WRITER - The Tyee -
School Daze
Education is on the Ropes in BC – Again
- My friend, Ken, sells his house in Metrotown, buys in Oakridge, and takes his older daughter to enroll at Eric Hamber, the school that is basically across the street from their new digs. No dice. He, and dozens, no, hundreds like him, are told that the school is full and that his daughter will either have to continue her high school education in Burnaby, or enroll at John Oliver at 41st and Fraser.
- A neighbour teaches at University Hill High School. She tells me that the school is built for 220 students and this year the enrollment is over 500. When we say “built,” we are being extravagant as most of the classes are in trailers and panabodes, not, as Seinfeld would say, that there’s anything wrong with that. Larnin’ can happen in a pasture, need be.
- My teacher-neighbour recites the case of the man – somewhat like my friend Ken up in Oakridge – who buys a very expensive condo in Hampton Place and is encouraged by the anxious salesman that this is a great place for his daughter to go to school. For example, University Hill. On the third day of school, on the third day of arguing with the school receptionist, the guidance counselor and the Vice-Principal, the man flies completely into the Red Zone, blows several gaskets and is hauled away by police in handcuffs! Dear old golden rule days.
- The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and the Provincial Government are locked in their annual fall ritual – the strike, the threat of strike, the legislation, the arbitration, the stages of the strike, the negotiation for parts of a strike, the admonishments, the blames, the pulling of hair. Both are to blame. The BCTF, quite simply, has never met a government it couldn’t hate. And that includes the NDP. The government, in spite of all its declarations to the contrary, is starving the system. Note the following.
- Universities across the country report that students cannot read, write or spell.
- A new parent group calling itself The BC Society for Public Education claims that parents, students and teachers last year raised almost three-quarters of a million dollars to pay for learning essentials, including textbooks. Yes, some monies were raised for phys-ed equipment, computers, computer programs, music stands and the like. But textbooks and library books were high on the list. Bless the children and bless the bake sales.
- The Fraser Institute’s Michael Walker in his excellent op-ed piece in The Vancouver Sun last week points out that 53% of all aboriginal children who enter the school system fail to graduate, that the Provincial government has just pledged another $100 million dollars to aboriginals for, for…well, for somethingorother. But not in particular for the education of aboriginal children. In short, this money, unless clearly focused on the future, can only be wasted.
- And finally, there is that other fall ritual, Censorship in Surrey. A few years ago, it was three silly little story books, which I read aloud on my radio show to an eight year old sitting with me in the studio. The girl thought the stories about two dads or two moms were “nice.” Her dad, who was also sitting in the studio, thought it all the work of the devil. This year, it’s “The Laramie Project,” a play written by New York playwright Moises Kaufman, which is about the horrifying case of a young gay man, who was tied to a fence and beaten and abandoned unto death. A number of Surrey kids turned out for the auditions, but to no avail. Surrey School superintendents had canceled the work citing the corrupting forces of sex, violence and swearing. Of course, no children in Surrey have ever been exposed to such forces. And the fact that the piece is a didactic sermon condemning bad behaviors was somehow missed by the geniuses who take such good care of the children in our largest city.
In all, and in spite of the spirited good work of most teachers on a daily basis, our education system is deeply flawed. Would Mr. Campbell, or someone in his caucus, please grab hold of this file and do something real and substantive? God and the devil are in the details.
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WRITER
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