The Subtle Shift

This is the point of the year where I find I have to really push myself to stay on top of things. Early on, it's easy to stay driven, looking for new ideas, new sites, new whatever to introduce to your class. But at this point, things get bogged (blogged?) down.

After reading Will Richardson's blog about how things are headed south of the border, I posted comment which included one of my favorite quotes from when I was an education student (is that an oxymoron?):

"You are all here, studying to become teachers, because you think you can make a difference. But the reality is that the system will try and make you conform. That's what it does to the students, and that's what it's going to try and do to you..."
- Dr. Bob Jickling, Lakehead Univeristy

Fresh out of University and into a public High School, I was unprepared for just how much Bob and hit the nail on the head. To this day, I still get complaints about my class being to loud or too active, but you have to be strong enough to let that slide. Too often I walk through the halls and see kids quietly sitting at their desks, staring at the front of the class, just counting the days until summer. In the staff room I hear complaints from the staff about how "weak" or "apathetic" this year's group is. And I constantly have to remind myself that quiet doesn't necessarily mean listening - then take it even further - because listening doesn't always equate to learning either!

Will's blog revolved around how in the US, they work towards "boosting marks." Whereas up here, and I can only speak for Quebec at this point, the High School leaving standards are dropping as fast as the Montreal Canadians standings in the East. Quebec appears to be in a pitched battle against a dropout rate that scares even the students (it's somewhere around 25% for the entire province - but it can get up above 40% in some of the public boards...) And yet the standards keep falling.

Is this really helping our students? Probably not, but at least their bottom line looks ok for re-election. Instead, we should be looking for a shift - a shift which is buried deep within Quebec's latest reform on student centered learning (if you read long and hard enough, it's in there!) This type of shift is slow and subtle, and it may even take a generation, but it can be done. What we should be looking at is MORE student centered teaching, MORE project based learning, MORE cross-curricular collaborative work, MORE emphasis on the arts and music and Phys Ed instead of just the old math-science-languages routine, and of course MORE time outside of the classroom.

That's right, I said it.

Whatcha going to do about it? eh?