Another one about 0 grades policy

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/rebel-edmonton-area-teacher-attacks-no-fail-trendhttp://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/rebel-edmonton-area-teacher-attacks-no-fail-trend

The solution to the BC Teachers strike

As I write this, the public school teachers in B.C. are undergoing a serious work strike. I don't have time to go into all the details, but you can read about them here. An oversimplified explanation is that teachers are striking because they want smaller class sizes, and a limit to how many students with learning and behavior challenges are in the same class. This is referred to as “class size and composition”. They are also calling for wage increases.

I am a private school teacher, and although the teachers at my school were not on strike, I can empathize with the plight of the public school teachers. I have thought about the issues surrounding the strike, and I think I have a solution to the problem

Here is what should happen:
1. Teachers should be given their demands for class sizes and composition.
2. Teachers should NOT be given a raise, but funding to the education sector should be increased to allow for hiring more teachers and EA's.
3. Extra curricular activities should be paid positions with a small hourly wage.

Point 1. Teachers should be given their demands for class sizes and composition.

Teachers are being asked to do more with less in terms of educating students. It is the ultimate goal of a teacher in BC to be 'all things to all people'. They are attempting to do their best to teach all students in their class in ways that will benefit all the different learning styles, as well as all the different learning levels and abilities.

This is not the education system of the 1950's. For the most part these days, students do not fail and repeat grades, and the goal is to make every student feel successful. Every student is welcome in the classroom, regardless of learning challenges or physical disabilities. This in turn causes the grade 6 teacher to become essentially the grade 3-9 teacher who is attempting to adapt content so that every student can understand it or not be bored by it. They are also adapting content in order to make it 'engaging', which in some ways means making it entertaining so as to keep the attentions of students of whom many have been raised in an entertainment culture of internet, tv, and video games. Instead of teaching the grade 6 content, they become the entertainer, the parent, the care-aid, and the disciplinarian.

Additionally, teachers these days do not hit students with rulers when they are being disruptive or disrespectful. Often students are asked by teachers to follow classroom rules that will foster healthy learning environments. However, many times when students fail to follow these rules, they find that the disciplinary actions that follow are weak or powerless. I have witnessed a teacher reprimand a student, and the student's parent defend their child's actions, and accuse the teacher of poor classroom management skills. In the 1950's, this was not the case for the most part. I am not at all suggesting going back to a corporal punishment style of discipline, but in general, teachers were more respected by students and parents in the past. With this respect (or maybe fear), it was likely more possible for a teacher to manage a classroom of 30-40 children. With a general lack of respect for authority these days, a class size that large would not be manageable.

Point 2. Teachers should NOT be given a raise, but funding to the education sector should be increased to allow for hiring more teachers and EA's.

There have been many studies done on the effectiveness of learning environments, and one of the main things they all have in common is that smaller class sizes equals better instruction. If you look to the Renaissance Period, much of the model of education was a tutor/pupil model where a wealthy person would hire a tutor for their son or daughter. This 1 to 1 ratio is ideal. In the classroom, it would be amazing for a teacher to sit down and help one student through all their learning challenges, but there are still 20-30 other students with their own challenges. This is why many parents send their child for after school tutoring.

It is fiscally impossible for the B.C. Ministry of Education to adapt a tutoring style of education. However, funding could potentially be increased to the education sector, which in turn could be used to hire more teachers and EA's. This would also increase job openings for recently graduated teachers looking for work. These new teachers may have fresh insight and passion for teaching, and could be a welcome addition to the education system. The better the teacher (or EA) to student ratio, the better the education.

Point 3. Extra curricular activities should be paid positions with a small hourly wage.

Extra curricular programs such as after school sports, or drama or musical productions are very important parts of a school system. For some students, it is these activities that inspire life-long passions for the arts or sports. However, they are not part of the job requirements of a teacher. If a teacher is very passionate about basketball, for example, and if they have parent support and student dedication to the team, they can have a successful program. This is often not the case though, and sometimes teachers are 'volun-told', or pressured, to coach a team or run a drama production. Without passion for the activity, the teacher will feel even more overworked, and will likely quit being in charge as soon as they can pass the responsibility on to someone else.

Extra curricular programs should be a paid position where the person in charge is paid something like 15 dollars an hour. This could be any mature, responsible person who is passionate about the activity, who has experience in that area (not necessarily formal education), and has a spotless, current criminal record. If a teacher wants to take on more responsibility, they could coach the basketball team and get paid a little bit of money to do so. Or, a parent could take on the job and get paid. Either way, this would eliminate the 'volun-told' problem.

Spouse of a Teacher

My wife sent me this link about what it is like being married to a teacher:
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6343963

Apologies

I found this article on a friend's facebook post, and I thought it would be a good one to keep track of:
http://www.cuppacocoa.com/a-better-way-to-say-sorry/

Food and Housing

I should be marking student homework or assignments right now, but I think I need to write this down while it is still fresh. I have been thinking lately about the North American (possibly all Western civilizations?) relationship to food and housing. Perhaps it is because my wife and I just bought our first house, and have now entered into the predicament common to the majority of North Americans: life-long mortgage debt.

It seems to me that a house that provides shelter should not cost you nearly your entire adult life to have the right to live in it. In a previous post I talked about the education debt cycle, but this is an even more extreme debt. We have purchased a very moderately priced house that is within our budget, and it is perfect for us. It is a blessing from God, and we are happy to be here. However, this house will take 25 years to pay off. Essentially the majority of my time is spent working, and the majority of the money made working goes towards paying off the mortgage. In the first 5 years of our mortgage, we will have paid 50 thousand dollars into this mortgage. However, of that 50 grand, roughly only 20 grand will be paying off the house, and the other 30 grand is paying for interest. And this is at a very low mortgage rate of about 3 percent!

It is expensive to not be rich. If I were wealthy (in the traditional sense of the word: money), I would be able to purchase a house outright, and save tens of thousands of dollars that I would normally have had to pay into interest.

Now, on to food. I must first mention that the rest of this mini-essay is based on speculation, as I have not done any research on this theory.

I think that for most of history, and for most people today, the majority of human time is spent in obtaining food.

The rest of the world spends most of their time getting food, and very little of their time on getting housing; where the Western World spends the majority of their time in obtaining housing, and very little time getting food. It seems to me that it should take a person 1-5 years to build a house, and have somewhere to live. It shouldn't be that complicated to build a simple, square house with a roof, especially in Canada where there is no shortage of land available. The rest of their life would then be spent on working to get food to feed their family. In North America we spend almost half our life obtaining a house, and very little time in getting food. We can go to the grocery store or fast food restaurant, and in minutes we can have all the food we need at very little cost.

Since we have such easy access to large amounts of relatively inexpensive food, I think North Americans have a complicated relationship with what they eat. I realize that "all generalizations are false", but I think we have more problems with obesity as a result of this. While we toil away at paying for housing, the rest of the world is toiling away at finding food. If we in North America had to spend most of our precious time working for food, I think there would be less problems with obesity, and with the crazy amount of food wasted.

I am quite tired, so hopefully this made sense. I am curious to hear what other people have to think on this matter.

Teachers, Students, Success, and Failure.

Student Success and Failure

One big reason I decided to start writing a blog was this article I read on the CBC News Website. Apparently a teacher in Edmonton was suspended and possibly will be fired for giving 0's on assignments for students who did no work. The other thing that prompted me to write about this is a web comic my friend posted on his Facebook page (thanks Jordan H!).

Hopefully I don't get in trouble for being opinionated, but as I have mentioned in my first blog post, I don't imagine many people will be reading this blog anyway. I am very much in favor of collaborative learning, student directed education, and promoting student success. I also strongly believe that every student is gifted in different areas. One student may be good at math, another may be good at science, and another language arts.

However, I also strongly believe that students (and humans in general) can develop the areas that they are not necessarily gifted in. Personally, I am not naturally gifted in math. Teaching grade 6 and 7 math has occasionally challenged me. At nearly 30 years old, I am now enjoying this challenge, where in Grade 6, I really disliked it. The point is, I am developing a skill I am not naturally good at.

It is important to encourage students, and help them know that they are good at something in life. I feel part of my job is to help students discover their gifts. The other part of my job is to try to stretch and challenge students to become stronger in both their gifts, and their weak areas.

This cartoon is rather preachy, so I will stop preaching myself, and let the cartoon do it for me:

Student Debt, and The Cost of Education

Student Debt:

I made another payment to the Canadian National Student Loan Service Center today. It's always sort of a depressing enterprise. I know that this is a first world problem. I should be thankful that I live in a free country, where I have plenty of access to food, clean water, housing,, education, and excellent health care. Please don't think that I am ungrateful for what I've been blessed with.

Ok, enough with the disclaimer. I am rather perturbed with the current system of post secondary education in our country at the moment. Unless your parents are rich, or you somehow are wealthy before going to university, what you will most likely need to do is to take out a student loan. By the way, if you are wealthy going in to university, what are you doing? Why not enjoy a life of ease instead of putting yourself into difficult situations like writing essays and exams? You don't need an education to get a job; you already are wealthy. Just be careful to not use up all your money. Or, maybe you are getting an education for the intrinsic reward of knowledge. That is admirable, but rare.

Anyway, back to the student debt. Maybe you had enough saved up from when you worked at a gas station during high school to pay for one semester of university, but after a year you need to borrow money to pay for school. Federal student loans are wonderful in that they are interest free while you are in school. This seems fair. This is how the process works:

1. Borrow from government to pay for school.
2. Attend university for a while, and do well enough in your courses to graduate. (note: It is probably best to NOT get a part time job while attending school full time if you want to do your best in your courses. It's called full time because it's meant to take up as much or more hours as a full time job)
3. After graduation, get a job. Hopefully it is a well paying one, because by now you are probably about at least 20 thousand in debt to the government, and they start wanting their money back 6 months after graduation.
4. Once you get a job, begin paying back your student loan. The current interest rate on the loan in BC is 5.5%, which in my case works out to $3.32 a day. 

Here's the really disappointing part though. If you made money at a job during this process, you must pay taxes on it. Sales tax, fuel tax, income tax, CPP, E.I., (I know CPP and EI are not taxes, but they are mandatory payments for services that I may never be able to utilize)

If you are a visual learner, this may be a better way to explain it. Sorry about the scribbles, apparently even teachers make mistakes. This is a fairly accurate, personal example of my student debt. I actually make slightly less than 40thousand, and I do not work for a public school, so I do not receive payment from the government. My diagram is actually worse; I don't get any payment from the government. In my diagram, all I received was the initial disbursement of student loans at step 1.

In summary:

You are passionate about something, or simply want a job.
You go to post secondary school to receive the qualifications to work at that job.
You borrow money from the government in order to get the education to get the qualifications to get the job.
You graduate, get the job, and begin being paid by the same government for your work.
You then begin paying both income taxes and interest on your loan.

In my opinion, this basically means you are paying the government to have the right to get a job. Once you get that job, you have to pay them income taxes as well. I know this is oversimplifying the matter a bit, but that is what it seems to me.