I Love This Kid

">Malala Yousafzai - Call to Action

Teachers

As much as I hate to link to Daily Kos, this one is too good to pass up:

Are you sick of highly-paid teachers?

"Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do -- babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage."

Yah, right. For that we need four years of university and the kids just teach themselves how to read and do complex mathematical problems. Happens all the time. /sarc

Besides, if we didn't have summers off, when would YOU take your paid vacations?? Hummmm?

Think about that next time you need a heart surgeon. He or she started out in grade one, or earlier, and twelve or more teachers later was equipped to attend medical school. Do you want to go under the knife wielded by someone who doesn't know how to read? Think about it.

Sorry we didn't do a better job on teaching them to write legibly.

From The Late Great..

...Leonardo Michelangelo (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564):

Wise words

"Educated men will look at what I do and say it is useless work, but the words they breathe from their mouths are as wise as the wind they fart from their asses."

Not much has changed.

Teaching

 Over at SNN there was a thread about teaching and the wages teachers make. As much as I like SNN, the commentators on this thread pissed me off. As a former teacher, I was really annoyed at some of the erroneous assertions being made about the profession; how they only work 8.5 months a year; how they are over paid for doing a really easy job, etc., etc., etc..

I weighed in, but I'm afraid my take was like the proverbial voice in the wilderness. Then I found this. It's perfect, even if it is from the Daily Kos, which is the American equivalent to rabble.ca
 
 Are-you-sick-of-highly-paid-teachers

Another Hmmmm!

Man excluded from election on Kahkewistahaw First Nation wins court challenge

"A man excluded from an election for chief of a Saskatchewan First Nation because he did not have a Grade 12 education has successfully fought to have a byelection called on the reserve.

Louis Taypotat, who is 75, challenged the exclusion in Federal Court after he was not allowed to run in the 2011 election on the Kahkewistahaw First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan."

[---]

"Taypotat's initial argument that he was discriminated against was unsuccessful, but the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that the band's election rules violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

I must say, I think I'm with him on this one. It's not unusual for a man that age to have less than grade 12. Perhaps the band felt he was not sufficiently indoctrinated. In any case, it's rather funny considering how we always hear about how revered elders are amongst First Nations communities. And what's this about using the Whiteman's courts. Why wasn't there a sentencing circle?

One Chance At Redemption

Malala Yousafzai addresses U.N. Youth Assembly

If this little girl actually wins the Nobel Peace Prize, I will actually have respect for the Nobel organization again, until the next time.

Some Creepy Stuff And Some "Oh Dear!!" And "Heavy Sigh" Stuff

Whatever are we going to do?

Lululemon recall over see-through material could lead to yoga pants shortage

You know, some people are terrified of bats. I'm not. But show me something like this and I really creep out. I don't care how many bats they eat. I guess I'm an arachnophobe. I mean, that's gotta be irrational, right?

Want your education paid for? Take something useful

"The number of Canadians pursuing useless post-secondary degrees, often on borrowed money, has apparently gotten under the Prime Minister’s skin. Mr. Harper, it is reported, is growing increasingly frustrated that there are hundreds of thousands of job vacancies that Canadian employers need filled, but remain open because Canadians lack the skills or training. This results in Canada needing hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers while youth unemployment languishes at double the national rate. This is putting a real damper on our economic productivity at a time when governments at every level are desperate to boost growth."

[---]

"But if governments, federal or provincial, really want to tackle this problem, it will require some very tough love indeed. Governments provide huge money to students, whether through grants, scholarships or loans. It’s time to only direct that support toward university or college programs that will meet the needs of the economy. Everyone would retain the right to go into Women’s Studies or, as I did, military history, but on your own dime. If you want the government’s help getting educated, you have to do something the national economy needs."

Well said!

Well This...

...is totally unexpected. /sarc

Canadian Council on Learning warns of possible labour crisis if education system not fixed

"The Canadian Council on Learning says Canada could be facing a labour crisis if the education system is not fixed.

The country is already facing a labour crunch as baby boomers retire but that could turn into a labour crisis according to the council's president, Dr. Paul Cappon.

He told 680News that there's no strategy to properly train people to fill in all the vacant jobs."

[---]

"He added that it could take a year to coordinate efforts across the country so the federal government needs to take action now."

Report dubs Canadian post-secondary education dysfunctional'

"Using international standardized testing, the report notes 25% of Canadian children entering school lack the foundation they need to build literacy and math skills.

What's more, 42% of adult Canadians fall below international literacy standards. The council estimates there will be three million Canadian adults below the literacy standard within 20 years.

While Canadian high school students perform above average in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development testing, the scores have been falling in recent years, the report shows.

The report calls Canada's post-secondary system "dysfunctional," noting there are no national standards by which to judge colleges and universities.

The federal government -- because of its lack of jurisdiction over post-secondary education -- is limited to funding research, which can skew universities' mandates toward "a greater concentration on research profiles of faculty and institutions" at the expense of learning and teaching."

Report gives failing grades to Canada's education system

"Federal involvement in post-secondary education is limited to funding of research that has skewed the mission of universities and colleges, the report says, leaving schools able to focus on promoting the research profiles of their faculty rather than focusing on teaching students.

The result are schools with no quality assurance system, the report says.

"Canada is unique in the developed world for having no national strategy for (post-secondary education), no acknowledged and accepted goals, no benchmarks, and no public reporting of resulting based on widely accepted measures," the report says."

Report calls for national education leadership in Canada

"Canada has an "enormous vacuum" at the centre of its national education leadership and should fill it with an intergovernmental council, says a prominent educator.

The recommendation is parting advice from Paul Cappon, president and CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning, which will wrap up its operations March 31 when federal funding dries up.

A final report entitled "What is the Future of Learning in Canada?" is being released Tuesday.

"One of our problems in Canada, of course, is that we have very little information nationally about how we're doing," said Cappon, who is both a medical doctor and has a PhD in sociology.

"For example, we don't even know how many graduates we have in any particular year in any particular area, whether it's fisheries or forestry or carpentry, so we can't match labour market demand to labour market supply.

"Those kinds of national reporting systems of data are very important for a country to be able to decide where to put its resources and to be able to move forward.""

Perhaps our funding needs to be more targeted, too. The acquisition of useless BAs should not be encouraged, while technical fields and trades should be.