Joel Bakan, author of the 2004 best seller The Corporation, has returned with a controversial sequel entitled Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children . His earlier book was also turned into an award winning documentary film that exposed the insidious evils of corporate influence in our everyday lives. If the modern corporation was human, Bakan claimed, it would be a certifiable psychopath. In Childhood Under Siege, he attempts to extend his now familiar thesis into the realm of childhood. http://www.5min.com/Video/Joel-Bakan-Talks-About-Childhood-Under-Siege-517127244
As a committed social progressive, Bakan claims to have been called into action to protect our kids from the faceless, soul-less, rapacious corporation. Since its publication, the book has attracted mostly favourable attention, particularly on CBC Radio and TV, where the Michigan-born UBC law professor is often treated as a popular media personality.
Today’s Canadian parents and families may not be so quick to swallow Bakan’s sweeping interpretation of their situation. When looking for guidance, they are more likely to find the answers in Carl Honore’s more compelling 2008 book Under Pressure: How the Epidemic of Hyper-Parenting is Endangering Childhood. It covers the same territory, offering a far more complex, multi-layered analysis and reaching radically different conclusions. http://www.carlhonore.com/?page_id=5
In Childhood Under Siege, parents and children are depicted as innocents who represent easy prey for the corporation. From the outset, Bakan comes-off as a rather naive and protective parent who is startled to discover that his 11-year-old son’s “really cool” Internet games site is a gateway to such appalling “kiddie” fare as “Whack Your Soul Mate” and “Boneless Girl.” That horrible revelation, according to the author, is really what prompted him to resume his war against corporate influence in North American life.
Bakan goes on to chronicle how “big business” targets and exploits children in a multitude of subtle and under-handed ways. It has happened, he claims, because of government’s failure to intervene, allowing child protection laws to erode and giving free reign to corporations and their heartless, money-driven “marketers.”
For today’s kids, Balkan shows that it’s a dangerous world out there. Spending hours and hours online exposes them to cyberworlds and social media which feed teenage narcissism and promote deranged, highly competitive and unhealthy values. Relentlessly targeted by red haired clowns (McDonalds) and hipster icons (Starbucks), they come to pester their parents for fast food, junk snacks, and sugary, high voltage drinks.
Sections of the book do deliver a profoundly important message. Bakan is at his best when exposing what is termed “Big Pharma.” Here his overarching thesis hits closer to the mark. In many cases, big pharmaceutical companies have not only smothered negative scientific studies, but also co-opted medical professionals to create a popular culture where drugs solve everything –and where kids actually label themselves “ADHD” before being seen by a doctor.
Balkan’s litany of sins perpetuated by big businesses knows few limits. It’s the corporations that pollute the child’s playroom environment with toxins, turn a blind eye to noxious gases, exploit child labour, and promote “market-driven” reforms in public education.
In taking a big scope, Bakan covers much territory and his sweeping analysis tends to reflect a clear presentist bias. Paying more attention to the history of childhood would have yielded deeper insights into the cyclical pattern of exaggerated parental worries, including the supposed corrupting influence of such blights as 19th century “dime novels,” The Simpsons, and South Park.
Though the book tends to focus on the United States, Balkan tries to demonstrate that Canadian children are also being victimized in similar fashion. He knows the law and effectively documents the holes in child protection laws in Canada as in the U.S. Raising red flags about creeping corporate influence in Canadian public education through privately-managed charter schools, standardized testing, and rampant commercialization simply does not wash.
Thoughtful critics have already begun to dismiss Childhood Under Siege as a sincere, well-intended book which falls short of expectations. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/childhood-under-siege-how-big-business-targets-children-by-joel-bakan/article2143228/ While The Corporation was very convincing in exposing the extent of corporate influence, the sequel runs aground in the complex, multi-faceted realm of childhood, parenting, and family life.
Parents play a much bigger role than Bakan ever acknowledges and, truth be told, “hyper-parenting” is threatening to produce a generation of “coddled kids.” Today’s kids teenagers are also mighty savvy when it comes to “The Pester Factor,” bugging their harried parents into buying the latest version of every consumer item.
The author shows a surprisingly naive faith in the capacity of government to safeguard our children. Looking to government to solve most matters, as Bakan does, will find little resonance with those who are already sceptical of the friendly state. After all, as German sociologist Max Weber once warned us, “parcelling out-of-the soul” is common to all bureaucracies, public as well as private.
Why is Bakan’s Childhood Under Siege being hailed as “an important book” for parents and policy-makers? How well founded are the scare stories aimed at exposing the supposed evils of corporate influence in Canadian public education? Who is really under siege — kids, parents, or the family? What’s the primary source of the problem – rampant materialism, big business influences, the decline of family values, or the stressful pace of life?
Frankly, I have never believed there was a smoke-filled room of greedy capitalists knowingly plotting to destroy public education and childhood. Bill Gates and Michael Dell and the late Steve Jobs for example believe in technology not surprisingly and if you are a carpenter everything looks like a nail.
These types truly believe what is good for Microsoft (Dell, Apple…) IS good for education and the faster we introduce technology into education the better for kids. If you tell these 1%ers they are doing this to line their own pockets or to BUY a good name from the 99% they are genuinely hurt.
On the other hand, international competition is fierce and here today companies like RIM could be gone tomorrow. Contracts to put ipads in every classroom or to get an iphone into their hands through in school televisions in hallways puts many teachers in mind of the telescreen watching Winston Smith in 1984.
If someone had told me in 1980 that advertising to kids would be allowed in PS, that MacDonalds would have taken over some American cafeterias, that Pepsi and Coke would be signing exclusive contracts (I could go on and on) I would have said it will never go that far.
Sure there is a big pushback from the healthyfood people but it is a battlefield out there. The in-school protected zone from being bombarded with commercial messages was breached a decade ago but the fight rages on within the castle walls.
I was once accused in a federation meeting of leaving the impression that “capitalists are bad people”. I said “even Karl Marx did not believe they are ‘bad people’. In nature some are wolves and some are sheep. The wolves are not ‘bad’ to chase the sheep. It is just in their nature to hunt sheep for their own survival. It is in the nature of Gates,Dell,Jobs to maximize the profits of their corporations and kids are a tempting and very rewarding market to exploit.
Childcare corporations are very angry that ECE is moving all of the profitable childcare within the public sector the same way some people would really like to make a lot of money from educational privatization hate the support and wages and benefits of the public sector because it puts pressure on them to match it or lose the good teachers.
Have you seen what passes for free time computer games to most boys? War games where you score points by killing as many bad guys in a brutal fashion as you can. This plays to the worst testosterone driven messages boys can be given. Anyone who believes there is no connection to gangsterism and bullying is very naive. Girls if and when they spend time on computers chat with their girlfriends but otherwise look at Hollywood gossip and fashion sites. Exactly the type of stereotype thinking we hope some will escape each generation. One, among many reasons girls are getting ahead is they don’t waste AS MUCH time as boys on this destructive junk. Junkfood for the brain.
A tremendously good post, Doug
I don’t think that Doug speaks to Paul’s questions actually Joanne. Doug’s legacy leaves me suspicious that a contradiction is sure to follow.
The reason for all of that advertising in our public schools is based on some companies bottom-line, or the bottom line of the school and school board.
When we get our heads out of the collective sand that what ails the system isn’t about the money, and that goes too for the group think that big is better or that biggers schools turn our better students.
Thinking about the latest push by school boards and school admin. for the newest tech. gadgets before they’ve even been proven to be effective for learning and of low risk to health….what’s driving that?
Although Joel’s book doesn’t meet your expectations, the premise of his book could still have merit.
It’s clear that when someone like Rupert Murdoch is forming educational companies and trying to get bids to create educational materials, something insidious is happening. Pearson’s (and all of the other textbook & testing companies) profits are up, but money for schools is down all across the US.
As for trusting the government to solve the problem, I can’t believe that someone rational could suggest this is a good idea. There’s no evidence that I’ve seen to suggest that the neo-Liberal governments currently in power all over North America have their citizens’ best interests in mind. When Obama says that “we need 10,000 more engineers,” what he really means is “we need to turn 10,000 kids into people that choose engineering as a career to meet a future need. That’s certainly not Democratic.
“The evils of corporate influence” (sounds like something Doug might have said). As you know Paul, he tries hard to spin his corporations are evil routine, devoid of any feeling or caring for children or families whatsoever.
Biggest and most powerful corporation of them all….Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Remember this? Comedy or reality? You choose.
BTW the OTPP has very little to do with teacher union control. It was set up with a fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns. As a result it does so.
I`ve been the founder and executive director of a school with charitable status and now the President of a for profit teacher training company that I founded.
I can assure you,a non profit has every bit as many failings,sometimes more than a for profit-the mission and integrity are important. Human failings are very apparent on non profit boards. You need to question everything…
When you have a non profit you spend your whole life begging for money, a company with a social mission can get work done without spending 90 percent of it`s time begging.
As we know school boards are non profit and can have as many flaws or more than a corporation. How about going to Whistler for a PD conference and staying at the Chateau when the Special Ed kids get a B.S. program?
I liked Doug`s posting. I am usually dead against his politics of give me the money-for what, and where is the accountability and transparency required in these school board empires? But here,he gave us a very smart repartee.
I think it`s people that are flawed,Bible anyone?
It`s wayyyyyyy too complex to bring down to a simplistic offering.
Look at education research-where is the intergrity there,that`s all non profit work…
In the Honore’s article, “Childhood is always evolving and it has always been defined by adults. But we seem to have reached a point now where childhood is being warped more than ever before by adult fantasies and fears, anxieties and agendas. Every aspect of childhood – education, safety, discipline, sports, play, etc – is now set up to suit grown-ups rather than children. We are living in a culture that tells us that childhood is too precious to be left to children and children are too precious to be left alone.”
As for, Joel Bakan, if he thinks the removal of corporate influence in children’s lives, their lives would improve. How, when there is other influences as strong some would say, coming from the adult world, with the various agendas attached. At least with the corporate influence, a parent can control that somewhat, but a parent cannot control the influence of policies coming from the government sector, the different community organizations that deals with children’s lives in some aspect. I would wager that this type of influence plays a bigger role, in warping childhood, and ramping up the adults fears, anxieties and agendas. Why? Often government has the power to legislate laws, changing behaviour and values of parents, via through the use of public announcements and literature, and still remains a voice that is trusted to have the best interests of children at heart.
For example, a couple of weeks ago, there was an announcement from a health authority, that infants should no longer have blankets to cover them, or even be wrapped in one. The image came up in my head, a parent with no sleep, and the cure may be a blanket to wrapped around her infant. But the parent is worried if the blanket is in the crib, the risk of SIDS increases as told by the highly touted medical authority. Harder to shut out that voice, compared to corporate influence in a child’s life. A parent has more tools at their disposal to ignore the voices of the corporate world, compare to the ramifications of shutting the voices of the government and other agencies that are seen by the public as a trusted and reliable voice.
As for the corporate influence in education, compared to the agendas and interests of adults who work within the public education system, the corporate influence is a mere drop. As I have observed and experience, since the beginning of the 1990s, public education systems are guilty of using the same marketing techniques as the corporate world, to advance their agendas and best interests. I sometime think, the adults working in the public education system, think that children are little adults, that need guidance. Therefore the game Red Rover is out, for fear of children being hurt, and hurt feelings, but at the other end, outcomes and curriculum that are beyond the development and cognitive years of the children. How many children grow up thinking they are too dumb for book learning? Another area in education, is pushing agendas using the tools and resources of the public education system, to push values to change the evolving values of children, and in the end, the goal is to change the values of overall society and legislation of laws. The latest that has gone national, is a school board in NL, that there will be no zeroes for cheating. The mouth pieces of the school board, repeating the standard lines, to change the values of the public to their thinking. “The policy change was designed to separate student behaviour from learning “to give us a true picture of what the student knows,” said Eastern School District CEO and director of education Ford Rice. They consulted the “current literature in education” before deciding on their new policy and compared their neighbours’ policies to their own, he added.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/24/newfoundland-school-boards-new-evaluation-policy-enables-cheating-teachers-association-says/
The key words are, ‘to separate student behaviour from learning’, and which has filtered down to families in so many different ways. It has been transformed to children’s behaviour and their actions, the adults sit down and chat, and no immediate consequences for their bad behaviour. When a parent decides on the actions of immediate consequences, they are met by other adults, imposing guilt feelings, that perhaps grounding their child, and making them work around the house is a bit too harsh. But in the real world, bad behaviour and like cheating on a test, the consequences are swift and harsh.
Thank you, once again, Nancy, for digging a little deeper. You have clearly compared Carl Honore’s take on the “childhood crisis” with that of Joel Bakan and (when you do) holes appear in Bakan’s Childhood Under Siege line of vision.
Joel Bakan is a “child saver” who strikes me as a borderline “hyper-parent” fully capable of raising “coddled kids.” That February 2010 CBC-TV Doc Zone program “Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids” was a little extreme, but it may yet turn out to be prophetic. http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2010/hyperparents/
In Under Pressure, Honore alerts us to the dangers of hyper-parenting:
“Every aspect of childhood – education, safety, discipline, sports, play, etc – is now set up to suit grown-ups rather than children. We are living in a culture that tells us that childhood is too precious to be left to children and children are too precious to be left alone.”
His Concluding Chapter is even titled “Leave Those Kids Alone.” That’s a far cry from Bakan’s worry wart analysis. If Canadian parents take Bakan’s many warnings to heart, I worry more about the schools having to contend with a new generation of overprotective parents.
You are right Paul, these days “coddled children” are rapidly becoming as big a problem as neglected children. Look at the ‘cheating’ with no consequences developments across Canada. Luckily we have teachers’ unions in Ontario and NL to push back and expose this nonsense.
Open to interpretation:
Red Rover or “snap the whip” was painted by an American artist (Winslow Homer) who depicted the “coddling” of our children as the American path to conformism.
Homer’s educational frontier was one of the rough and tumble world he was exposed to at the time ( no visible school playground supervisors back then), and so, more importantly, as a visual poet, he also saw the false “bravura” which invariably suppressed open ended opinion and vision inherent in the student back then – who in Homer’s painting, tries to break the human chain of dominant opinion.
A seemingly innocent painting – but far from the truth.
Homer was a consummate observer of human behaviour. As a naturalist, he would be depressed at the forfeiting of the natural world for virtual reality. Parents who wrap the child in a blanket.The playground has the freedom they need to basically run and learn – learn and run.
http://comm265vrvc.blogspot.com/2010/04/snap-whip_28.html
But Red Rover was really a good game, that everyone could play. Brings back so many memories of the school yard, and spring days in gym. But back than we had gym 3 times a week, and gym today has lost its charm.
Another game that has been banned, is British Bull Dog, What a shame, even the male teachers would join, once in a well. Banned for being too rough. Below is a link, there is a video of bull dog, as well as other games that are played no more, because there is no more time for such things. As well as unions, and other special interests, resenting supervisory activities and in some schools, turning recess in nutritional breaks. After all, instructional time is far more important, since the playground has been deem very dangerous for children.
” Play time is such a vital aspect of a child’s education. The time to explore, relate and burn off all that energy. In the days before the big corporates decided what toys we should play with, in the days before computer games designers did our imagining for us, and in the days before the cotton wool society of political correctness children learned vital skills through playground games.”
http://www.squidoo.com/playground-games
You ought to see the eye rolling amonst the teachers on parent’s night when the parent of the kid who is seldom in class, causes trouble when s/he is there , seldom does any homework, pays little attention in class arrives to tell the staff that it is ALL the fault of the teachers.
Universities in the last ten years have reported for the first time ever, that they have parents who would like to attend meetings with the prof on why their offspring did not get an A on their essay, why the exam was unfair, how they ought to teach differently ….
High school teachers just laugh and say welcome to the club. 🙂
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/25/give-parents-a-break
Timely column.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/report-details-problems-with-full-time-virtual-schools/2011/10/24/gIQAPbuqFM_blog.html?wprss=answer-sheet
You could see this coming.
“If Canadian parents take Bakan’s many warnings to heart, I worry more about the schools having to contend with a new generation of overprotective parents.”
Too late, Paul.
Outside of school we had zero organised sports. We were kicked out of the house in the morning, allowed in for meals. After supper it was homework time.
We were permitted to stay up on either Friday night to watch the fights on TV or Saturday night to watch the hockey – either/or, not both.
Luxury!
I have called Iris Rotberg years ago, a widely acknowledged expert in international testing and former analyst for the RAND Corp. is now a research professor at George Washington Universities Gradute School of Education and Human Development.
Her recent article filled the back page on Education Week the paper of record in the USA. She has written a powerful paper indicating that there is little relationship between America’s dismal PISA TIMMS scores and competitiveness. She also points out that the OECD experts keep pointing out that America’s poverty rate (20%) compounded by concentrations of poverty are the real reasons for America’s low results and that the accountability movement especially test based accountability has no relationship to closing the achievement gap and that accountability mechanisms have not led to any improvements and in fact have the perverse way of weakening offering incentives that mke things worse.
Powerful stuff. Hopefully this will end the accountability movement before it totally destroys the education system.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/14/03rotberg_ep.h31.html
“Hopefully this will end the accountability movement before it totally destroys the education system.”
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The public system is an effective enough voice for it’s own weaknesses; and has fully set out a path to declining enrolment, out migration etc.
It does not need to blame accountability and the concerns of every day parents and educators as they strive for responsible education for their children and students.
seems the corporations are to blame for everything nowadays. Right down to the student who arranges a play date to maintain the consumer index.
Guess we should cancel those entrepneur classes for now, eh?
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She is cherry picking information. However OECD has never meant the PISA test as a means for measurement of competitiveness, Simply meant a work force, But more importantly, on both sides of the political spectrum, they do used the PISA scores to prove their stances are correct. And way off topic Doug. It is about childhood, and let us talk about childhood and what the public education does to impact childhood. Why don’t you explain how unions used children, to get their raises, or any of the number of things that a board has to do, to pay for the raises, and find a bucket for the leaky roof.
Are you kidding cherry picking. The OECD basically says poverty compounded by poverty concentration IS the reason USA has such a wide achievement gap and that test based accountability is no help and makes things worse. NCLB is totally based on accountability, test based and it has become a national joke.
What impacts childhood is poverty. Bakan understands that soulless capitalism left unbridled and unchecked cannot control itself from going too far. The same way they cannot control credit default swaps and derivatives, they cannot stop money making from children by selling them junk food, junk for the mind, and so on. The rest of us, through private non-profit and the gov’t must tell them when enough is enough.
There is a school district in Minnesota that said, since the board is 20% poor and concentrations of poverty compounds the vicious nature of poverty, lets redraw the school boundaries so that every school is 20% poor but no school is 100% poor or 100% middle class (the rich are a tiny class). Naturally the middle class is up in arms because they are quite aware that in order to make things fair, they will be getting less.
The public system is an effective enough voice for it’s own weaknesses; and has fully set out a path to declining enrolment, out migration etc.
The public system is responsible for declining enrolement, LOL. There are not enough babies being born period. The % of kids in private schools has not changed in decades and the private schools are also experiencing decline. Many old established Anglo private schools in Toronto are becoming Asian schools more every year.
It always mystified me how Mike Harris killed the business courses in Ontario high schools. Most of them taught the invisible hand of capitalism almost unqualified.
Who is talking about private schools? Who is talking about enough babies being born?
Doug, now you are blaming the invisible hand of capitalism?
Fact – the educratocracy has expanded – so someone is having babies.
Fact – student enroment has declined in the public system, yet university enrolment is up in my neck of the woods.
Fact – Unions are concerned about their own welfare. Maybe the should have more babies
Fact – School boards are circling the wagons as a result of centralization.
Fact – Parents are onto the rhetoric of educrats.
very good post Steven.
Fact:
According to the OECD, public education is declining rapidly in Canada. That is the FACT the Dougs of the world ignore. Instead, they keep citing past achievements and reliving past glories.
Dr. Reid Lyon:” So, there is a fascinating set of disconnects that you see among an ostensibly learned and knowledgeable prophesoriat. It’s one of the most silliest things and saddest things I have ever seen. The bottom line is for a country like America to be leaving behind about thirty-eight to forty percent of its youngsters in terms of not learning to read is unconscionable.
What makes it equally or doubly unconscionable is if you disaggregate those data, seventy percent approximately of young African Americans kids can’t read. Seventy percent! If you look at Hispanic kids, the figure is sixty-five to seventy percent. That means we are producing failure where it doesn’t have to be. We know what we can do to help those youngsters; we know how to get to them early; we know how to identify these kids at risk, at four or five years of age; we know how to bring to bear good evidence-based programs that if applied and implemented will move those kids all the way from the tenth percentile right up to the average range, to be concrete. We can reduce illiteracy in many of our research sites – in real classrooms in real schools with real kids at risk where ninety-eight percent are free and reduced lunch, and eighty percent are a minority. That is seventy percent of kids leaving the first grade as failing readers reducing to two to six percent when we do it right. When I’m saying we do it right that means we bring to bear what we know from those four questions.
We don`t have a child problem in this country,we gave an adult problem.”
Educrats create great harm,they glorify their opinions and ignore research.Effectiveness accountability legislation is all we have to make them slightly uncomfortable.
Educrats are adult centric,not child centric…
Reid Lyon was the former chief of the NICHD in the U.S. that oversaw a half billion dollar study on “How do children learn to read?”
Here,just reflecting,Balkan is right,the corporations have us under siege,they sell any old thing to the school market and their muscle and connections strongarm countries into buying textbooks across the land that are flawed.
All of a sudden,25 years later we wake up and say,our science grads are lacking and it`s effecting our productivity.
At one end of the spectrum we have no “accountability” and at the other we have those clamouring for “accountability and yet they have no idea how to define it, how it is to be measured, by whom it is to be measured and there is no measurement criteria.
What`s wrong with EQAO model,it shows success or not success-what follows is’we fail because of poverty” rather than,how can we improve and if you do not over the next 3 years,there will be a consequence.
Something like that:)?
Compare the PISA scores and EQAO scores and there are some contraditions. Which is correct?
And, if Ontario is anything like Nova Scotia, students with IPPs are NOT tested. Prior to testing numerous lower performing students are quickly put on IPPs thereby skewing the results.
LOL, there is no rapid decline in Canada, Korea has just caught up. Canadian 15 year old read just as well it is just that Koreans have improved. If i shoot a 75 in golf and my friend who used to shoot 78 now shoots 73 he has improved without me getting worse.
We do need much smaller classes, more ECE-ELP, summer programs, higher salaries, more trining if we want to shoot a 71 and stay in second place.
People are flocking to Ontario to study the most successful model in the English speaking world since the McKinley Group declared it to be the best.
The EQAO model clearly shows that poverty is the prime factor in schools that should do better but reformers continue to ignore this because they don’t like this conclusion.
NCLB shows exactly the same pattern un the USA, the “League Tables” show exactly the same patter in the UK, in fact it is a world wide problem. The great secret in Finland is a child poverty rate of 4%, Canada 16% USA 20%.
The evidence is overwhelming.
What Doug has written, is a prefect example of working for the best interests of the public education system, to protect their monopoly, as well as protecting their so-called expertise. Using such supporting evidence, as the OECD, or the EQAO to promote his pet theory as well as the major excuse for such high low literacy and numeracy rates at the micro level, that poverty is the reason. One would think, that 50 % of the adult population in any English country, have a poverty rate of 50 %, since 50 percent of the adult population has low literacy and numeracy.
The public education systems does a great job in conning the public that the low literacy and numeracy rates are as a result of low-income or below, to protect their instruction methods, as well as protecting their turf on their so-called expertise. In reality, the public education system has short-change students by not providing them with the correct instruction, and other practices that makes it that much harder to access high knowledge.
What the public education systems of the world, especially in the English-speaking countries do not do, is to provided reading and numeracy assessments that would provide the way forward, to change the instruction and other practices that would adapt to the student. What is being currently practice, is forcing the students to adapt to the practices of the public education system, without concern on how well a student can read and calculate, but just the ability to know how to read and knowing the numbers.
Just walk in on a typical high school, and how courses are fashioned according the basic reading and numeracy ability of students. And Doug, wants more of it, to promote his pet theories,
LOL, there is no rapid decline in Canada, Korea has just caught up.
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Don’t tell me, tell that to god… er, the OECD.
The public education system, the monopoly it is, with a few hybrids being spun off in the form of charters, and other choices other than the one-sized-fits-all version, is structured and runs like a corporate, acts like a corporation, and within the various parts, have been corporatized in some sense, to limit liability at the very least. Within the pubic education system, are the special interests vying for their best interests. Best interests of the adults, and no concern for the future outcomes of their students, because it financed by taxpayers money. Who do not have the effective power and political capital or even a seat at a government table, because taxpayers are not seen as the share holders, but users. Much like the customers of a big corporation, who own no shares of the corporation, and its influences and power is limited. However in a private corporation, customers are seen as important, and the key to their bottom line, unlike the monopoly of public education. The adults within the public education system, sees the taxpayers as users and not important to the bottom line of the public education system. Thus, the taxpayers are sorted according to the many agendas within the public education system.
One example, is reading instruction. Typical education system of the K to 12, produces a steady supply of students of low literacy and numeracy into the adult population. In adult education, literacy and numeracy instruction is the same ineffective models used in the public education system, and the only difference lies with small classes, more one to one instruction, and adults who are highly motivated to improve their reading and numeracy. The adults within the public education have worked cooperatively with the major corporations to serve both their interests. Corporations have higher political capital than the users, since corporations are willing to work along with the education system to advance each other’s goals. The users and/or taxpayers want an effective education system, that produces well-rounded students, with the foundational skills needed to navigate the adult world. Having a work force of 95 % that have a solid foundation in the 3 Rs, and have the necessary skills to navigate in the adult world, runs counter to the interests of the public education system and the corporations.
Yeah, Balkan is correct that the corporations have us under siege, but one should remember, it is being done with the cooperation of our public institutes, to advance their own goals, agendas and best interests. At least, the public can turned off the corporate messages, but it is really a difficult task to turned off the many messages of the public education system. I would say we are under siege by the corporations as well as the public monopolies in Canada.
Best interests of the adults, and no concern for the future outcomes of their students, because it financed by taxpayers money.
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Let’s not forget those parents whose only interest in public education is that of a free baby-sitting service. There are more of those than we care to admit.
I often thought of that in the days of re-teaching and tutoring my child, and I viewed it as glorified baby-sitting service. I get my child straighten out on a basic concept, only to have it undone at school. I than told my child to close her ears, as soon as she became confuse at school, to prevent the undoing.
But you are correct, there is always a few parents that largely sees school as a free baby-sitting service. However, have you thought of the legal requirement, of compulsory schooling, which is largely limited to the public education system monopoly. and how it impacts parents, including the ones who do see it as a baby-sitting service? I often wonder, if parents and the local community had full control and the power of the local school, would parents no longer see it as a free baby-sitting service? Empower the parents and the local community, and just watch working for the best interests of children would look, compared to the present monopoly that largely leaves taxpayers and parents in positions of limited power and control.
You say “one size fits all” as if that is a bad thing. It is the pillar of our culture, our democracy and our way of life.
The more we study the same subjects at the same level using the same basic texts, novels plays experiences the better we will all be.
Working “at your own speed” for many kids means “going nowhere at your own speed”.
A recipe for dumbing down the population, and slamming the doors of opportunities in jobs, eh Doug? Best interests of children, are not served well by the one-sized-fits-alls approaches, nor are the communities served well, that have unique characteristics according to the population SEC factors, as well as other indicators such as type of businesses, and other economic activities.
Here are two more examples of public education system, working against the best interest of children.
“It’s an issue that Ayala acknowledges: “If you’re watching your weight and have a trainer and doing everything right, and then all of sudden your trainer goes away and you’re eating all junk food, consider what’s going to happen to you,” she said.
The junk food Ayala is referring to is the mediocre teaching and curriculum that many children encounter once they arrive in elementary school.
“We need to influence the [elementary] teachers and the schools so the quality is moving up,” Ayala said”
.
http://hechingerreport.org/content/more-better-early-education-could-help-close-californias-achievement-gap_6653/
“The government’s new reading test for six-year-olds is a waste of money that will not identify youngsters’ needs, experts have warned.
They are “deeply concerned” about the test, and call on the Education Secretary Michael Gove to reconsider its introduction.
The warning comes in an open letter to him signed by representatives of the UK Literacy Association among others.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15491763
Guess who are the signers of the declaration of a simple test of pseudo words is a waste of money? The teachers unions.
“It says that the finding about “pseudowords” confirms their worries that a reading test based only on decoding could harm standards in the long term.
The letter adds: “The government is proposing to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money every year on a test which will increase workload, undermine teaching time, fail in its core purpose of accurately identifying children’s needs in reading and is unnecessary in promoting the already present teaching of phonics.
“In the light of the findings from the evaluation of the pilot we are sure that ministers will be reconsidering the need for the phonics test for six-year-olds.
“The signatories of this letter would welcome an opportunity to discuss how teacher assessment of reading would identify and help young readers who are slow to start.”
The letter has been signed by 19 individuals in total from teaching unions as well as educational associations.”
All that easier to bring everyone done to one level, one pace of learning without ever be held accountable to at least 40 percent of students, who are struggling in learning to read, at the primary levels. Bonus, for the unions, as well as other parts of the education system, is to ignore the quality of training as well as the instruction quality. No need to, when everything is one size.
“
The Doug Little required HS program
Compulsory: (22) English 4, Math 2, Science 2, History 4, Geography 4, French 2 (substitute other language for 1), PE 4,
Elective: (8) Art, Music, Tech, Biz, Law, …
Total 30.
No Applied level, same program 9-10, 11-12 2 levels Univ and Coll.
One needs to wonder if things aren’t deliberately designed to fail.
Simply consider consumer goods as an example.
I believe a central committee of the Ministry of Education should decide every approved text book only per grade/subject level plus the novels and plays to be studied, suggest the time allowed, suggest a series of fully developed lesson plans the way they would like them, and the assessments to be evaluated identical for every class, to make up 80% of every course. 20% would be optional for local teachers but supplied if mutually agreed upon.
In this way every single grade 10 history student in Ontario would have the same text, videos, and “suggested” fully developed lesson plans and evaluation. 20% is available for flex.
The way to fix our “Childhood Under Siege” Andrew you will notice in the article that the UC economist points out that it pays for itself + a ROI
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/opinion/occupy-the-classroom.html?_r=3&hp
I believe a central committee of the Ministry of Education should decide every approved text book only per grade/subject level plus the novels and plays to be studied, suggest the time allowed, suggest a series of fully developed lesson plans the way they would like them, and the assessments to be evaluated identical for every class, to make up 80% of every course. 20% would be optional for local teachers but supplied if mutually agreed upon.
_____________________________________________________
Ah, the Texas model.
Notice all the flex in here for creaivity and local need. 🙂
Yep, 80% Texas.
The King James version instead of the Karl Marx version. 😉
Bit off topic but continuing on a previous thread and a remark by Doug.
The idea of a national standard appeals to me. As it stands now “finishing high school” doesn’t necessarily mean any level of proficiency.
Perhaps testing and grading to that national standard and awarding a “high school diploma” that certifies that standard was met would work.
The testing would be “free” and voluntary. It could eventually become one of the criteria for acceptance to tertiary education instead of the hodge podge we currently have..
Ontario has ‘departmentals” everybody hated them. BC is trying to have exit exams but the major BC universities have said “it is bad education so we will not recognize them. The teachers’ marks are much better predictors of future university success.”
Is that so Doug? NL has public exams for all third and fourth level core subjects. If a student fails a public exam, two options are open to them.
1. Take the supplementary public exam which this year is slated for November.
2. Or repeat the subject again.
Found out in the last year, that universities likes provinces that has some kind of standard public exams for core subjects. When I was inquiring on what was needed for my youngest child, my greatest fear or obstacle was coming from NL. Apparently it is a plus in the admittance department to my delight, and my child would have no need to take extra courses over and above the requirements of the university, because of the public exams. Public exams in NL are worth 50 % of the final grade, and the exams are not a breeze to pass. The student has to actually applied themselves to score a 80 on the public exam, in order to qualify for admittance at the university level. I am putting my faith with the teachers at the school, concerning the English public and my youngest child. I be happy with her receiving a 75 %, on the public exam next year,that grades not only content, but grammar, spelling, syntax as well as the structure, just to keep her English grade somewhere in the 70s.
Put it this way Doug, my child will probably walk out of grade 12 with a 80 something average, the LD label still attached to her, but having public exams as part of the requirement for a grade 12 diploma in NL, will place her ahead of the line-up of not only the 80 something averages, as well as a few 90 averages in other provinces that do not have public exams. I no longer worry about her being rejected by universities in other provinces.
Where does one find the “major BC universities” actually say that? We always have to be leery of unattributed quotes, right, so I’d prefer to see the source of the claim being made.
Of course Andrew, all policies are designed to fail a certain percentage of student in one way or another. Like the new policy of the board, concerning cheating. Doom to fail, without any consultation taking place, but actually expecting teachers to convince parents that this new policy on cheating is fair and right, is going a bit too far. At the local high school, which I suspect is happening in other high schools, the teachers are fighting back. The student who is caught cheating, or finally gets around handing in his assignment, will be mark three times as hard, and the make-up tests will be just as hard. The teachers at the local school, have been busy giving lectures to their students, if any student is contemplating on cheating or skipping assignments due dates. And no the students do not like the new policy either, because the student who cheats, gets another two weeks to study hard. Thus, the teachers’ solution is to grade it very hard. In that way, the student has to work his butt off, to get a 70 %. The cheater would have been better off, to study in the first place, tried his best, and still get a second chance on a re-write, unless it is a public exam subject. All subjects that have public exams, there is no re-writes on any tests, assignments or on the mid-terms exams. No second chances there.
Ok, let’s not have any standards at all.
Heck, why even have an education system?
Give the kidlets their diploma at age 10 ans cut ’em loose.
All that money saved could be spent on beer.
But, as usual, Doug missed a few words.
The only nation that takes the “accountability movement” seriously is the USA. (good old #17) It has been around down there for 20 years now and has not moved the yardsticks one foot. In many cases it makes thing far worse. The Latino dropout rate went through the roof when Texas got really tough with English only standardized testing and NCLB. Brilliant. Well documented.
Great…off topic yet again. Anyone here under 40 who’s coming close to figuring out that the problem to fixing what ails education is that there are few leaders under 40 appealing to that age demographic?
Paul started this off with his great post and questions relating to public education under siege and who’s to blame, and just as we get into that discussion the, how shall I put this gently…..the more “seasoned” get diverted once again. We’re under siege here some days too.
School board administrators have actually adopted one of the favourite hypes used by the corporate marketers – the guilt trip.
Essentially it boils down to, “If you don’t do ABC, you’re a bad parent”.
It’s about time to change the channel.. and perhaps to try and imagine what goes on in the minds of today’s schoolchildren.
Children often see things that escape the eye of adults, and Steven Rhude’s new book Natalie’s Glasses ( Lunenburg,NS: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing, 2011) provides a perfect example.
Nine-year-old Natalie Whitman, a Grade 4 pupil at Lunenburg Academy, and her friend Ezra, learn that the Academy will be closing and their world is turned upside down. Steven’s brilliant illustrations bring the story alive for us and we are drawn into Natalie’s struggle against forces much bigger than her. Some of you from Nova Scotia might even be able to figure out who the various characters represent in this fictional storybook.
Steven’s fictional children are far from being innocents and see through the pretense and hypocrisy of the school board officials!
Here is the book catalogue entry: http://books.google.com/books/about/Natalie_s_Glasses.html?id=Y1UBtwAACAAJ
In the Nova Scotia media, it’s getting the attention it deserves as a truly fine children’s book with a social message:
http://southshorenow.ca/archives/2011/102611/arts/index014.php
We know Steven as one of our most astute and perceptive contributors — and I would encourage you to seek out a copy of his delightful and deeply moving children’s storybook.
Congrats Steven on the great book review. Is the book in wide release? Am writing a book myself these days which is a collection of stories/experiences by folks in my town re: the tornado that came through it on Aug. 21st. I have rec’d drawings and some comments from children which we miss too often in education circles. One such 4 year old contributor to my book is a girl that insists that what hit our town was the Goderich “tomato”, not tornado. We’re actually looking at a children’s book based on that 4 year old’s experience to help other kids who have been left traumatized by it all.
Too often kids are the first ones to hone in on real problems in their classroom or with their educations but adults, all adults tend to either trivialize or explain the concerns of the student away. Perhaps the biggest piece of the missing education puzzle??
Hi Catherine,
the book is just getting out there but I suspect with some momentum will have a wide release. It was fittingly launched at the Lunenburg Academy yesterday. Good crowd.
It should resonate to those of us concerned about the influence of school closures in towns and small communities accross Canada – and the influence and conditioning used to achieve the related goals of centralization and quantitative, (not qualitative) education.
I followed the Goderich situation in the news and a book to help children contend with the trauma sounds essential.
I’d be interested in a book when it does make it in to wide release, as we here can identify the glut of small community school closures. Seems all school boards are in place for these days is to rape schools from small communities. We have two more on the chopping block this year. The decision-makers trot out studies to prove moves like this don’t affect the students, but it sure does. There’s spin, then there’s the other side of the story and coming from the kids validates that other side.
Although I have never read the book, what I have read in the reviews, I have constructed my own thoughts on it. The , Lunenburg Academy, the dory and the red fish are symbols of a way of life. The importance of education, the sea and the fish that sustained a community since the 1700s. I suspect when children are raise in a community steeped in history, and often can traced their own relatives through time, the adults of the community must be mindful of the past, when making the daily decisions within and outside of the community. Mindful on the impact on their future citizens within the community, or otherwise the future citizens may no longer think that the past matters, and as adults drift off, with visions of futures that kills the community. and what had and still does, sustains the future of the community.
In my eyes, schools represents a mini-community of people, that gather together in a school building, to teach the young the lessons needed for the future, and at the very least it is hope that they will become productive citizens in their adulthood. But what happens to children in this process, on their way to become productive citizens?
Well, that depends on the adult decisions being made around the children. In a school, it could very well mean a life sentence, of reading poorly, or assigned to the discarded heap of labels imposed on them, ‘not academic’ by the so-called experts of the school community. The adults decided in their wisdom, based on their claim of expertise, that decisions of children’s futures rest in the hands of the adults, even if some of the decisions, are also slamming the doors of their future lives as they enter adulthood. For some children, nailed and sealed that makes it very difficult for the child, now turned adult to pull out the nails and old caulking, to access the doors, where their future lies. Very much, like the children in Natalie’s Glasses caught between the two worlds of the old school, nicknamed The Castle, and the future school of brand new bricks and mortar, without the past of other children’s footsteps that went before them hundreds of years ago.
Who is under siege? I would say, childhood is under siege from the adults around them, who have forgotten their own personal history of childhood. the trials and tribulations that came from the adult decisions imposed on them as children, The adults have forgotten the way they saw through the pretense and hypocrisy of adults, as children. In education, the adults do make it very difficult for children who do not quite fit in the mode of the mini-adult versions dancing in their adult heads. Sadly, it represents the majority of children whose childhood lives have been filtered through the adult lens, and superimposed unto their childhood, the visions of the adults. Little adults, acting and behaving like the big adults, and on their way to forget the past sustains the present, and nurtures the future.
After talking with several people yesterday at the Academy Nancy, I would say you have pretty well hit the nail on the head. To generalize I would say the children attending this school (about 115 – 120 of them) are the school’s oxygen supply. The same goes for the town of Lunenburg.
In talking to an educator who is working at much larger school in on our region, I got the distinct impression that school was being managed in a CEO like fashion. Get it done and churn them out.
http://www.southshorenow.ca/archives/2011/100411/news/index010.php
Articles like this are sadly ironic.
Steven, sure sounds like some citizens on the task force is focus on turning a buck, even though it is slowly eroding and destroying the history of the building in order to make a buck. A lesson my community learned a while back on razing down homes over 250 years to almost 300 years old, just to make room for a garage. http://www.explorelunenburg.ca/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=90&Itemid=267
I still remember my old grade school in Ontario, especially in grade 5. The grade 5 classroom, was the original one room school, built of stones back in 1846 if I remember correctly. The coat closets, one for boys and one for girls were huge and roomy, where the boys and girls of the past, who were daring enough to carved their initials on the oak and maple wood back in the 1800s. That is somehow neat, to discovered that others before had been there in that coat room, hanging their jacket on the very same wooden dowels as I was doing in the present 1960s. Alas, that school is also closing, and no doubt the modern 21st century board, will take an axe to the old school, and opt for plans of a housing development, like every other urban-rural concern (once was rural) is doing, when large tracts of school land becomes available for development. The history disappears, and people only think of the future, paying no mind to the yesterdays that paves the futures of people.
What is really ironic, if Luneberg Academy was in the hustle and bustle of a modern day urban city, everything would be done to preserved the history of the building, with money being no objective to maintain the building. and no worries about the future use of the space. “”So, the question is, what do we do with all the space we’ve got that becomes surplus? Do we still just continue to keep it going or do we, in effect, look at other things that might be able to happen with some of those spaces?”
http://www.southshorenow.ca/archives/2011/100411/news/index010.php
Surplus space in one community, and in another community, surplus space translate into an opportunity for enhance services for their citizens.
yes, it would be interesting if the Lunenburg Academy were situated in the district of say… Irvine Carvery.
However, the local school board has intervened and put an end to the use of the school for other activities such as after school music classes for the students on weekends etc.
The reasoning is it complicates the duties of the acting principal. Way to much demand for the Academy of late it seems. Quite the opposite reality to the claims express by the mayor in the article you and I cited.
Under siege and from what? Perhaps we could use some child protection laws from school boards.
Or some protection laws period from all government organizations that think they know what is best for people. Had to look up Irvine Carvery…….
“In 2002, the area became a National Historic Site, protecting it against future development, and in 2009 the road bordering the south side of the park was renamed Africville Road.
“As soon as they got rid of their lawyers and we stopped fighting with lawyers, we sat down as a group of people and came up with a resolution that felt good for the community as a whole,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Things got a lot better and can be a lot better in the future.”
While some members of the Africville community remain bitter and want a public inquiry and individual compensation, Mr. Carvery said a majority are proud of what’s been accomplished.
“We’ve done a lot of work in repairing those old wounds,” Mr. Carvery said, “and we’ve opened the door to the future.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/tag/irvine-carvery/
Not the only story that I came across, regarding communities being mowed down, as well as buildings where horrible things happened to children that were in the care of the state. The governments of the day, like to tear now the buildings, and hope that no one remembers the horrible deeds committed within the walls of the buildings against children. What they should be doing is to create a living breathing memorial by rebirth of the building, transforming it to a place that the local residents can go to to view art, or something that would chase the ghosts of the past, and acknowledge wrong doing by the state. Heck, and they save another historical building, from the bulldozer.
Funny thing about old buildings, when they are torn down. The ghosts of the past stick around, like some folks say, to cause mischief for the new residents. Much better to give a building a new purpose, and keep the ghosts of the past quiet.
If they were really “sorry” they’d stop razing communities. But they don’t.
It’s all hypocrisy. The real motive is profit and it seems it’s always the same ones who reap the profits at the expense of the many.
Keping the ghosts of the past quiet on this night is questionable.
Hilda Neatby would be quite vocal and point to the main focus of the problem as Andrew has pointed out. Thanks Paul for revealing an important chapter in “So Little for the Mind” on Halloween night.
Below another link on how messages from the public education system are passed down via through the corporate link.
“I am pleased to announce the Readers Grow Into Leaders Literacy Program for elementary schools, and you can become a part of this dynamic cause. Do you remember your schooldays? Laughter, skinned knees, adventure and creating friends for life were all a part of growing up. The impact of school and the benefits of reading cannot be underestimated. The Greater Essex County District School Board and the many under-funded elementary schools in our community are excited to participate in this program.
You have the opportunity to be part of this literacy program by becoming a corporate or individual sponsor. Sponsors supply a copy of The Greenhouse Kids, Dan Delion’s Secret for students. You can sponsor enough books for an entire school or class. Each book is $13.00 (taxes included). Simply let us know how many students you would like to sponsor.”
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/shelley-awad/29/70/634
The last two sentences in the first paragraph are the key messages: ” The impact of school and the benefits of reading cannot be underestimated. The Greater Essex County District School Board and the many under-funded elementary schools in our community are excited to participate in this program.”
So which is it? The school board is underfunding schools in their districts, or the schools think the school board is underfunding the schools?
Have no idea, but the message underlying all of it, is that the schools need books, and the author of children’s books as well as being the sole owner of the Readers Grow Into Leaders Literacy Program, is the literacy conduit to supply the sponsors to purchased the author’s books, to be given out free to the children.
Feel-good solutions to the problems of the low literacy, easily solved by the giving out of a few books, and everyone looks goods and they too can say they are doing their part in reducing low-literacy.
“Almost half of Canadian adults (48%) have low literacy skills according to the Canadian Council on Learning, a non-profit organization in Ottawa. We need to turn the page on illiteracy today so that students can grow into adults who can thrive in any economy. The best way to accomplish this goal, is to introduce students to the benefits of reading when they are young.
You have the opportunity to be a huge part of this literacy program by becoming a corporate or individual sponsor. Sponsors supply The Greenhouse Kids books for students in our elementary schools. You can supply enough books for an entire school, class, or as many as you like. You can spark the excitement of reading within a child. Each book is $13.00 (taxes included). Simply let us know how many students you would like to sponsor.”
http://greenhousekids.com/ecom.asp?pg=readers-leaders
More like, making a buck on the backs of children, and the public education system get to repeat their messages and reinforce the message that low literacy is not their making. It is the fault of society. that the public education system would have us believe.