| ACCREDITATION: - Scholastic regimentation from | | | | week and what kids could learn from it. For teaching |
| the post WWII period has accelerated to the point | | | | often occurs when we least expect it, not in the |
| that Canada won't let an Olympic figure skating | | | | lecturing but in the living, not in the theory but in the |
| medalist teach or coach young Canadians the errors | | | | behavior {So true.}. In fact, the person with the |
| and damages of the present system. She could earn | | | | wisest observations in this respect might have been |
| more in the U. S. or other places but she is willing to | | | | Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister, |
| do this for free if they would let her. How would | | | | who was in Toronto last week to speak to teachers |
| Einstein or Bucky Fuller become professors in today's | | | | {He teaches in British Columbia and is an ardent and |
| structured adherence to accepted models of | | | | eloquent example for good behavior, to be |
| learning? Canada is held up as a fine example by the | | | | sure.}.'How can you teach character?' he said. 'Well, I |
| U.N. committees which evaluate governments | | | | don't know that you can teach character. I think you |
| throughout this world. Last week the support staff | | | | need to teach with character. You have to model |
| went on strike in our schools of Toronto.Here is part | | | | character, you have to demonstrate character. That's |
| of an article by Jim Coyle in the Toronto Star:Tough | | | | how we learn.'{This does not obviate the need to |
| times teach those who have eyes to seeI spent a | | | | build a joy of learning or encourage socialization |
| few hours in the emergency ward the other night | | | | through tolerant consideration of comparative religion. |
| with my 11-year-old, owing to a cut he acquired as a | | | | It does not contradict the 'co-operative education' |
| consequence of the prevailing mayhem in a houseful | | | | programs that research shows should focus on group |
| of boys. {Such an easy way of sloughing-off other | | | | projects, results and less testing for competency in |
| issues.}As we waited, he seemed intrigued by what | | | | early life, to be followed by more testing for creative |
| went on around him. How could the triage nurse be | | | | and worthwhile learning and productivity as well as |
| so cheerful? Why did the man with chest pains get | | | | emotional coping skills later. It doesn't mean that |
| rushed right in.? What made the woman ahead of us | | | | what is being done is anything much better than |
| in the suture room slit her wrists?{No answers to | | | | 'glorified baby-sitting' to produce 'followers' who fit |
| come, and no coping skills taught in our media or | | | | the needs of industry and society. It doesn't mean |
| schools. No awareness of the alternatives and soulful | | | | that teachers learned how to teach, as Kaoru |
| causes that would motivate people to help each | | | | Yamamoto points our in the 'Social Sciences |
| other.}He said he was amazed, watching the parade | | | | Encyclopedia' put together by the Kuipers in 1995.}In |
| of ill and injured, that doctors and nurses could work | | | | that sense, there were many lessons to be learned |
| under the pressure they do and make so few | | | | during the strike. The first of these was courage. |
| mistakes. {He is not interested in exploring the reality | | | | And the ones who displayed it were the strikers |
| of how many mistakes are made, and probably | | | | themselves, the support staff whose walkout |
| hasn't read Ivan Illich's book 'Limits to Medicine'. He | | | | eventually closed the schools for a week. They're the |
| doesn't want to hear about the lack of family | | | | workers in the system who earn the least, people |
| violence questionnaires in schools and hospitals which | | | | for whom even a week without pay is painful, who |
| might prevent a growth in family violence and the | | | | will take years to make up the wages lost. Yet, |
| cycles of attendant violence associated with incest. I | | | | knowing this, they still struck.{Where is the modeling |
| have sent him letters and called, to no avail. Is he | | | | of behavior for the kids to emulate? Should they |
| making a case for the 'status quo' at the behest of | | | | emulate the poor downtrodden and uneducated |
| his employer and their political cronies?} A miserable | | | | janitors? Should they wonder why the parents didn't |
| night had turned into something educational. And I | | | | get together and do the work to keep the schools |
| was reminded that, given the right attitude, little is | | | | clean? Should they have policed their own schools or |
| wasted in life's economy, that difficult moments | | | | organized to keep them clean so they could still |
| usually bring lessons.It was the notion I'd been tossing | | | | attend the school and learn the things that excite |
| around about the disruption in Toronto schools last | | | | them? |