How would you change Ontario's high school curriculum?

[unimaginative2]

We should follow the German approach to teaching trades. There's no reason that people should have to wait until post-secondary to learn a trade. People are completely capable of handling it at a young age, and delaying it only causes students inclined in that direction to feel aimless and like their education is not useful.

For students wanting to pursue a trade, we should have programs starting in grade 9 or 10 where they take school half days and apprentice for the other half. By the end of high school, they should be fully certified in their trade.

 

[bleeepbluuup]

Trades are all well and good, but I was still really sad to hear that my high school scrapped music for cosmetology. What was once a nice music room is now a beauty salon.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Can they not combine the two - and make beautiful music together?

 

[W. K. Lis]

How about "Defense Against The Dark Arts"?

Opps, that would be part of English Literature or Film Arts.

On the serious side, I would move Keyboarding (or as it was called in my time in High School, "Typing") to the middle grades, 6, 7, or 8. That is so that it would free up time for the other subjects.

 

[jenny_zhang]

The math curriculum needs to be boosted up. Sciences are okay, but students are getting by without building up their core skills in algebra or trigonometry. That's why a lot of students go to university math courses and start failing. I don't know how seriously math is actually treated in school for this reason. Also math should stop being necessary past grade 10. No one who isn't going into a math related field needs to know about trigonometric identities or what have you. Leave the upper level classes for those who are focused 100% on it.

 

[afransen]

Regarding math, they have to go back to streaming in high school. If you can't keep up with the university stream in grade 9, that's fine--take the more general purpose math course for people who take a little longer to grasp the concepts. Parents forcing their mediocre children into the 'university' math stream ruin it for the rest of the students. Perhaps entrance tests are appropriate for the math streams....

 

[jn_12]

I had a conversation about this with some colleagues a few weeks ago. In the Ministry of Tourism's recent Sorbara Report there's mention that Ontario should be the top place for training in tourism related trades. So the question is, when does someone decide to pursue a tourism-related trade? We've had it ingrained that training starts at the college level. The problem is, that hasn't worked. Clearly we're not producing at a high enough calibre at the college level and to insist that we continue to focus solely on training at this level makes little sense.

So I thought about it. What are we best at? It may sound strange but because of my sports background I immediately thought we're the best at producing hockey players. Why is that? Well because kids are trained hard from a young age in order to become elite. I was on the ice 5 days a week for 9 months of the year from when I was 7 until I was 18. Early exposure, proper coaching throughout, and a structured system that allows kids to progress at their level and strive towards an end goal are all elements that allow Ontario and Canada to create the best hockey players. Now, why can't you transfer that system over to another skill? I'm not suggesting that you have 9 year olds training to be tour guides, but I don't think it's strange to suggest that people who become elite chefs get their start at an early age. Surely it doesn't hurt.

Consider throughout history the people who made some of the greatest contributions in all sorts of different fields and many were masters of one or two things and little else because they received intense training when they were younger in that specific area. Today we seem to prefer that people have a wide range of knowledge but no depth. Most of our biggest advances have been in the area of computers and that's mostly because a lot of teens taught themselves how to code and build and then they went on and got jobs doing that stuff. They didn't decide at 19 that they wanted to become coders and go to school for it then.

So, I think we need to shift our focus and allow for more flexibility. If a kid is passionate about cooking, why restrict him to 1 hour a day for 4 months a year? Same goes for anything else. It's their future, let them decide if they really need that fourth English class.

 

[jenny_zhang]

Regarding math, they have to go back to streaming in high school. If you can't keep up with the university stream in grade 9, that's fine--take the more general purpose math course for people who take a little longer to grasp the concepts. Parents forcing their mediocre children into the 'university' math stream ruin it for the rest of the students. Perhaps entrance tests are appropriate for the math streams....

Completely agree. Some people are just better at math than others. No point in pretending it's not true. The current philosophy appears to be that everyone must get equal education and be treated as having equal potential.

Someone who is a good choice to be a mechanic or plumber can be a mechanic or plumber regardless of whether he's forced barely pass his grade 11 trig test. However, forcing the future engineers and doctors to be held back by the curriculum is a bad idea.

 

[kEiThZ]

Change the definition of a high school credit. Instead of six hours a week, each course would be 5 hours and there would be 5 classes a day. It would make the school day a tad longer. The extra classes would be used to add more mandatory subjects to ensure that students pursue a well rounded education. They would have to take English, French (or another language), math, a science, an art, phys ed, a business or tech course and a social science for three years. In the first two years, the social science requirement would be replaced by 2 Canadian geography and 2 Canadian History credits. The one each that they have now is a joke. Most students come away with no real understanding of the significant events of our history.

On top of this I would add a community service requirement of 40 hrs per year and some kind of fitness requirement (a test or say x amount of hours per year playing sports on school teams, intramurals, community sports clubs, etc.).

Finally, for those who are university/college bound, I would create a new OAC consisting of two credit full year academic courses to be taken in their last year that mimic those they would take in university. In essence, these would be almost like AP courses. For non-university or college bound students who don't have any requirements to meet, the last year would be a combination of co-op and maybe trades training....something to prepare them for the workforce.

I sincerely feel that these changes would create top notch, well rounded high school graduates ready for the world and the workforce or further studies.

 

[Observer Walt]

... In the first two years, the social science requirement would be replaced by 2 Canadian geography and 2 Canadian History credits. The one each that they have now is a joke. Most students come away with no real understanding of the significant events of our history.
...

I certainly agree. Everyone living permanently in Canada should have some grasp of our history and geography. It's amazing when I read the results of public surveys which are done now and again, asking people basic questions like, who was the first prime minister? About half can answer, and the strange thing is that native-born Canadians, presumably educated right through our school system, do worse than immigrants (many of whom study things like that for the citizenship test).

Imagine any kid in the United States not knowing who their first president was! It wouldn't be tolerated.

 

[afransen]

Change the definition of a high school credit. Instead of six hours a week, each course would be 5 hours and there would be 5 classes a day. It would make the school day a tad longer. The extra classes would be used to add more mandatory subjects to ensure that students pursue a well rounded education. They would have to take English, French (or another language), math, a science, an art, phys ed, a business or tech course and a social science for three years. In the first two years, the social science requirement would be replaced by 2 Canadian geography and 2 Canadian History credits. The one each that they have now is a joke. Most students come away with no real understanding of the significant events of our history.

On top of this I would add a community service requirement of 40 hrs per year and some kind of fitness requirement (a test or say x amount of hours per year playing sports on school teams, intramurals, community sports clubs, etc.).

Finally, for those who are university/college bound, I would create a new OAC consisting of two credit full year academic courses to be taken in their last year that mimic those they would take in university. In essence, these would be almost like AP courses. For non-university or college bound students who don't have any requirements to meet, the last year would be a combination of co-op and maybe trades training....something to prepare them for the workforce.

I sincerely feel that these changes would create top notch, well rounded high school graduates ready for the world and the workforce or further studies.

I know this won't be a popular point of view, but I think AP classes are a waste of time. It's all rehashed in first year of university, and my school did not grant university credits for AP classes. Sure, it might help you ace your first year courses, but that tended more often than not to make students lazy and line them up to get slaughtered by new material. Then again, I was in a reasonably demanding program--maybe the experience is different elsewhere.

 

[kEiThZ]

I know this won't be a popular point of view, but I think AP classes are a waste of time. It's all rehashed in first year of university, and my school did not grant university credits for AP classes. Sure, it might help you ace your first year courses, but that tended more often than not to make students lazy and line them up to get slaughtered by new material. Then again, I was in a reasonably demanding program--maybe the experience is different elsewhere.

I am not looking for it to get students credit. It's more the idea of getting used to rigorous year long courses in each subject. And to actually teach more material. A one semester high school course in calculus is scarce preparation for the maths that awaits a science or engineering student.

 

[kEiThZ]

I certainly agree. Everyone living permanently in Canada should have some grasp of our history and geography. It's amazing when I read the results of public surveys which are done now and again, asking people basic questions like, who was the first prime minister? About half can answer, and the strange thing is that native-born Canadians, presumably educated right through our school system, do worse than immigrants (many of whom study things like that for the citizenship test).

Imagine any kid in the United States not knowing who their first president was! It wouldn't be tolerated.

I have considered the idea that maybe they should require that high school students take the citizenship test as a graduation requirement. It's not really all that hard. 20 basic questions on Canadian history, geography, and our society. However, I guess teaching them more would help.

One approach I think would be better is to teach less Canadian history in elementary school and teach more world history, Europe, Asia, etc. The reality is that Canadian history contains complex issues that can't be taken in properly by a 10 year old. This stuff needs to be taught in high school. Whereas teaching a 10 year old about medieval castles and battles is easy.

 

[Whoaccio]

I would rather get a curriculum which doesn't consider things like hours in class. Come up with an assesment criteria, say a few exams, essays and maybe an oral examination like a PhD defense, that would be envigilated and graded by externally and just pass based on that. If a school finds that students learn better by walking in the woods, and that actually translates into objective academic success, then go for it. We should focus on the destination and realize the best way to get there is different for each student. Just set a few core competencies, say a primary languish (English/French), a secondary language, a humanity/social science (history, geography, economics, ect...), a science (chem, bio, phys) a math and an elective (i.e. arts or an additional subject from another category) and let teachers and students decide how best to succeed in each. Maybe run parallel to that a stream system for atypical career choices like art schools or physical training academies. Maybe a vocational and remedial track as well, but the bulk of society should participate in a broadly similar education system.

Streaming or tracking always sounds better in theory than in practice. The most prominent example of streaming is probably Germany and I don't think the results have been all that stellar. Tracking there begins when students are about 10 and at that age educational performance is highly correlated to the education status of one's parents. It has resulted in a quite noticeable bias against low income minority students who most likely have uneducated parents. It is generally true that academic performance changes over time, so the idea of tracking seems doomed to failure. Further, teacher's most likely lack the abilities to properly stream students. They maybe only get a few hours in one on one interaction with a child in a given year, so it seems impossible to accurately judge. As far as I know, most of the top performers in PISA rankings tend to be those with a single curricula.

 

[Whoaccio]

Ohh, and using education to promote social goals isn't a good idea. Specifically, requiring students to learn Canadian history or Canadian politics or some such course is a bad idea. Especially with history the important lesson isn't knowing a given date or who shot Fanz Ferdinand. That kind of stuff only comes up in Jeoperdy! games. The main goal should be to instill students with an ability to synthesize knowledge and opinions from a variety of sources and express them cogently. If a student finds the content of East Asian history or African history more exiting and better facilitates these goals, then we should promote it. Practically, I've often found that Canadian history courses are terribly boring and make up content to compensate for a lack of source material, especially when dealing with pre-colonial history. Learning what plains people, for instance, used buffalo for contributes nothing to a student's understanding of historical processes. Modern (i.e. WW1 & WW2) history often focus on Canadian examples at the expense of more relevant examples in other countries with a more robust body of source material and historiography.

EDIT: Just to be clear, content is important in history. I don't want to infer that you can get by without a firm grounding in facts, but that these facts are just a tool to understand larger themes. So long as you understand the themes, which particular facts one learns is unimportant.