As I was watching the video of the mother complaining about the fact that 70% of the 83 students in one teacher’s three Math 11 classes were failing (a much higher rate than those of Math 11 students being taught by others) I found myself wondering whether the mother was a product of the BC education system herself?

The question as to the mother being a product of the BC education system arose because of the assumption that either the teacher or the material were at fault, while the obvious and ultimately most important question went unasked or unconsidered or not even thought of.

Given the ample evidence that BC’s educational system is providing a non-educational experience to BC students, the question that truly needs to be addressed is whether the failure rate is a result of this particular teacher actually holding students to the standard (level of knowledge and ability to perform mathematics) that students should have in order to be judged to have mastered the material of Math 11.

I hear you asking “Doesn’t the fact that only the students of this one teacher are failing mean that, obviously, something is ‘wrong’ with this teacher?”

Not necessarily.

We are talking a system that adheres to the ‘social pass’ or ‘we cannot fail them because it would not be good for their self image’ dogma.

A system that believes it doesn’t matter if a teacher knows what they are teaching, what matters is whether the teacher has a lot of teaching theory and technique and that if you ‘know how to teach’ you can teach anything – even if you don’t know or understand the material you are suppose to teach.

It could well be that this is the only teacher with a background in mathematics that allows an understanding of the material and what the students must know and be able to do to be considered to have mastered the material. Or simply that this is the only teacher willing to hold their students to the standard they are suppose to meet to pass the class, with other teachers simply belling the marks to achieve an acceptable number of students passing.

Remember the schools reaction to complaints was simply to raise the marks to placate the parents.

The BC parents reaction was to complain about the failure rate, looking for someone to blame.

My parents reaction to this situation would have been to look at the test(s) that resulted in the failing grade to determine a) were the test questions and degree of difficulty in line with the knowledge, skill and ability set out in the syllabus of the course and b) did my answers show a level of mastery of the material of the course such that I should have passed, or did I deserve to fail because I had not mastered the course material?

I had someone I know tell the tale of how hard it was, when the teacher passed her son when he did not know what he was supposed to have learned or acquired the skills he was to have mastered, to get the school to have him repeat the grade until he had learned and mastered the knowledge he was suppose to have.

The time and effort she had to invest to force the school to do what it should do to teach her child the material of that grade instead of simply passing him on until the school had turned him into another graduate who lacked the reading, writing, math skills and knowledge to thrive in the world outside the classroom after graduation.

Someone else recently shared how, when the schools established the social pass, she had removed her children from the public system in order to ensure her children got an education – not just a certificate that is not worth the paper it was printed on.

I cannot fathom how parents in BC have not demanded their children get the education, the knowledge and skills that they are suppose to receive by making the criteria for advancing to the next grade level having mastered the material of their current grade – not the simple fact they are still breathing.

One wonders what thinking (or should that be non-thinking) was involved in the decision that ‘social pass’ was a good idea and not something that would, as is happening now, rob students of an education.

Or was it that the ‘just pass them’ policy is easier on everybody except, ultimately, the students.

To many failing (as in the Math 11 classes)? No problem – just adjust the marks upward on a bell curve.

The school(s) must be doing a fine job, just look at the student’s marks and see how well the students are learning, what a swell job the school(s) are doing.

Graduates of the system illiterate? functionally illiterate? unable to do simple mathematics, comprehend and solve problems? Universities having to determine which remedial classes new freshmen need to take in order to be able to function at the level required by University courses? Unfounded rumours started by those who want to impose required standards as the basis upon which advancement to the next grade is made.

Which would force teachers to waste their time ensuring students learn the material and develop the skills necessary to pass tests. Pshaw! Teachers being judged on their ability to enable their students to learn the material and acquire the skills appropriate to their grade level? Cannot have that – it would reveal the competence/incompetence of the members of the BCTF employed by school districts across BC.

No, no. Those types of tests are unrealistic, forcing teachers to focus on knowledge, skills and abilities of the students instead of the important stuff like……ummmmm….you know – the important, non-knowledge, non-skills and non-ability stuff.

The fact that so many graduates are illiterate, functionally illiterate, math illiterate does not mean teachers are not doing a good job. It simply means that………ummmm…BC teachers are faced with trying to teach really dumb students. Ya, that’s it. It is not a failure to teach by teachers, it is failure to learn by students.

No doubt the real problem is that those who, like me, are appalled by what is passing for education in the BC school system are misinformed about the purpose of the BC schools system. Foolishly thinking school is about education.

While in BC school is about providing daycare. Because any system that embraces the ‘social pass’ where students cannot fail is NOT about educating students, it is about providing babysitting, very expensive babysitting.

The focus on babysitting rather than education is why the coverage and commentary about the recent 3 day teacher strike was focused on the scramble to find/provide alternative babysitting and how inconvenient it was for parents to not be able to drop their children off at daycare, AKA school, as usual.

I recently was confronted with several young victims of the provincial babysitting system parroting the teachers line about class size.

Why is it that teachers cannot teach the children in their care to read, write, do math, problem solve etc, BUT they can manage to indoctrinate the children with the BCTF party line?

Anyway, back to the victims of the education (and one must use the term education very loosely to apply it to BC schools) and the classroom overcrowding indoctrination they received from agents of the BCTF.

It turns out that their ‘overcrowded’ classes have fewer students the my school classes did and I and my classmates managed to receive a solid education in these ‘overcrowded’ conditions.

Of course we did have the advantage of being educated before education was reformed (repeatedly). When the focus was on making sure that students could read, write, do arithmetic and had mastered the material of the grade level before they graduated. And teachers were required to know the subject they were teaching – and to be able to read and write.

Because no matter how much teaching theory or how many fancy teaching techniques you have – garbage in still equals garbage out.

Our education system needs to be changed to focus on and accomplish what it is suppose to be doing – providing our youth with an education that gives them the knowledge and skills they will need in the world outside the BC school system.

The administrative side needs serious reform to stop wasting the millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of dollars it squanders each year. As evidenced by the review commissioned by the Vancouver School Board to prove the provinces examination that suggested there were millions of dollars of savings to be had. Oooops!

School boards and school board members have to become focused on equipping students with the knowledge, skills and abilities (the Education) that will serve them well when they leave the school system.

As opposed to boards such as Abbotsford’s where the focus is not on preparing students to be able to face and deal with the real world, but on what knowledge to withhold from students. About board members delicate sensibilities as opposed to the needs of students to be prepared to thrive in the real world, not the fantasy world(s) of the Abbotsford School Board members. As if Abbotsford’s students lack the intelligence and judgement of their counterparts in countries such as the Netherlands.

Parents need to become involved, demanding the school system educate their children; stressing the importance of education and making homework and study a priority; even though this change will not be easy, requiring as it does the investment of time and effort.

We need to weed out teachers who cannot teach and those who do not have the knowledge to be teaching the classes they are suppose to be teaching. Given the evidence that a significant percentage of the current teaching staff lack the ability or knowledge to educate students, the BCTF will oppose any efforts to make ability, not seniority, the criteria to hold a teaching position in the BC school system.

It is clear that the educational methods, standards and requirements for those wishing to teach in the school system need a serious overhaul to provide those who would teach with the skills, knowledge and understanding of the subject(s) to be able to impart that knowledge to their students.

Maintaining those standards and imposing discipline needs to be independent of the control of teachers. Yes, teachers must be involved in the process but……the process must be independent of the status quo.

Per contra……

Forty years ago the nation debt was $20 billion, national healthcare was being introduced; technology was exploding; the future included the conquest of space – Moon base, Mars, the stars.

The future was so bright you had to wear shades and young people needed an education for that bright future.

Today the national debt is $600+ billion with provincial debt in no better shape; healthcare is crumbling under rising costs, federal/ provincial debt levels and demand; we have not simply turned away from space but have abandoned the sense of  wonder and can do that space ignited; youth today are looking at the drudgery of slaving at low paying service jobs to repay the debt they will be saddled with because their parents and grandparents squandered their future to pay for the luxury of their ‘put it on credit, let the kids pay it’ lifestyle.

Any brightness in the future of today’s youth comes from inheriting a large sum of money or wearing rose coloured glasses. So really, I suppose kids today, other than the few needed to keep society running for the comfort of the, don’t need an education for their future since their parents and grandparents have already frittered their future  away on themselves. There can be no doubt that from the point of view of the begetters it is not simply expedient but provident, that young people lack the education to understand how their future was greedily, thoughtlessly, uncaringly, consumed by their parents and grandparents.