachers primarily), and, alternatively, some dishonesty in selecting the students taking the PISA tests.

    Please take two minutes to review the methodology and thought put into the OECD's PISA testing. You can't just throw claims out there such as 'Canada is cheating on these tests' to explain the fact that we are one of the top countries in the world. It's amazing the lengths they go to in order to ensure testing accuracy.

    http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/19/33688233.pdf

    Why is it so hard for people to admit that while every country has educational issues that could be improved upon, Canada puts out some of the best high school students in the world.
  181. D Peters from Alberta, Canada writes: A college or university degree is no guarantee of success. Not that I have either but I did ok despite it all. If they had a 4 year course on 'common sense' we might all be better off.

    Maybe a quota is the way to go though, maybe just take the top 20% or so.

    My father in law grew up in rural newfoundland, between him and his brother they cut enough fire wood 'to keep the smart kids warm'. Truth is he prefered to be out cutting wood than sitting in class.
  182. Fake Name from Canada writes: Dawg - I did specify not LITERALLY beaten.

    But boys have to learn to sit still and pay attention. How well do you think fidgeting and not paying attention at meetings in a job situation would go over, if they go through school being accommodated and hand-held every time they don't feel interested enough to keep their mind on what they're supposed to be doing? Not everything that's necessary can also be fun - become used to it.
  183. Andrew Moss from Pickering, Canada writes: The greatest problem facing Ontario’s school system lies in the ambiguous phrase “Failure is not an option”. Consequently, this seemingly innocuous notion has wreaked havoc—and continues to do so—on our education system. Although the idea that all students should meet with success is laudable, those who have pushed this notion on our school system have done us a disservice by failing to delineate the true meaning behind the statement. Unfortunately, those responsible have failed to discern the difference between refusing to fail students, and working so every student can meet with success. While we can push students through the system and hold their hands through each grade--thus ensuring they are “successful”—we are ultimately robbing them of the skills necessary to meet with success outside of our feel-good, everyone’s a winner system. Ironically, the notion that “failure is not an option” has made it virtually impossible to achieve the two goals inherent in any worthwhile education system. The two goals are, of course, for students to become academically and emotionally prepared for the demands of their post-secondary careers. The irony is that the new academic policies regarding failure fundamentally undermine the recently mandated character education initiatives. Therefore, while we work to ensure that every student meets with academic success, we are making it extremely difficult for them to develop the skills necessary for success outside of our system. Thus a dichotomy between academics and character education has been erected.
  184. N C from Canada writes: International Pisa results are not comparable as they are based on sampling techniques that vary from country to country at the discretion of school principals and psychologists:
    http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/19/33688233.pdf

    Page 40 of the above states sampling methodology and exclusion criteria within schools:
    Excluded students include students who are emotionally or mentally unable to follow even the general instructions on the test.

    In Ontario this is almost any child as evidenced by the unions definitions of special education categories:
    http://www.etfo.ca/Multimedia/Webcasts/SpecialEducation/Pages/default.aspx

    The Pisa pdf does not specify any data for Ontario, so there are no comparable international results.
    And Standardised testing does not exist in Ontario.
  185. Jeff Dewolde from Canada writes: N C from Canada writes: International Pisa results are not comparable as they are based on sampling techniques that vary from country to country at the discretion of school principals and psychologists:
    http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/19/33688233.pdf

    Page 40 of the above states sampling methodology and exclusion criteria within schools:
    Excluded students include students who are emotionally or mentally unable to follow even the general instructions on the test.

    In Ontario this is almost any child as evidenced by the unions definitions of special education categories:
    http://www.etfo.ca/Multimedia/Webcasts/SpecialEducation/Pages/default.aspx

    The Pisa pdf does not specify any data for Ontario, so there are no comparable international results.
    And Standardised testing does not exist in Ontario.

    So you discount the PISA results based on a union conspiracy whereby average to lower than average students are held back from writing the test by means of deeming them mentally challenged? You can't just go and throw the whole process out the window because you found a possible loophole for cheating. Logic would dictate that the tests, while not infallible, are a decent barometer of where your country stands.
  186. N C from Canada writes: There are mountains of evidence that all this happened and that the Ontario Ministry admitted that there was over-identification and massive over-claiming for Special ed claims (Intensive Support Amount) totalling billions of dollars and proposed draconian solutions - none of which ever came into force so there is still no accountability in Ontario.
    See this link:
    Review in growth of claims for students with severe special needs:
    http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/ssn/index.html
  187. J. Hangdog from Canada writes: NC from Canada: You're completely out to lunch.

    You write:

    "To see how the unions are controlling the government's education policies just take a look at the ETFO website.... "

    and

    "In Ontario this is almost any child as evidenced by the unions definitions of special education categories:
    http://www.etfo.ca/Multimedia/Webcasts/SpecialEducation/Pages/default.aspx"

    and more...

    Hey NC: To suggest that "unions" have somehow invented, concocted or "defined' the "special education categories" reveals a stunning ignorance about educational research --and educational politics.

    Educational establishments --ministries, boards of education and yes, teachers federations-- may have embraced (with one level of enthusiasm or another) the research behind learning disabilities, but none of the aforementioned has GENERATED the theory or research.

    In fact, as far classroom teachers go it, would be FAR EASIER for them to ignore learning disabled students and individual learning styles and just plow ahead, teaching down the middle.

    Sure, dig into, take issue with "special education" and diagnosis of "learning disabilities" if you like --but try doing so in an informed manner.

    Your enthusiasm for union bashing seems to have addled your faculties, resulting in very sloppy induction. No evidence that I can see between your thesis (union-invented disabilities) and the evidence you provide (the link to the website).

    Where and when did you go to school?
  188. N C from Canada writes: As detailed above there are mountains of evidence that all this happened and that the Ontario Ministry admitted that there was over-identification and massive over-claiming for Special ed claims (Intensive Support Amount) totalling billions of dollars and proposed draconian solutions - none of which ever came into force so there is still no accountability in Ontario.
    See this link:
    Review in growth of claims for students with severe special needs:
    http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/ssn/index.html

    In the Ministry paper at the link above there are detailed descriptions of how teachers were part of Ontario's Diagnosis for dollars. Each claimed child is worth one, two or more union jobs, so there is a direct reward for the unions. In addition if every child is potentially brain damaged with imaginary learning disabilities then no teacher can be held responsible for teaching to any acceptable global standards.
  189. Jeff Dewolde from Canada writes: N C from Canada writes: Each claimed child is worth one, two or more union jobs, so there is a direct reward for the unions. In addition if every child is potentially brain damaged with imaginary learning disabilities then no teacher can be held responsible for teaching to any acceptable global standards.

    Sigh.......
  190. N C from Canada writes: It should be noted that most boards received more funding under the funding formula introduced by Premier Harris' government. The reaction to the changes by the educational establishment was horrifying.

    Funding did increase; most of the new funding was in the Special Ed grant, which allowed for claims of $12,000, $27,000 and $54,000 per named student depending on the 'severity' of their special ed needs in addition to the base grant (of about $11,000).

    What is horrifying is that these children became the cash cows of the new funding formula. The special ed envelope was an open envelope so boards rushed to provide documentation to make the claims for newly found populations of supposedly severely disabled children. Psychological reports providing 'proof' of the required diagnoses of Learning disabilties, ADHD, LD/gifted, Oppositional defiant disorders were done by school board psychologists to make claims for billions of dollars.

    About half of these outrageous claims were rejected in the first year of ISA (Intensive support amount); but the school boards and teachers unions successfully wore down the Tory government who eventually turned a blind eye to this massive over-claiming of Ministry special ed dollars - known as Diagnosis for dollars.

    If you read the Ministry paper - Review in growth of claims for students with severe special needs - you'll see all this is true:
    http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/ssn/index.html

    Nowhere else in the world were children worth as many dollars - up to $65,000 per named child - to the school boards and teachers unions....
  191. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: N C from Canada: Your information regarding this Special Ed. scam is very disturbing, and very revealing. Someone from the media should be doing a special investigation into this issue alone. Thanks for your posts.
  192. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Your information regarding this Special Ed. scam is very disturbing, and very revealing. Someone from the media should be doing a special investigation into this issue alone. Thanks for your posts.

    Where are your ideas Cold Air? Where is your rebuttal beyond an ad hominem attack?

    An expert in the apprenticeship system are you? I doubt it very much.
  193. J. Hangdog from Canada writes: Before readers become alarmed by NC's rant, I urge you to click on the link and read the document for yourselves.

    NC's reading of what the document is very creative...
  194. Jeff Dewolde from Canada writes: But getting back to commentary on Margaret's Op piece, do you really think that a conspiracy is at work here to skew Canada's excellent standing in the world education rankings?

    Personally I'm not given to conspiracy theorists. I believe that even with its warts, Canada does a pretty good job of educating its youth. I also think that we should be proud as to how well distributed this level of education is. Just look at the USA to see how economic and racial divides play a role in how well the education system works.

    Good on you Canada!
  195. Andrea Jeffery from Mission, Canada writes: Thank you to Ms. Wente for reporting on the current state of education in Canada. As a teacher for the past 21 years, having worked in two provinces I can state that from my experience her report rings true. Why do teachers inflate marks? Given the consequences of doing otherwise are outrageous - parents yelling and complaining to the administrators as well as the teachers, students threatening to hurt you or others, including themselves and being shun politically by the union and other "leaders of educators" are a few examples that come to mind of things I have seen in the past few years.

    My grade 8 students put it best, by stating you can't fail us. We will not do our homework and there is nothing you can do about it. School is a place we go to have fun with our friends, but our parents think we are there to learn something. Why do we have to take English it is boring, and too much work.
  196. N C from Canada writes: The Ministry of Education under Kathleen Wynne said that ISA Billion dollar Special ed scandal had stopped and no more claims were allowed after 2007 (after ten years since inception in 1998). However the education system has not been fixed and many thousands of kids continue to be damaged. None of the recommendations in the 2004 Review in Growth od children with severe needs were enacted.

    The Ontario Auditor made Special Ed a subject of his annual report (yet again - his third on Spec ed in a decade) and cited many serious problems - the most revealing perhaps is that parents are not informed about their rights once their child is labelled in the IPRC process:
    The Ontario Auditors Annual report (Chapter 3.14):
    http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/reports2008en.htm
    At the same time in 2006 Minister Kathleen Wynne has fuelled the diagnosis for dollars process by giving tens of millions to the Ontario Psychological Association to diagnose thousands more kids on schools with imaginary psychological disorders.

    The Ontario definition of learning disability (discrepancy between IQ and achievement) has been discredited by leading US academics in 2001 and in 2004 the US Department of Education declared psych tests as educationally useless. But Ontario continues with outdated and discredited practices and it has infected the whole education system.
  197. Jeff Dewolde from Canada writes: N C from Canada writes: The Ministry of Education under Kathleen Wynne said that ISA Billion dollar Special ed scandal had stopped and no more claims were allowed after 2007 (after ten years since inception in 1998). However the education system has not been fixed and many thousands of kids continue to be damaged. None of the recommendations in the 2004 Review in Growth od children with severe needs were enacted.

    NC. what does any of this have to do with Margaret Wente's article?
  198. cold air from Canada writes: Great Gazoo, I owe an apology for omitting from my first posting that I was quoting Orest Zarowsky's post at 7:34 am. The offensive "Gazoo, your 'observations' about the post-secondary education system are shallow and foolish. What we really need is a real apprenticeship programme." - were his words, and I responded to rebut them. I had no issue and nothing to disagree with in your statements.. and I meant to suggest to Mr. Zarowsky he would be less "shallow and foolish" if he heeded your words. OK, the York reference was a cheap shot, but not ad hominen!
    I am not an expert in apprentice programs, but am wiser for your postings.
    Jeff Dewolde, I meant what I said ... I could think of two reasons. If I had to pick one, it was the inertia of good teaching holding out against poor government directives... but I could think of how the group was selected affecting the results. Recent postings have shown others could think the same thing. Regardless, I do think 2009 results will be down, and I do think it is due to government policies that, once instigated, are beyond review.
    The 2006 PISA results are broken down by province on statscan's site.
  199. mark Baxter from Toronto, Canada writes: Here's one for the parents of the cheaters:
    We'll pretend to raise you, you'll pretend to grow up.
  200. Jack Arnold from Greater Sudbury, Canada writes: Kudos to Margaret Wente for telling it like it is and has been for several decades.
  201. N C from Canada writes: The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: N C from Canada: Your information regarding this Special Ed. scam is very disturbing, and very revealing. Someone from the media should be doing a special investigation into this issue alone. Thanks for your posts.

    Thanks Great Gazoo - the media in Canada are muzzled by the teachers unions and so usually don't do any investigative reporting that is very controversial or against any powerful special interest groups like school boards and teachers unions. Ms Wente is an exception - but her colums cannot delve deeply into the issues ... still President Barrack Obama is reforming the US Education system, building on No Child Left Behind - so watch Canada (and especially Ontario) bite the dust!
  202. N C from Canada writes: J. Hangdog from Canada writes: Before readers become alarmed by NC's rant, I urge you to click on the link and read the document for yourselves.
    Please do read the Ministry paper for yourselves and make your own judgment -
    Review in growth of claims for students with severe special needs:
    http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/ssn/index.html
    The admissions in this Ministry publication are frankly astonishing:
    That claims more than doubled from $500million to a $billion in a couple of years!
    That Ontario in all the developed world has three times the incidence of severely disabled kids in schools!
    That most of the growth in claims for severely disabled schoolkids came from two categories - Learning Disability and Behaviour!
    That the school boards were working hand in glove with the Ministry appointed regulators to achieve a 100% success rate in claim submissions!
    That the only solution for this special ed scam was for all Directors of school boards to take personal liability and sign-off on all future Special ed (ISA) claims (similar to Sarbanne-Oxley reforms)!
    That very draconian accountability measures were the only recourse left to the Ministry!
    In the press conferences given by then Education Minister Gerard Kennedy the admissions went much further, stopping short of accusing the School Boards of outright fraud.
    Of course with hind-sight we can see this politicians brilliant strategy - using the findings in this Ministry publication:
    http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/ssn/index.html
    To get the school boards and teachers unions to agree to a four year wage contract allowing the McGuinty Liberals to get re-elected!
  203. The Great Gazoo from Zatox, Canada writes: Cold Air: Oh, I get it. I didn't realize that you were quoting Mr. Zarowsky and repeating his un-warranted ad hominen attack on me.

    Never mind!
  204. N C from Canada writes: Jeff Dewolde from Canada writes: N C from Canada writes: The Ministry of Education under Kathleen Wynne said that ISA Billion dollar Special ed scandal had stopped and no more claims were allowed after 2007 (after ten years since inception in 1998). However the education system has not been fixed and many thousands of kids continue to be damaged. None of the recommendations in the 2004 Review in Growth of children with severe needs were enacted.

    NC. what does any of this have to do with Margaret Wente's article?
    Absolutely everything. Ms Wente's column is about grade inflation, lack of accountability and lowering if test standards. All of these started with the ISA Special Education fraud in 1997 as the Mike Harris Tories tried to enforce school boards to raise standards and become more efficient.
    The way round these Harris measures was for the school boards to massively over-claim for children as LD, ADHD etc. This targeted a number of groups dis-proportionately; bright immigrant boys were targeted more than any other. Since no parent had to be advised that their child was being claimed for the ISA $ Billions (at $12,000 or $27,000 each) it was the report cards that needed to be modified to disguise these cash-cow children. Thus suddenly teachers routinely gave out A's and B's in Ontario report cards for children in special ed who were ISA claims. This is where the integrity of what is an A or a B on a report card became completely meaningless.

    If any parent can decipher Ontario report cards - please own up.
    But every teacher knows that if the IEP (Individual Education Plan) Box is ticked (as it is for about 300,000 students) then all the grades are worthless,

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