Left-leaning agendas worsening issues in education

By Letter to the Editor on February 29, 2020.

Once again teachers across Alberta and Saskatchewan are demanding that governments spend more to improve classroom conditions. The diversity within individual classrooms is staggering. Add to that the increased stresses of having teachers become the solution to every moral issue in society and you make teaching a nearly impossible task. Too much time is spent on behavioural management and individual documentation (paperwork) for planning and reporting.

There may be solutions other than throwing more money at a mainly Western societal problem. First, we must question the left-leaning educational leaders’ philosophies that have worsened the problems:

Inclusive education with its individualized program plans and impossibly diverse needs planning have impeded all students progress. Society has been sold on the idea that we can each selfishly have everything we want in the name of equality.

Implementing progressive curriculums that attempt to address every societal trend and whim need to be re-examined. No one can define what a ‘basic education’ for the severely average student group is in today’s school. Success is defined as fun and happiness rather than in terms of effort and intellectual development. Teachers spend more time on social-emotional games, values indoctrination and self identity navel gazing, than on development of knowledge and skills.

We have removed both risk and healthy pressures from the student’s life. Independent opinion is penalized as the behavioural strategists strive for collaborative group decisions. Creativity has been replaced with forced compromise. All this to make more compliant children, destined to become frustrated adults. Failure is such a dirty word that it must be avoided at all costs. The stress of tests endangers the psyche of our fragile children. Never mind that research shows we learn more from failing at a single task than we do from multiple easily completed tasks.

When we stop redesigning our classrooms for every exception and return to addressing the collective needs of the vast majority first, then we may be able to find more effective ways to tackle the diversity of exceptional individuals. Unfortunately, unless and until the Colleges of Education and Teacher’s Unions abandon their progressive agendas, conflict between government and the education industry will continue. Or, we elect another ‘marxist’ government! It won’t improve education but it will reduce future generations to a ‘happier’ but mindless proletariat.

Richard Dietrich

Medicine Hat

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