SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

A Heads Up for Ontario

This Canadian Education Association report on the English government’s “Innovation Unit” which, tasked with finding a solution for the fact that “not enough young people achieve well and become successful learners”, has come up with a new “improvement paradigm”. Using the “language of transformation and radical innovation”, the Unit favours a “fundamental shift in the balance in schools towards a deeper social constructivist approach incorporating co-construction with students; thematic, project-based assignments; re-balanced skills versus knowledge approaches; enhanced mixes of in-school and out-of-school contexts and settings; peer tutoring, mentoring, coaching; enhanced use of parents, community, ‘experts’, and a changed learner-teacher mix”. Yes, Virginia, some people really do write such things. But before you dismiss this as total nonsense with no relevance to Ontario, read on. Near the end of the report appear these chilling words: “The Innovation Unit has always been outward-facing….a new venture…..a transformed education across their jurisdictions….Ontario is one of the first cohorts.“