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Have you ever wondered why we have separated elementary and secondary schools? Why schools are broken into subjects? Why our schools look suspiciously like factories? It’s often more a result of inherited practice, political and social forces and economic influences – than because we know it’s best for our children.
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Canada has a lot to be proud of when it comes to education. We rank well internationally, our schools are filled with intelligent, passionate educators, access is free and the majority of our youth graduate from high school to join a diverse and primarily peaceful, well-functioning society. Many of us, however, have a niggling suspicion that something isn’t quite right. When you can’t think of a single teenager who enjoys school and is excited to learn – something is wrong. When teachers can’t possibly use teaching strategies that support deeper learning because the curriculum is too crowded – something is wrong. And when we have increasing rates of youth violence, apathy, depression and suicide – something is very definitely wrong.
Read more One ironical consequence of the drive for so-called higher standards is that students are too busy to think. John Holt, Education critic (1959)
Most of the current strategies that fall under the heading of academic standards” are attempts to “create more losers in order to make space for the winners. David Labaree, Educational Historian
The Freedom Writers Diary is the amazing true story of strength, courage, and achievement in the face of adversity. In the fall of 1994, in Room 203 at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, an idealistic twenty-four-year-old teacher named Erin Gruwell faced her first group of students, dubbed by the administration as “unteachable, at-risk” teenagers. This group was unlike any she had ever interacted with.
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