Three tips to helping children discover the pleasure of reading Children are struggling to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on their learning, particularly those in younger grades who were already struggling with reading. Fortunately, a University of Alberta research team has created and tested an evidence-based program to help get students back on…
ChatGPT is an impressive tool, but it is just that – a tool Artificial intelligence has come a long way. Unlike the rudimentary software of the past, modern-day programs such as ChatGPT are truly impressive. Whether you need a 1,000-word essay summarizing the history of Manitoba, a 500-word article extolling the virtues of your favourite…
We must never give up the struggle to preserve our right to know Academic freedom is a cornerstone of democracy. Academic freedom, therefore, should be cherished by both the left and the right. When this freedom is threatened, it should concern all of us. Academic freedom is misunderstood by many. As an educator, I want…
The learning styles myth perpetuates a falsehood about how students learn Are you a visual learner, an auditory learner, or a tactile-kinaesthetic learner? If you think this is a valid question, then you, like many others, have fallen for one of the most pervasive education myths out there. It’s not hard to test this claim…
The whole language approach to teaching reading has been devastating for students Reading is the most important skill taught in school. If students don’t learn how to read, not much else that happens there is going to matter. That’s because being able to read is essential in virtually every job. Without the ability to read,…
Ford should follow BC’s example if the union continues to refuse to accept a reasonable offer Ontario taxpayers need to know some important numbers as CUPE squares off with the government over wages. Their province is facing a fiscal reckoning. Their province is $469 billion in debt. Their province is the most-indebted sub-national government in…
Schools must avoid the equally misguided extremes of zero-tolerance policies and permissive idealism
Saunders Secondary School in London, Ont., is home to approximately 2,000 students. It’s been in the news a lot lately, but not in a good way. A recent CBC story quoted an anonymous teacher who described Saunders as a “tinderbox of violence” where students regularly challenge teachers to fist fights after school. Over the last six…
Should in-person learning be an essential service? Can parents and guardians be included in decisions?
Sometimes it takes a crisis to make things clear. Consider the last two years of rolling pandemic school closures. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Ontario’s government education systems largely failed to serve more than two million students well. Calls for wholesale reform to Ontario education have begun and include revamping all kindergarten-to-Grade-12 curricula and a…
Ontario's single public school system will never adequately meet the needs of all of its families
Recent controversy over the provincial government’s provision of rapid tests to independent (private) schools but not public schools stems from the fact that independent schools in Ontario exist in a policy no-man’s-land. If education policy throughout the pandemic has proved anything, it’s that the provincial government doesn’t have the framework to make adequate provisions for…
The public system, on the other hand, failed in its response to Covid-19
As Ontario’s public schools struggle to accommodate students in a new school year amid what could be a fourth wave of COVID-19, what can the provincial government learn from the last 17 months? For starters, the government needs to accept that huge, industrial-scale schools (typical in the public system) are pretty weak at responding to…