Lack of Vision in Saskatchewan Education |
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By Mario deSantis, March 16, 1999 |
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I have been writing for sometime on the failures of our government in providing a democratic | |
leadership for the provision of public services and the supporting conditions for economic | |
development. My emphasis has concentrated in health care, but we have problems all over the | |
horizon: business, agriculture, crown corporations, and what is worse education. Education is the | |
foundation for sustaining the long run economic viability of the province, and it appears to be in a | |
more precarious situation than health care. Our Premier Romanow promised that Saskatchewan | |
would be the shining light to the world and that "...the time for mortgaging our children's future is | |
over. The time for building their future is here...."(1). Our politicians have nothing to show but their | |
rhetorical assets, while in fact we get the mastering art of "...lowering expectations..."(2), and | |
"...poor leadership, no decision-making and dishonest, uncaring, uncompassionate | |
government..."(3) Our tin pot dictators have taken position all over the province, and now are | |
undermining the new generation by continuing the degradation of our educational system. Again, | |
one of the most important reasons for such degradation in our universities is "...the current | |
military-style, top-down structure that is proving so inefficient, so destructive to good morale and so | |
wasteful of taxpayer money..."(4) | |
After acknowledging that Saskatchewan students scored low in a 1998 literacy test, Darryl Hunter, | |
Education Department Official, commented "...We know here in Saskatchewan our students are not | |
getting to some of the higher levels of creative and critical thinking..."(5) Instead to address the | |
literacy problem by thinking critically and constructively(6), the education department is going to fix | |
this problem with a new province wide language arts curriculum. This is what Saskatchewan | |
requires, an additional top-down fragmentation of our curriculums for enhancing the creative and | |
critical thinking of our students; I wonder how our students can express their creative thinking under | |
the current assembly line management of our classrooms, and how they can enhance their critical | |
thinking when our own leaders have no clue of what critical thinking is(7). I am acquiring the | |
understanding that our educational leaders are a good match for their health care counterparts: they | |
are both emperors with no clothes. Our school system doesn't require a new curriculum, we require | |
a change of mind, to go back to the understanding of the epistemological foundations of knowledge | |
and the nature of learning (8) (9) (10), and come up with an educational vision supporting the later | |
success and societal contribution of our children. | |
---Endnotes: | |
Saskatchewan New Democrats Home Page, as at March 14, 1999 http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/saskndp | |
It's about that vision thing Mr. Premier, by Randy Burton, The StarPhoenix, February 4, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Letter to The StarPhoenix: Agriculture minister acting like lawyers do, by Evan Asseltine of Glaslyn, SK. The StarPhoenix, January 12, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
U of S hassles force early exits, by Robert A. Carlson, The StarPhoenix, March 11, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Sask. Students score low grade in literacy, By Kevin O'Connor, The StarPhoenix, March 11, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Refer to Mario deSantis' articles on System Dynamics published in the North Central Internet News http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantis35/SysDyn-Feb21-99.htm | |
Refer to the board trustee infighting saga over the proposed $10 million-$16 million new Education Centre in Saskatoon. February and March articles in The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Need of Transformational Changes in Saskatchewan: The biological origin of cognition and implications for Education,by Mario deSantis, September 27,1998 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantis11/desantis11.html | |
John Dewey (The Father of Modern Education) http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-dewey.htm The Center for Dewey Studies http://www.siu.edu/~deweyctr/ | |
THE CHILDREN'S MACHINE: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer, by Seymour Papert, 1993 Basic Books, New York (This page was produced by Elizabeth Murphy) http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/~elmurphy/emurphy/papert.html |