Paul R. Ehrlich: Saving Earth. Noam Chomsky - The Purpose of Education. An A+ student regrets his grades. The purpose and meaning of education is widely misunderstood and wrongly presented.
This is why the education system needs “reinventing, not reforming,” according to Harvard Innovation Education Fellow Tony Wagner. We’re creating a culture – reinforced by society and habitually drilled into students from an early age and well into their teens – that revolves around textbooks, lectures, GPAs and exams, where failing or not doing well are either unacceptable or wrongly considered a sign of weakness or a lack of intellect. Education is not confined to the walls of a classroom; it stretches well beyond that. Valuing success above all else is a problem plaguing the schooling systems, at all levels, of many countries including Canada and the United States, and undermining those very qualities that are meant to foster an educated and skillful society.
This very issue took a toll on my own educational career, not in terms of academic performance, but other aspects considerably more important. The Educational Tyranny of the Neurotypicals. RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms. The Chomsky-Foucault Debate [excerpt, part 1/2] The 15 Rules of Web Disruption. How to Spot – and Defeat – Disruption on the Internet David Martin’s Thirteen Rules for Truth Suppression, H.
Michael Sweeney’s 25 Rules of Disinformation (and now Brandon Smith’s Disinformation: How It Works) are classic lessons on how to spot disruption and disinformation tactics. We’ve seen a number of tactics come and go over the years. Here are the ones we see a lot of currently. 1. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule … Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
The following 4 tactics from Sweeney are also still commonly used … 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Specifically, we’ve found the following format to be highly effective in educating people in a non-confrontational manner about what the disrupting person is doing: Good Number 1! Or: Ontario Catholic elementary schools quietly admitting students of all faiths. Ontario’s Catholic elementary schools are quietly opening their doors to students of all faiths, blurring the lines even more between the Catholic and public systems and raising questions about the roles — and need — for both.
Windsor’s Catholic school board became the latest to admit non-Catholics into grade schools in June — discreetly. It warned principals to discuss the new policy “with caution.” Some 82 non-Catholic children already have signed up, good news for a board that has been losing some 500 students a year. “It’s about having choice in education,” said an elated Karen Fyall, a mother in Kingsville, south of Windsor, whose daughter Skylar will start Grade 6 next week at her local Catholic school under the new policy. She had been denied for two years because she’s not Catholic. While Catholic high schools have had to allow students of all faiths ever since Queen’s Park began funding them in 1986, Catholic elementaries have maintained the right to turn others away. Laurel's lies: The real way to put Ontario students and children first. Change the conversation, support rabble.ca today.
Laurel Broten is lying. But, then, so are all of Ontario's other politicians. The narrative of Broten, imposing contracts on Ontario's teachers, is quite clear. Ontario cannot afford pay increases, fair wages and reasonable sick day banking policies because of an alleged "financial crisis" in the province. Ontario simply has no money. She laid out the Liberal government line. After months of labour strife, Broten says she chose to impose contracts on thousands of people working in the province’s public school system, based on similar terms reached with Ontario’s Catholic teachers last July, in order to save the cash-strapped province $2 billion and protect gains in education and teaching jobs.
The key point is the claim that she, and the government, "have been left with no other reasonable option". There is a reasonable option that would put students first and that would also ensure that educators were properly compensated.