Great Thread
Great Thread, sorry I'm so late getting to it, it was well hidden, I swear!
So before I start droning on with my thoughts.....background, biases..... I graduated public High School and University, but also attended a private school for 5 years, I'm also a compulsive learner.
That said:
Reforming Education is desirable, as the Canadian system produces 'good' but not great results when compared to the best global peers.
It does many things well, but could do most better.
However, you can never teach everything or even everything that most would agree should be taught.
That leaves the start of this discussion (in my mind) about how much classroom time should there be?
School years can range to as high as 220 academic days in some countries, but most of Europe is between 200-210. Ontario is nominally 194 - 4 PD days for a net total of 190. Most U.S. States average around 180.
I would argue that we should be at around 200 school days net of PD Days.
That provides additional instructional time.
I also favour a longer school day once you hit High School. It should basically result in no homework, but an 8-hour school day. I would argue 9:30am - 5:30pm as this refects the actual biological need of teens to stay up a bit later and get a up a bit later, and keeps them out of mischief until they're hungry for dinner!
That done, I also want to reorganize the school year, as the 11-week summer break results in the need for excessive review time in the fall, up to 4 weeks in some courses, essentially wasted.
I think the year should be 4 terms, of 10 weeks each, followed a by a 2 week break, one in fall, one in winter, one in spring; and then the leftover time could be tacked onto to summer, providing a 5-6 week break.
This would result in a reduction of 1-2 weeks of review every fall.
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Now onto what's studied.
I want to add lots of things, but first we need to make some room:
I would chop all mandatory English after grade 10. I appreciate that many students graduate w/o adequate English as it is, but I think basic, reading, writing, comprehension, spelling and elocution can and should be mastered by Grade 10 at the latest.
On the other hand I see no value in mandating the study of Shakespeare or Haiku, which aside from lacking practical value; also inflict some of the least interesting writing available on students, and worse, we try to have them READ plays that are meant to be performed, as pop-art, not analyzed and dissected as great philosophical prose!
Leave Shakespeare, if you must, to the drama class, and poetry to a Writer's Craft course (electives), and free up space for other disciplines.
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Now that we've got some Academic real estate free......
I'm wholly in agreement that at least 1 full year course should provide 'Basic Life Skills'.
Ideally these are skills that would be passed on by parents, but often aren't (sigh); so the school system must, in the interest of society assure a minimal skill set.
The following would be included: Basic Cooking (or how to boil water); then basic personal finance (credit card interest, how to pay bills, personal savings, bank fees etc.); then how to get a job (resumes, employment applications, job searches, interview skills); then basic home maintenance (or how to change a light bulb); finally basic cleaning (laundry etc.)
After that, I'd like to see a mandatory course in logic/rhetoric/debating/reasoning. This would incorporate elements of media studies (why the media almost always has a bias, and why even the truth, from anyone, is invariably incomplete) and then how to deduce and analyze an argument; then how to compose one. Teaching thinking is important!
To the extent there is space, I'd like to see French reorganized, if its going to be retained, then we ought to teach it with the assumption that goal is functional bilingualism, not vaguely remembering how to count to 10! I think 1 hour per day from Grade 1, ending in Grade 10 as a mandatory course, just like English.
Other Reforms:
End any form of streaming within courses. (in other words, no advanced levels then remedial levels and so on).
Allowing for variation in abilities and career goals is legit, but saying someone has Grade 10 English (when if its remedial, maybe, charitably, we mean they have Grade 7 English) is just misleading.
Instead, we should allow prodigal students who excel in subjects to essentially take exams or advanced placement tests and have them 'skip' a level every so often.
For mandatory subjects, student who are in difficulty should be given the extra help they need to pass, but no dumbing down the curriculum.
Differences in student abilities and desires would largely be accommodated though elective shaping. ie. University bound students would take credits required by their school of choice, while trade-bound students would take courses suited to that and so on.
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Next, we need to raise the passing grade. Fifty percent is not an acceptable grade for awarding a credit. Although a classic extreme example, do you want the surgeon operating on you to have gotten 49% of the answers wrong on the test?
By that same logic, it is wholly unreasonable to suggest a grasp of math or English if your grade is 50%.
I'm not sure what the magic number should be, but not less than 60%, of that I am certain!
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There, now we've perfected Education in Ontario!
(well, that's my short-list)