Education in Canada - contemporary snapshot

1
Education in Canada - contemporary snapshot

• Provincially mandated
• Teacher training
• Budget allocation
• Curricula
• Extra-curricular initiatives
• Locally administered
• School boards
• Individual classrooms

2
19th Century Century of schooling

• In early 19th C.
• Schooling less important than household
  livelihood
• Few formal schools outside major towns
• Classes or masses debates
• 1871 attendance compulsory for ages 7-13
• 1844-1876 Egerton Ryerson and major school
  reforms centralized provincial administration
• Increasing urbanization and more diverse
  employment

3
Education as moral and democratic progress

• Education in 19th C considered necessary for a
  rebellious society in need of stability and
  progress economic progress required civil
  order, and schools had a role to play in ensuring
  political stability in a period of profound
  social change (Axelrod, 1997 25)
• "The great task of the school, then, was not only
  to direct intellectual behaviour, but also moral
  and social behaviour. The safety of the state
  depended on the 'safe' citizen. The ideal state
  was one in which there was order, stability, and
  loyalty" (McDonald, 1978 98

4
20th Century Professionalization, Urbanization

• Increasing professionalization and centralization
  of education in Ontario
• Broadening curriculum, increase in mandatory age
  limit, concern with drop-out rates
• Increasing attention to white-collar work, urban
  growth, national economic growth, financial
  stability baby-boom

5
Late 20th Century

• 1970s Strong influence of local voluntary
  associations of parents and community members
  Overall public involvement in school
  policy/curric/etc
• "access to schoolsshould be the right of every
  citizen, and therefore after-hours control of
  facilities should be transferred to local
  community action councils" (1971 Provincial
  committee in Stamp, 1982 232).
• Heightened concerns for public accountability,
  and tensions between the local and provincial
  scales
• Continuing pressure on teachers and the school to
  solve social problems

6
Current Canadian Trends

• The decline of the school a site of social
  cohesion
• In recent yearsthere has been far less
  confidence or interest in the ability of
  education to perform the development functions of
  social solidarity, democratic citizenship, and
  national identity (Mitchell, 2003)
• Increasing standardization and accountability
• Policies driving the agenda of education reform
  illustrate many features of neoliberal discourse
  such asprivatization, marketisation and
  performativity in the school system (Basu, 2004)

7
Current Trends - Resurgence in Character
Education

• Character education involves the preparation of
  learners to be responsible, caring and
  contributing citizensthe development of safe,
  supportive schools, develops the emotional and
  social learning and enhances academic
  achievement. (York Region DSB, 2003)
• It is a whole school effort to create a
  community that promotes the highest standards of
  student discipline and citizenship. (Simcoe
  County DSB, 2003, 2)
• Citizenship confers upon individuals certain
  rights and privileges and, more importantly,
  responsibilities and obligationswe are expected
  to contribute to community and to nation
  building. (KPR DSB, 2003 3)

8
Current Trends - Schools and the Right to
Safety?

• Safety initiatives justified as a prerequisite
  to student achievement (Ministry of Education -
  Sept 21/2005)
• Every student has the right to feel safe and be
  safe in school and on school grounds
• Initiatives to make our schools safer are part
  of our comprehensive Excellence for All strategy
  to improve education in Ontario...so that they
  can become the best contributing citizens they
  can be.
• Every student should know how to think for him-
  or herself, appreciate the rights and obligations
  of good citizenship and learn about character
  values.

9
Since the Safe Schools Act

• To ensure that all members of the school
  community, especially people in positions of
  authority, are treated with respect and dignity.
• To promote responsible citizenship by
  encouraging appropriate participation in the
  civic life of the school community. (from the
  Ontario Safe Schools Act, 2000)
• Local schools and principals maintain ability to
  levy additional regulations and administer
  disciplinary measures
• Significant increase in suspensions and
  expulsions particularly male students, visible
  minorities, or disabled
• Review of Safe Schools Act, June 2006
  recommending limits on nature of expulsions,
  allowing students to learn from mistakes

10
Current Trends - Sites of Learning School vs.
Home?

• Parents and guardians are the primary educators
  of their children (Ontario Curriculum, Healthy
  Living)
• The well-being of children is a shared
  responsibility in Canadian society.
• While a childs first educator is the
  familyeducation and learning take place in other
  environments, including at school, in the
  community, and among peers.(A Canada Fit for
  Children, 2004)

11
From Teachers in the Field - School and Home

• Like, why is it that we have to implement 20
  more extra minutes of gym period, into our hectic
  schedule, why do we have to teach them about
  eating properly, and getting enough sleep,
  andall these things that the parents should be
  doing? I think its a great thing that were
  educating them. But where are the parents here?
  Shouldnt the parents be, sort ofmonitoring all
  this kind of thing, and teaching? Like, enough is
  enough, why is it always on our shoulders to do
  everything? And even things like teaching
  manners. And just basic stuff, that parents
  should be doing. Why is it that we have to do
  that, more and more and more?...Im just finding
  that, its just becoming overwhelming.
• (Grade 5 teacher, TD4-02)

12
School and Home

• For some students, their home life and their
  school life might be quite similar? In just the
  fact that, theres expectations at home, and
  theres expectations at schoolAhm, having said
  that, some students come from backgrounds
  wherethey have moreflexibility in their
  choicesAnd so, when they come to school, some of
  them may find that having to follow guidelines is
  a little more difficult.
• (Grade 6/7 teacher, TL1-04)

13
From Teachers in the Field Citizenship and the
Curriculum

• I would say that the Ontario curriculum ah, is
  very similar to kind of a homogeneous
  approachYou know, leading up to the
  standardization of tests, standardized reading
  assessments, standardized math scores, where,
  although they recognize that everyone has a right
  to an education, it starts to become a very
  finite sort of education. And a very homogenized
  education where, its up to the educator, to
  pretty much fill the heads of the students much
  like an empty vessel, with facts, with knowledge,
  with criteriawith experience, that the students
  may not have, which may be very different from
  either the way that they can internalize it, or
  express it themselves
• (Grade 5 Teacher, TD3-01)

14
Citizenship and Curriculum

• Within the curriculum as a whole it's talked
  about, in the wholereason for the Ontario
  curriculum, is to teach children how to begood
  citizens.I don't like that sense of, how to have
  a competitiveplace in the worldWe talked
  about the rights and responsibilities, but next
  year I was thinking I might do thelike start
  making the government stuff sort of the minor
  thing, and make the citizenship a bit
  stronger. because they can talk about it from
  personal experience. And they can relate it to
  themselves, and their home, and their family, and
  even theiryou can bring it down to their level,
  they can relate it to their own little worlds, to
  their community, their home community
• (Grade 5 Teacher, TD2-01)