GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
Speaking of religion, the biggest issue facing Ontario high schools today is the continued existence of publicly-funded Catholic schools. We spend hundreds of millions of public dollars each year supporting a parallel system that has been condemned by the United Nations as being discriminatory.
I think McGuinty's education policies have been very good, for the most part. The graduation rate has risen every year for the last few years, and there's an increased emphasis on new methods of learning. New Specialist High Skills Major programs essentially allow students to opt to 'major' in a subject area (including Construction, Landscaping, Tourism, Healthcare, etc.) during high school, taking a bundle of courses focused around that employment sector and also doing a two-credit on-the-job component. (Co-op, usually.)
What I think is most lacking in today's curriculum is that it's still divorced from technology. We need to stop ghettoizing computers (particularly in elementary school) to one-hour-a-week typing courses and instead infuse them into all aspects of learning.
Computers and the internet are important, and they're not going away. We need to start teaching kids new kinds of skills from an early age: how to communicate effectively via email, how to conduct research online, the difference between a kilobyte and a megabyte and a gigabyte, etc.
Unfortunately, teachers are some of the most technically illiterate people around today, so we're looking at an uphill battle.
I think McGuinty's education policies have been very good, for the most part. The graduation rate has risen every year for the last few years, and there's an increased emphasis on new methods of learning. New Specialist High Skills Major programs essentially allow students to opt to 'major' in a subject area (including Construction, Landscaping, Tourism, Healthcare, etc.) during high school, taking a bundle of courses focused around that employment sector and also doing a two-credit on-the-job component. (Co-op, usually.)
What I think is most lacking in today's curriculum is that it's still divorced from technology. We need to stop ghettoizing computers (particularly in elementary school) to one-hour-a-week typing courses and instead infuse them into all aspects of learning.
Computers and the internet are important, and they're not going away. We need to start teaching kids new kinds of skills from an early age: how to communicate effectively via email, how to conduct research online, the difference between a kilobyte and a megabyte and a gigabyte, etc.
Unfortunately, teachers are some of the most technically illiterate people around today, so we're looking at an uphill battle.
