Another brilliant posting by Malkin Dare.

Kudos!

“Boys and girls have the same teaching requirements when it comes to learn-ing how to read. The reading achievement of all children can be enhanced with the appropriate instruction; with-out it, the reading progress of all children will be curbed. However, since the factors described above may make boys more susceptible to developing reading problems than girls, it seems likely that the lack of appropriate instruction will take more of a toll on boys.
In England, there may be the fear that phonological and code-emphasis methods of instruction represent a return to all that is old-fashioned, to didacticism, competition, élitism and selection. This need not be the case. Instead, the simple policy one must adhere to is that no practice should be embraced without evidence to support its effectiveness. Rather than increase differences among children, differences will diminish if all children receive good instruction”

Yes all children. Research is providing, along with the stats, that the greater majority of children with reading difficulties are boys, a percentage of about 75 % to 25 % for girls. The top research is stating it is all the instruction in reading. As for the brain science noted: ““Second, boys and girls do appear to use different areas of the brain when reading. Areas predominantly in the left hemisphere are activated in boys, whereas areas in both hemispheres are activated in girls. Evidence suggests that methods that encourage the use of pictures, word shape and world length as reading strategies (largely activating right-brain processes) put boys - who have all their eggs in one basket, so to speak - more at risk of failing to use the appropriate left-hemisphere skills.“” 

I have read the research, and there is a great amount of it in the LD field. One study of interest that has been generated, is that boys in the primary grades are likely to be identified as having reading and learning problems compared to girls. By grades 4 and up, it is likely the girls who are being identified, as opposed to the boys. It is attributed to the brain differences between genders, and not the underlying learning disability, by the scientists. I believed this to be true, based on my own experience with my youngest, where in her primary classes, it was the boys who were single out for reading problems, and the girls who had reading difficulties, it was attributed to different factors, that required no immediate attention.

As for the Globe articles, I do not buy the reasons. The majority of teachers that I had were male, starting in grade 6. Ditto for my adult children, as well as the one still at home.

Check out the comments on both. If that does not indicate a big interest in education by people of all shapes and sizes, I eat my hat. It certainly putting the myth of satisfied parents in the public education system, to the test.

I consider the boy girl achievement gap to be a totally bogus argument. More boys are going to university than ever before and they are also a higher % of the 18-24 age cohort. The “problem” if there is one (there isn’t) is that girls are doing even better than boys and MUCH better than they used to do.

Middle and upper class boys are doing very well no matter what curriculum or pedagogy is used. The achievement gap is exactly as “discovered” in Superman, a gap of social class exacerbated by race.

Dear Dean,

Did you tell the Globe and Dr.Paul Cappon how you feel?

Middle and upper class boys’ parents can afford tutors or have the educational level to help their children.  Here you go again ‘Dean’ implying that poor kids are stupid, whereas the imcompetency lies solely on the shoulders of our educrats.  Quit blaming our children.

“Participation in university education increased for both men and women between the academic years 1990-1991 and 2005-2006. The participation rate for men aged 18 to 24 increased by 5 percentage points, from 16% in 1990-1991 to 21% in 2005-2006. For the same years, the increase in participation rates among women aged 18 to 24 was twice the increase for men; rates of participation among women increased by 10 percentage points from 18% in 1990-1991 to 28% in 2005-2006. 

Participation rates were also higher among women aged18 to 24 than among men in the same age group throughout the entire period from 1990-1991 to 2005-2006.[1] In 1990-1991, the participation rate for women was roughly 2 percentage points higher than for men, while rates in 2005-2006 were 7 percentage points greater for women than for men.”  http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=56#M_2

Apparently the figures have gone up since 2006 where there is more females as opposed to males.

Dean, here is food for thought, that put your social gap theory to shreds.

“Admittedly, this is not proof that there is not a problem. It only reveals that there are a host of lurking variables to unravel before concluding that the gap is even noteworthy. We’d have to conduct a very careful study to determine whether or not there was any “excess” in the gap between men and women. And it’s reasonable to conclude that if there is an excess, it is quite small. It could possibly even be that the proportion should be even greater than it currently is and women are getting the short end of the stick. What is important to note here is that this alarming statistic tells us very little on its own and is probably completely meaningless. All it says for certain is that the laws of supply and demand on college campuses have tilted significantly in men’s favor.”

http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/09/18/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-the-college-gap/

There is some objectionable language at the above link, but well worth reading it.

Bev you need to familiarize yourself with the last 30 years of social science research that points to the fact that the social-economic status of the student is the critical factor in their success. I would love you to point to the spot where I say poor kids are stupid. Poor kids, rich (public school) and middle class kids have the same teachers with the same educational levels teaching with the same methodology. Education directors know that if you move the entire staff from the highest scoring school to the lowest scoring school it will make almost no difference.

Poor kids do badly due to:

Low birth weight
poor nutrition
lack of role models of success
constant moving
no place to study
poor housing
poor transportation
lack of priority in the system
lack of ECE
streaming
chaos in the neighbourhood

Even rural poor kids do much worse than other kids. To deny this makes you look very foolish Bev I mean really you must become better informed.

Do you really not know all of this or are you in denial because it does not fit your philosophy? Hard to tell.

Dear sir,

Add poor instruction.

I agree with you,but I have a program that prevents reading problems in these communities.
The teachers are trained to deliver explicit , multisensory,
phonological awareness training-the multisensory part engages all the senses at once(including articulation) and develops new synapses-if we had MRI`s-we could see it.
Kids that are in this category have very weak phonological awareness as a result of their environment-

You seem to think it`s hopeless,exacerbating their struggles and lives.
I hate to quote Bush but..
“The Bigotry of Low Expectations” is alive and well in Canada.
The U.S. is trying to address the Black/Latino problem-how about us-we have no pressure on us to do the same.

‘Dean’ I said that you wording IMPLIED that the poorer children were stupid, and not that you had actually said it. 
For the list you’ve made regarding children from poorer homes, all of it applies to the 50’s when I attended the poorest school in Windsor, Ontario.  I saw hungry children dressed in rags—wearing their father’s shoes, no underwear, filthy; however the children were all literate, and when I came to the school, after starting in the suburbs, for grade three, I was a behind in the math (which I got teased about)  
hmmm, why could all of us do math, read, spell, and parse a sentence, but the poorer children nowadays are struggling? What was different back then to now?  Perhaps the phonics; drill in math; lots of memory work; staff accountability; zero films and field trips; standardized tests everyone had to pass to go on to the next grade.  That’s what we need again, for the sake of the children—especially the underprivileged.
btw, we also had band, gym, dram, art, and weekly headlice checks by the school nurse.  Best school I ever went to, and I’m still in touch with some of my former classmates.
Dean/Doug or whomever you are, you and your precious left-winged politics has done a lot of damage to countless children.

>>Poor kids, rich (public school) and middle class kids have the same teachers with the same educational levels teaching with the same methodology. Education directors know that if you move the entire staff from the highest scoring school to the lowest scoring school it will make almost no difference. <<

Of course it won’t make a difference!

The middle class kids perform relatively well because of their parents either teach them and help them or have money and time to afford tutoring for them.

There still seem to be a few reasonable good elementary teachers around in the public system.
However they are the exception and not the rule.

As a result almost any middle school student has had at least one bad teacher most likely more than one. So pretty much any solid middle school student has had help and teaching outside the school.

No, dumbing down children and saying the school cannot make a difference in the life of poor children is not left-wing. It is populist.

Further to my post on the previous thread dealing with absenteeism, I have done some quick calculations that are both relevant here and there, so I’ll report it here.

This year I have two academic grade 9 math classes.  There average absenteeism rate for both classes is 6%.  Last year I taught two applied grade 9 math classes.  The average absenteeism rate was 20% (I believe I estimated 25% - but one in 5 students absent every day is still pretty bad).

Furthermore (relevant to this thread), only 40% of my academic classes are boys.  72% of my applied students were boys.  Why is this relevant?  Applied students do not go to university.  So, although more males are going to university, they are representing a smaller proportion of the entire male cohort from any given year.

If one were to actually research why students are in applied vs. academic streams one would find a great gap in basic skills, not just math, but reading, problem solving, etc.  Unlike ‘ghettoized’ Toronto, we are pretty bland out here in the boonies.  Race, income, and other factors are not part of the make up.  Although Doug/Dean has been repeatedly shown by research that race/ECE factors are not as significant in Canada as in the States, he keeps repeating the same Dougma - or do I have to call it Deanma now?

“Check out the comments on both. If that does not indicate a big interest in education by people of all shapes and sizes, I eat my hat. It certainly putting the myth of satisfied parents in the public education system, to the test.”

Well written Nancy.

I don’t buy the Globe article either. They must subscribe to the “offer any solution BUT using effectively proven reading instruction”.

The experience we had with our children doesn’t fit the Globe’s theory.

Oldest child, a boy, had fabulous Grade 1 & 2 teachers who did teach phonics, had spelling dictation and taught language. His class was the second class to take the Grade 6 EQAO test. The scores across the board for that school…that grade have never been as high as the year our boy’s class took the test. For math is was mad-minute tests and practice, practice, practice for homework.

Three years later, those Grade 1 & 2 teachers left the school.

Second child, a girl, got a dream writer, creative spelling and fuzzy math that required more reading capability than it did knowledge of basic arithmetic.
We had to tutor her ourselves in phonics and the help of OQE advice.

Bev,

You look at the past with rose coloured glasses. Every decade we go back in Canada and the USA, there were more illiterates, more students did worse, fewer completed HS, and so on. There was no Golden Era when things in education were better than they are today. Ask Paul Bennett over at Educhatter. He will tell you exactly the same thing.

Your foggy anecdotal memory cannot stand up to StatsCan data. It has never been better in Canadian education than it is today.

You need to take a serious look at the data Bev. There is an “Iron Law” in education that, within every country on Earth the rich do better than the middle class and the middle class does better than the poor.

Nobody except racists and classists believe that the poor are genetically inferior.

I look at it like a hurdle race that is 400 metres for every runner but in the very poor lane there are 10 hurdles. In the “blue collar” lane there are 8 hurdles, in the middle class lane there are 6 hurdles and in the rich lane there are 4 hurdles.

At this point everybody says “what is the problem, the race is 400 metres for everybody.”

Instruction was better, Dean.

Dean,

You`ve lost ALL credibility with this post.
Did you notice that in Waiting for Superman they are at a point where only 28% of their children are learning to read in the U.S.

In First Nations communities 1 child in 10 is learning to read by grade 3.
Thanks for your pearls though.

Did you notice that Guggenheim blamed the streaming system as the #1 problem plaguing the system and holding back inner city kids.

Point to the data that says that things were better in the past. You cannot because it was not. We have never been more literate than we are today. Is it good enough, no not by a long shot but almost all the people with reading problems are poor. Where does that tell you to concentrate.

The terrible methods we use are teaching all but the poor to read very well.

The difference between those who can read and those who cannot read is income.

It is not methods or gender or even race or ethnicity although these sometimes track on income. It is not even public or private or charter or voucher or whatever. It is SES that is the question, nothing else.

We all feel Mr.Guggenheim was not aware of pedagogy therefore he did not refer to it.The root of the problem with the demise was something he was not aware of.

Everyone is beginning to discuss methodology in the U.S.-Seek and ye shall find-you refuse to defer to research.
Pontificate and you get the status quo-
Did you say you were an educator?

“Point to the data that says that things were better in the past. You cannot because it was not. We have never been more literate than we are today. Is it good enough, no not by a long shot but almost all the people with reading problems are poor. Where does that tell you to concentrate. “

Dean, that is a false argument, since education boards did not have a comprehensive data collection in the 50s and 60s, as they do today. The individual school boards actually carried the ball back then, and where I lived and no doubt where Bev lived, we had school boards that saw to it, that the majority of children had a solid education and a firm foundation in reading, writing and numeracy.

What is interesting, I have noted there is a shift occurring within the American education system, and perhaps it may very well have been the film, Waiting For Superman, moving away from SES factors, to teacher quality, training, and teaching practices. Bev and I have one thing in common, we had teachers who cared enough, never to allow excuses to get in the way of high expectations, and when learning difficulties came along, it was dealt with right away. I can’t speak for Bev, but our teachers thought nothing of coming to children’s homes, to speak to their parents. The teachers sought out solutions for their students, to maintain the high standards. That is why, I am glad the conversation is finally turning away from SES factors, to what is the most important factor, the teacher, and than teaching practices.

SES factors have always been there, and yet in the school I went to, it was a mixed of native and European immigrants after WWII.  Yet, they managed to educate all of us well, despite the SES factors. The data is there in Ontario’s Ministry of Education, collecting dust no doubt, waiting for someone to review the bright spots - the individual boards that were doing something right, despite the SES factors and challenges that some students faced. Ontario back in the 50s and 60s made major changes, that may have succeeded to beat the odds, compared to the other provinces. I count myself lucky, that I grew up in Ontario, and the politicians who had the political will to change things. Or otherwise, I would have been shown the door back in grade 1, because I was considered a mental defect. Charming name is it not, for a child who did not talk, but could add and subtract before the age of 5. I first heard it from a professional - an expert in the education field, who felt children like me did not belong in a regular public school, at the age of 5. As my mother has told me, I glared at him with all my might, and another person said to him, I think Nancy is angry at you, for calling her a mental deflect, and than I nodded my head. Thank God, for the politicians in my area, that thought otherwise.

As I was reading, I came upon an interesting conversation with Sandra Kobb and Bob Wise. It is a hour long, and it was televised back in 2008. I have news for you, lots more conversations are taking place like this, since the film, Waiting For Superman, on teachers and methodology.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9155

And here is a more recent headline, on teachers’ unions, that too is getting a lot of heated debate among all parties.

“Geoffrey Canada warns Michael Gove teaching unions ‘kill’ innovationBarack Obama’s education pioneer says union inflexibility is a barrier to schools reform.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/05/geoffrey-canada-education-unions

Here is another recent article on the top brass of teachers’ unions, and how they are getting in the way.
http://theloop21.com/society/what-teachers-unions-the-pope-and-osama-bin-laden-have-common

I save my favourite for the last. Called “A Superwoman for Kenya, but America
is still waiting for Superman”

“Sometimes two films set up an uncanny resonance with one another. I saw two documentaries back to back. One filled me with hope and the other washed me in despair. They were both about the education of primary school children.

“A Small Act” centers on the life story of Chris Mburu, who as a small boy living in a mud house in a Kenyan village had his primary and secondary education paid for by a Swedish woman. This cost her $15 a month. They had never met. He went on to the University of Nairobi, graduated from Harvard Law School, and is today a United Nations Human Rights Commissioner.”

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/01/a_superwoman_for_kenya_but_ame.html

Somehow, it puts SES factors in its place, considering the boy lived in a mud hut, and eventually went to Harvard. I bet he had great teachers as well.

One doesn’t have to go to the trouble of searching for data, just pull out any old exam from the 50’s and see if a child of the same age could pass it.  Unfortunately, most can’t.  Education has changed too much, and the sad consquences are that children aren’t learning.

Bev, I actually go back that far and wrote departmentals. By the time they were written the vast majority of students had dropped out. The drop out rate was much higher in the 50s and 60s.

Today many more students stay in school much longer.

He is correct-

It`s because we have so many second chances for kids now-thank God.

It does not mean though that basic skills are in place-2 different matters-Conference Board of Canada-42% of adults have very low literacy rates-so low they cannot read instructions.

Doug/Dean, you’ve talked about all of this stuff before.  you’re trying to say that because more students go on to higher learning that the educational level is higher.  Not it’s not.
I don’t know why you insist on participating on this blog.  you’ve convinced no one, and all you’ve managed to accomplish is let everyone here realize how people of your stripe will do anything to maintain the status quo, regardless of the huge cost to our children.

Dear Bev, you`re so right!
Dean does not care about anyone other than being right and maintaining the status quo.

He is invested in it-fervently!

The Retired Educator(link at left hand side of this page) has done a sleuth’s job in unearthing a remarkable coincidence. 

“Little at “VIP Academy” while criticizing “choice” advocates”

Many thanks cubreporter, you’ve made my day!  Heck I think you made my decade.

On MendEd Mr. Little characterized people who believed in school choice as outdated as those who still believed in a flat earth.

Welcome to the Flat Earth Society Mr. Little!

It was hardly a secret, I sent the address here. I still believe in only the public system receiving money from taxpayers. Nothing has changed.

We made a decision sometime in the 1960s that it was far better to have 25% of the students go to university and 25% go to CAATs than having 10% go to university. The gatekeeper was the departmentals. We got rid of them and decided to give far more people a chance. Most of them went on to highly successful university careers proving that the departmentals were a mistake and that we were right to dump them.

the reaction of the Retired Educator is pretty much bang-on.

I don’t know why I bother to countered Doug’s questionable stats. I dug up some historical stats on Stats Canada, that is of interest. Note the increase in teachers, compared to the increased today, dealing with far less students.

“http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-516-x/pdf/5220023-eng.pdf

“SOURCE: for 1962 to 1975, Education in Canada, 1975 and 1976; for 1958 to 1961, Economic Council of Canada, Staff Study No. 25,
unpublished summaries; for 1920 to 1955, Historical Statistics of Canada, series V184-195 for total Canada figures; breakdown by specialization:
Survey of Higher Education, 1950 to 1955, and Survey of Education, 1919 to 1949; for 1861 to 1911, A History of Higher Education in Canada,
1663-1960, by Professor Robin S. Harris, University of Toronto Press, 1976.
Series W439-455 introduce a new series: undergraduate enrolment by field of specialization and sex. Although figures at the Canada level are
presented from 1861 to 1975, developments in the 1960s and 1970s are most noteworthy. Again, the large increase in the proportion of women (from
25 per cent in 1960 to 42 per cent in 1975) is evident. In addition, this table shows the relative decline of certain professional courses, as enrolment
in general arts and science increased. There were declines in the share of engineering, medicine, pharmacy and dentistry. On the other hand, certain
professions underwent considerable enrolment growth, notably education and commerce.
The proportion in the general arts and science courses combined went from 51 per cent to 55 per cent.
Data in the above series appear reasonable throughout, and have been reliably reported since the 1950s. Special credit is due to Professor Robin S.
Harris of the University of Toronto, from whose well-researched volume, A History of Higher Education in Canada, 1663-1960, information for the
years 1861 to 1911 in this table was taken.
Provincial figures are given in Historical Compendium of Education Statistics. However, these data are available only from 1962.”

I thought it would be of interest, that during the era of the 1960s, education in all areas and at all levels increased for a number of reasons, after WWII, and the need to create a skilled workforce, including increasing the amount of universities and the startup of colleges. From what I viewed in the history, although a bit dry, the credit can go to a number of Canadians who worked in the various fields of the sciences, and started the drive for improvement prior to WWII, to spur research and innovation. But this was happening right across the developed nations, and the advancements that were being made in science that benefit mankind.Canada can be proud of their universities for the people who had a vision back in the 1930s.

However, Doug’s little stat of 25 % going to university has not moved much since the 1970s, and is being maintain, because many professions require a university degree. Other professions, that only required a high school diploma, now require a college degree. The historical stats explain the shift far better than I would, explaining the whys’ of the shift in the 60s. As for the gatekeeper theory, there was plenty of other factors that had far more influence than departmentals keeping students away from university. Doug’s little theory was never mentioned in the stats or the other literature I had read.

Ironic though, the same guy who markets a wildly expensive elitist “academy” to rich foreign families ias deathly opposed to offering the same opportunity to less wealthy Canadian kids.  Here they’re expected to have no option but to attend a public system which may not meet their needs.

Then there’s the issue of the “Dean” of the Academy claiming he really doesn’t have much involvement in the operation…

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Thanks to The Retired Educator for raising the issue.

John,

There is a simple reason that Dean Little refuses to offer the same opportunity to Ontario students - rich or otherwise.  VIP Academy is offering a guarantee that their graduates will be accepted into U of T or York.  Dean Little knows that Ontario grads are too weak in their basic skills to have a guaranteed entrance.  Therefore, it is his tacit agreement that our vaunted Ontario education system is not all it is cracked up to be.

In keeping with the theme of this thread here’s what the Globe and Mail offers today:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/failing-boys/we-need-tool-savvy-teachers/article1764203/

Wayne/John L.

Please explain to me how any one or any organization can “guarantee” acceptance to a university?

As was posted at the other blog by Ms. Crux the students from Dean/Doug’s academy get their money back if they aren’t accept.

I wish parents of children born, raised and educated in Canada could get a full refund of their tax dollars should their children not be accepted to post-secondary school.

Chuck,

A private school is being run like a business.  Most businesses offer some form of money-back guarantee if their product is defective.  All businesses want to maximize profit and minimize losses.  Having to return income for defective products is a loss to the business.

Therefore, businesses will hire the best workers and use the best tools and processes to produce the best product possible.  I’m sure Dean Little will tell you that his school has only the best teachers.  However, the tools and practices he advocates on these blogs are of questionable value.

So how do businesses make up for defective production practices?  They start with the best raw materials - then poor practices won’t damage the end product enough to make it defective.  He is telling us that the best raw material comes from China, not Ontario.

To extend this analogy to the public school system,  we have to take all raw materials, regardless of how damaged it is.  Then we must process it into an end product.  Here is where I agree with the founders of SQE, Nancy, and many others on this site. IF the public education system used the BEST practices, we would be able to take all the ‘raw material’ we were given and produce an excellent end product.  Unfortunately, as you and others have noted, the public school system takes the ‘cookie cutter’ approach (or one size fits all) to all the raw material - if it doesn’t work - oh well! - At least that is Mr. Little’s response.  That what makes it so hypocritical and frustrating to you and others.

He insults you for considering alternative schooling - telling you that only stupid people would advocate that; intelligent people would choose the public system.  Then, when he is presented with studies that the system is not working for all people, he faults the ‘raw material’ - not the production system.  To add insult to injury, he will tell you that you are wrong because we need to spend more on the factory to upgrade to handle the ‘poor’ product from the ‘poor’ fields.  Then, when shown that the public education isn’t working for them either - his answer is that it is their problem.  He won’t even consider a new assembly line (Afri-centric schools, etc)

I hear your anger, and believe me, I’m as angry as you are.

un-flipping-believable!(another word comes to mind)

“It’s bad enough they couldn’t multiply five by two without a calculator, or find the volume of a cylinder with a calculator. These boys could barely hold a ruler to draw straight lines, apply glue without squirting it all over, or use a drill to bore holes. Yet, boys are born tinkerers. They have a deep-seated need to rip things apart, decode their inner workings, create stuff.

In the case of these teens, one could blame the absentee father for not setting an example, but, in Quebec, the problem runs deeper. Enter today’s typical math/science teacher. She’s young and female with a social sciences background. She went through high school believing that “math sucks” and “science is for geeks.” Like most girls, she’s never held a wrench.

Add to this the reformed Quebec curriculum that’s dumbed down the technical subjects to an art. Gone are the math drills and abstract problem-solving. Instead, there’s the socio-cultural context of science and math. So solving a math equation becomes an essay question – complete with the reasoning behind the reasoning and how this is related to the student’s life experiences.

And forget tools-based activities – this teacher has hardly done any herself. Instead, we have sanitized science labs where students barely get to touch, let alone tinker. Paranoid about safety, she asks the students to simply push a few buttons, then write a mile-long report on their “work.”

And you wonder why our boys are failing.”

I love this. Even in my day at grade school, what passed for science, was a lot hands on activities, many messy activities all sitting at tables at the back of the class, including whatever animals we decided as a class, to take care of. Once in high school, we finally had biology labs where we finally had real science equipment, and not the home-made science equipment we made do in grade school.

These days, there is more concern on having classrooms clean at all times, messy activities is a rare sight at schools. One thing that was not mentioned in the article is art class. Art has been reduced down to paper, pencil and other things that are not messy. Gone are the clay sculptures, plaster of paris, and anything else that requires lots of clean-up. The very same things that promotes such things as blending colours and fine motor skills. Skills that can come in useful at the high school level, such as drawing a straight line.

“The issue of failing boys in school can have serious repercussions: Fewer male graduates now would mean fewer scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs in the future. For a country already lagging in innovation and productivity, that’s a consequence we can ill afford.”

I will add, that kids whether boys or girls that have learning difficulties also benefits from messy hands-on activities. I taught my own LD child, in messy things, creating things to even painting in water colour. I believe the skills she learned at home, could be transferred to academic work. At the very least, it raised her self-esteem to a point, where she became more willing to work with me on the basics in math, and english.

Thanks, Nancy,

That explains some of the behaviour I see in the classroom.  I could never figure out why they spend endless hours ‘erasing’.  If I point out an error in a series of equations, they’ll get the eraser out.  I’ll tell them “Just put a line through it and let’s start over here”.  No, they’ll spend five minutes exhaustively erasing out all traces of error.  Then they want help to figure out what they did wrong; but by that time they’ve forgotten their original problem, I may be helping another student, and a good learning moment is gone.

Very well put Wayne. Must remember this analogy, and show it to other parents who often complain about the cookie-cutter approach to LD. My child spent 2 years in a SE math class, obtaining an average of about 96 % for the two years, with very little studying on her part. Meanwhile, after the first three months I felt she learned what she needed to learn, and I wanted one-to-one instruction following along the regular grade 4 math class. I was turned down each time, and repeated to me a number of times that I do not have to bother showing her anything at home. Good thing, I did not do this because she still would be in the SE math class. By grade 6, she was kicked out of the SE math class, and back to regular grade 6 math, based on how well advance she was compared to the other SE students. By the middle of grade 5, she was helping out the other SE students in math, and she came home to complained what she considered baby work, and telling me what the other SE kids can or cannot do in math. She wanted tips from me, so she can help them.

” To add insult to injury, he will tell you that you are wrong because we need to spend more on the factory to upgrade to handle the ‘poor’ product from the ‘poor’ fields.  Then, when shown that the public education isn’t working for them either - his answer is that it is their problem”

By grade 6, my child was brought back into the regular math class, with no supports. Not one support, and was expected to perform like the other kids. They responded by tutoring classes at noon hour and she would be given extra attention by the teacher. Yes, upgrading the factory without due consideration on matters of instruction. By the way, my child never did attend the tutor class, and as for extra attention, she still remembers it as being chewed out for not following the method instructed, even though she had the correct answer.

>> ...the best raw material comes from China, not Ontario. <<

Well, there is a bit more to that.

The majority of students coming from China trying to attend Canadian universities are generally not the top-tier chinese students.

What happens is that the competition is so intense in China that if your results in the national exam that determines admission to universities are not good enough to allow you to choose a top or middle Chinese university, then your chinese university degree doesn’t amount to much and does not open the door to jobs.

So a lot of the chinese students trying to attend Canadian universities ehave not passed the national entrance exam with high enough marks to allow them to choose a good chinese university.
(Once in such university the chance to study abroad on a scholarship as opposed to your own money is a lot higher.)

My point is that because of years of good teaching and very hard work an “good” chinese student would be considered a “very good” student here.

Here’s an updated editorial from the G&M

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/failing-boys/editorial-we-cant-tolerate-failing-boys/article1766685/

The Globe article, once again is skirting around the big elephant of instruction.  I was reading an article from the LD world, the steady increase in LD and dyslexia over the years, started at the time when they eliminated phonics, spelling, and grammar from the elementary curriculum. I bet the same thing can be applied to boys as well. And the stats would probably be able to make the connection, because one only has to go back 40 years.

How can we get through-Bang On-

Experienced teachers in the boards see it too-

Their hands ate tied by the progressivists in the Literacy Secretariat that spread their gospel.

And the likes of Union guys like Doug/Dean as well.

Nobody worries about children-and that includes Professors.

Math skills are also abysimal!