News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
 8.4K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 39K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 4.7K     0 

Hipster Duck

Senior Member
Member Bio
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Messages
3,558
Reaction score
10
I thought this might be an interesting thread to open up, although I don't know whether this belongs here or in the Politics section.

First off, do you believe that the role of public education is to mould a more civil society? Secondly, and this can be answered whether you answered yes or no to the first question, is what would you do to change Ontario's current high school curriculum?

I personally think that there should be a greater emphasis on geography instruction. It might have changed since I went to HS over 10 years ago, but, back then, "geography" meant learning about how continents were formed, how to read relief maps and some understanding of spatial context. Human geography, however, was sort of glossed over (this might have been just the case at my school or school board - I don't want to generalize).

I've often thought that our society has suffered from most people's level of geography knowledge. This manifests itself in several ways, whether its a lack of spatial awareness (a lot of people can't tell which direction they're traveling) to much deeper cultural insensitivities (if you're not able to find a country on the map, you're less likely to inquire about their cultural customs, how their society functions, etc.) that unfortunately misinform a lot of our judgments. I feel that people have become more intellectually insular and tend to frame things solely from their own cultural reference point because their lack of awareness of the world prevents them from being in other people's shoes. On the whole, I think that this makes geography easily as important as science or math - both of which are treated much more seriously in our school systems.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. What would you change?
 
I would introduce a mandatory course on basic personal finances and banking. It astounds me how many people are clueless when it comes to investing, borrowing and even basic banking. Something everybody has to deal with in their lives, and very important!
 
First off, do you believe that the role of public education is to mould a more civil society?
No. Not first and foremost at least. The goal of education has to be to pass on relevant knowledge and competencies to students. During kindergartern there isn't much to teach but values, but by highschool the focus should be on knowledge.

Secondly, and this can be answered whether you answered yes or no to the first question, is what would you do to change Ontario's current high school curriculum?
I would move to an externally reviewed system. So rather an assessment occurring primarily with a student's teacher, periodic assessments would have to be sent to neutral third parties (other qualified teachers) in order to ensure that assessment is homogeneous throughout the province and identify teacher with abnormal grading criteria.
Course wise, students should be required to take some kind of basic personal finance/economics course. That people in Canada still use payday loan services is proof that some people don't get the first thing about money. The list of stupid economic decisions people make (reverse mortgages, carrying credit card bills, life insurance) is really astounding.
 
Not exactly curriculum related but I would get rid of all the private high schools in town. I'm new to this city but these amaze me. I know someone who attended some of these schools to upgrade and got excellent high school marks without having to do much at all. Thats not even the bad part...here's the kicker ... after those classes, he was hired to be a teacher at the school! No need for a teaching degree or any kind of degree! He's there right now teaching kids a few days a week and actually giving out valid Ontario high school credits and marks!
 
^
I don't really see the point of that. I don't know what school your friend went to, or how he managed to get a job with TDSB without any proper qualifications, but that anecdote seems highly atypical from my experience with private high schools. Though some I would agree some private schools offer no improvement on public education, SOLA, most do offer enhanced educations. Most reports on school performance has private schools outranking public equivalents.

My ideal educational framework would be to move to a voucher system. Instead of having public schools, governments would just give parents an equivalent tuition subsidy for any institution which qualifies for a public curriculum.
 
^
I don't really see the point of that. I don't know what school your friend went to, or how he managed to get a job with TDSB without any proper qualifications, but that anecdote seems highly atypical from my experience with private high schools. Though some I would agree some private schools offer no improvement on public education, SOLA, most do offer enhanced educations. Most reports on school performance has private schools outranking public equivalents.

My ideal educational framework would be to move to a voucher system. Instead of having public schools, governments would just give parents an equivalent tuition subsidy for any institution which qualifies for a public curriculum.

How much of that is do to input bias? Many/most private schools screen students by ability.
 
Oh, I'm sorry I believe I have the terms mistaken. I don't mean those exclusive/expensive private schools...i mean those high school advancement places you see all over town. Typically they are an office with a few rooms to hold classes. They are all over town and from what i've heard from many students in town, you can pretty much buy a grade at certain schools.
 
Last edited:
My first instinct was an additional history credit (Canadian history preferably) and a mandatory credit from one of human geography (as mentioned above), politics, or a third language.

This would provide students with more depth in Canadian history, plus provide them with a course focusing on something global/international.

Civics would need to be revamped and maybe absorbed into the Canadian history course.
 
Oh, I'm sorry I believe I have the terms mistaken. I don't mean those exclusive/expensive private schools...i mean those high school advancement places you see all over town. Typically they are an office with a few rooms to hold classes. They are all over town and from what i've heard from many students in town, you can pretty much buy a grade at certain schools.

Ohh, yea, those are bollux. Everyone who dropped out of my school ended up going to those diploma mills and getting strait 90s doing nothing but eating shrooms. I don't really get how Ontario allows them to award credits.
 
My son is about to start grade 12. The public school system has served him well. I have helped him along the way.
There is a personal finance course offered.
I took a consumer and law education course in the 70's......taught me how to buy a car, file my income tax return and how to obtain a bank loan for various reasons. I remember the teacher telling us all..."if you are ever arrested, all you should say is that you are innocent and that you want to speak to a lawyer", I still value the education passed on by that particular teacher.
 
When I was in Grade 10, there was a Europe and Asia human geography course that really did try to teach people about the rest of the world. It was quite informative and most of the people I know that were in the class have at least retained a bit of knowledge, which is more than many have of those areas beyond stereotypes and tourism. They canceled the course the next year.
 
The thing I really find lacking about my experience in the school system is that a lot of the knowledge I had to learn about how our govt functions, how our society functions, how important things in our life work and operate and about other people's and their religion and culture was mostly all learned by my self.
I think most of my fundamental knowledge of science and technology comes from watching Magic School Bus when I was young.
Really High School gives you no knowledge about how our economy works, how our banks work, how taxes work and so and so on. Unless you take special courses, you would not know.

You would say, that is expected of one self to learn all of this by himself.

Thing is many I know, do not know anything about such topics and are clueless. I have a friend who every time I am with asks me a general question like whats Communism? What capitalism?? How does our voting system work?

Also I find it shocking how someone can live in one place for 20+ years and cannot figure out which way is north.

I am in India right now and have been here for 3 weeks have figured it out, like seriously!!!

Also Geography in High School is a silly. More time is spent on sedimentary rocks then on Maps.
 
Learn Diet!

A mandatory course in grade 10, 11 or 12 to learn healthy diet, food education and basic cooking. We've almost completely lost the ability in the past 30 or so years to prepare wholesome meals that our bodies need to stay healthy, and to learn what healthy food even is. This "oversight" is creating epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer in people at alarmingly young ages. This is cutting short our current generation's life expectancy and is becoming, and will continue to become an even greater burden on our health care system.
One needs only to look at the size of kitchens in all the new condos being thrown up to realize how low on the list this most important, functional space has become. Most counter-tops are barely big enough to hold a coffee pot and a bag of Burger King takeaway.
 
I'd revamp and reinstitute shop classes. It's always baffled me why there is such an emphasis on woodworking and so little to be said about anything else. It should be turned into a class that's half taught in a classroom (modules would include tool identification, basic construction theory, health and safety, and basic blueprint reading) and the other half would be in a workshop but would include projects like wiring a light switch, soldering pipes, patching drywall, etc.

There wouldn't be such a shortage of skilled trades if we were exposing high school students to the jobs that are out there, and it would open up the trades to a wider range of people (important, since right now the only way most people can learn the fundamentals is through their fathers or brothers or uncles, which tends to explain part of why trades run in families)
 
Please the school boards look down on such things and think everyone should become a highly educated professional who does not do any housework or any sort of manual labour at all.
Yeah people do not make food at home anymore. I get sick of outside home after a week, food made at home is best. Its not that hard to cook some pasta's or pizza's and such and other dishes. Lol and my mom use to make my food for the first 20 years of my life as well, so I use to rarely make food for myself. :D


About the skilled trades, anything I learned is from my Father. Lol, I think many of have never cut a piece of wood in their life.
 

Back
Top