12:57 on 2012/08/09 Reply  

• Tux 13:10 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  If you want to keep kids in school more of the same is not the answer. Maybe free up the schedule and give it some flexibility, put more emphasis on working on problems in groups and mediating disputes and differences of opinion instead of on listening to lectures. More emphasis on interpreting and understanding, less on rote memorization. We don’t want to train the next generation to be wage slaves, we want to teach them to think for themselves, to shake things up! Kids don’t drop out of school ’cause the day isn’t long enough, they drop out because they’re not getting anything out of it or they need to work to support themselves or their families. Sounds like CAQ just cacked this one out without really thinking about it.

• Kate 13:18 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  One thing I believe we need, based on recent news bits – I’ll find some links in a minute – is something like American civics classes, a general survey on being a citizen, the minutiae of participating in society as an adult. I’d love a crack at designing a course like this. You’d learn:
  1. how our governments work (forget the historical stuff about how it ended up this way – you’d learn about the levels of gov’t and what they do in a practical sense)
  2. how you most primarily interact with them (voting, getting a driver’s licence, getting a passport or other documents, births, marriage, deaths and what you have to do about them)
  3. basic practical law – signing a lease, what a contract means, writing a will, what happens if you get arrested
  4. basic finances – what banks do, what a cheque is, how to set things up to make it easier to save a little money, how not to get conned
  5. what being an employee means, and your rights and obligations in this area
  6. …? What else?

  I’m just thinking aloud here, but these are all things I had to learn bit by bit outside school, and are areas in which people can be misinformed even by well-meaning friends and relatives. Yet they’re not taught formally in school and I don’t know why not.

• Bill Binns 13:27 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  @Kate – I like all of that. I had a class in junior highschool where we had to maintain a fake checking account for a couple of semesters. The teacher would give each of us “receipts” and every day and pay stubs every week and we had to keep a running balance etc. This was invaluable to me later in life but I don’t think this kind of thing is done anymore.

  I also had a class at some point that taught us the beliefs of all the world’s major religions. This is unthinkable now in public school (at least in the States).

  For #6, I would add – Teach kids what having a child means to your lifestyle.

• walkerp 13:29 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  It’s just insane how out of touch these politicians are with the realities of education on the ground. They are all driving their stupid agendas based on what their analysts are telling them will get votes.

  Kate, I think those classes you suggest are a great idea. I’d also include basic social behaviour, like giving up your seat on the bus to the elderly, pregnant, etc., not littering, not blocking the sidewalk and so on.

  Also, typing, basic computer management and internet behaviour.

• Joey 13:32 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  Doesn’t Legault’s idea call for the expansion of non-academic school activities (i.e., sports) for the extra time kids would spend in school? I wouldn’t be so dismissive, especially since it would alleviate a considerable burden on working parents, who have to figure out how to fill the gap between 3pm and the time they get home.

  Further, this kind of thing is common at private schools, where the schoolday is extended through a plethora of activities that engage kids who might otherwise be bored stiff all day long. If it’s good enough for Westmounters, maybe it would work in St. Henri too.

  Also, it’s hard to imagine a class on civics would inspire our bored teenage boys. I’m having a hard time squaring Kate’s follow-up comment (we need more civic/law/finance education) with her critique of Legault’s plan (kids are bored at school).

• Kate 13:33 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  Teach kids what having a child means to your lifestyle.

  Yes, up to a point, but this course has to be designed cautiously around family issues because of religious differences. Once you get into children you get into how to arrange not to have children as a teenager yourself – crucial information, but dicey to a number of religious faiths.

  Joey, many of the kids who are bored will soon be employees, will have to manage even small salaries soon, if they’re not already. I’d make this course not so much a sort of prissy “you should do this” as a “don’t be an idiot, you need to know this stuff or you’ll look like a stupid kid” kind of course. Adult Basics 101. Not quadratic equations – actual practical information like what your rights are if you’re driving and the cops pull you over. (We need this particularly here because people often have mistaken ideas about our legal system and our rights from watching U.S. TV shows.)

  Anyway, this course is being proposed not specifically to counter student boredom as to respond to recent issues about young people not voting and not understanding why it’s important, a slightly different issue. Although I do think teaching this as practical material could have an appeal that a lot of the more theoretical stuff does not, and help them see how they need to participate if they’re not going to feel forever like things are being done to them.

• AJ 13:57 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  That very thing was proposed and implemented at a primary school in the UK. The former head teacher, Richard Gerver, turned around the Grange School from worst to best by creating a cross-grade program called ‘Grangeton’ – the school was basically a town and kids applied the practical knowledge from school into the activities of running a real shop, administrating things, budgeting, etc – and not just as a model once-off activity, but as part of the core curriculum. He’s a disciple of Sir Ken Robinson, who advocates dispensing with our 19th century ‘learn outmoded skills in a factory-like environment for factory-esque jobs later on’ model for something based on discovering -gasp- what kids actually love and are talented at and helping them achieve that.

• jeather 14:03 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  The problem is when you call it “blocking access to English” instead of “ensuring everyone is fluent in French”. But I have long since given up on my idea of all schools being bilingual schools, with (say) 75% of the day in French, 25% in English. Numbers can be readjusted if there is a third language.

• Bill Binns 14:06 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  I suspect Legault’s plan is more of an answer to Charest’s $100.00 for school supplies (or beer, your choice) vote buying scheme than anything else. “He’s giving you a hundred bucks but I’ll keep your kids out of your hair until dinner time”.

• Kate 14:58 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  Bill Binns, you may well be right on that.

  jeather, it’s specifically blocking access to English in this case – blocking access to English CEGEP for anyone without grandfathered rights to anglo education. This could damage the anglo CEGEPs by reducing the number of eligible students, and damage Quebec generally because there are people who find English easier than French for advanced subjects, so will either stop studying, or leave Quebec and study elsewhere, while francophone and allophone students will not have the right to expand their options by studying in English (unless their families are wealthy and can send them to private colleges).

  Does Marois see the stupidity, if not impossibility, of trying to impose this rule on people at or close to the age of majority? I just do not know.

  AJ, I never heard about that – thanks, I’ll look it up.

• qatzelok 16:18 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  @ Kate: “You can’t maintain a culture for long by enforcing ignorance.”

  And yet, many Anglos have been in Quebec for ten generations without learning French. How did they survive for so long? And why would it “enforce ignorance” to make them study CEGEP in French? Is learning French a form of ignorance, or useful knowledge?

• steph 16:32 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  I don’t agree with Marios’ ideas, but I can understand a few of these arguments. Only in Quebec can you get a high-school degree at 16 years old, why should CEGEP be considered post-secondary? The cost of attending CEGEP is more comparable to high-school then other schools that don’t fall under Bill 101…

  The timing of the CAQ education plan really sucks. Quebec schools JUST finished undergoing an education reform. Educators will not be pleased having to re-modify the curriculum once again. What’s worse is that during these times of change it’s the students that suffer and the weaker and special needs students completely fall between the cracks. I totally don’t agree with the new structures implemented. No more advanced placement groups (so no bobo groups either), everyone learning in the same class at the same rate. And no more failing either in elementary school, we now have some kids entering high school that read at a grade 1 level and add with their fingers, WTF?

  It was really good in the 90′s that the religious based school boards disappeared. Religion classes today aren’t taught as dogma anymore, they now teach other world religions. Just this last year quebec supreme court denied parents that wanted to prevent their kids from learning about other religion.

• Ephraim 17:07 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  Marois is economically wrong. The more bilingual the population, the higher the incomes. What she is doing is the equivalent of telling people to stay on the farms. And frankly at the age of 18, they are adults and can make their own choices. The end result might be a larger exodus of people who seek better education futures outside of the province because they are stymied in the province.

  Legault’s idea won’t work either. We are better off learning from the private schools. And we are better off spending our money more wisely, cutting back on the ministry itself and putting more money into vocational education for those who dropping out. Requiring those discussing dropping out to see a councillor and getting someone directly involved in either solving their problem by getting them the required help (and that might be tutoring, but it can also be family help, etc.) and redirecting their effort to get them finished schooling and not drop out. For example, you might find that the parents provide no support, so a mentoring program might help. Or they are having trouble in one subject and extra time with a tutor might solve it. But it can also be that they don’t learn in a traditional format and that vocation education and the right program might help them. Welders, construction, nurse’s aide, etc. All jobs that need to be filled.

• Jack 18:11 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  Legault now calls it a model, he is full of it. If this was such a brilliant idea why didn’t he implement when he was…….the Minister of Education? I know some people personally who say a prayer to Pierre Curzi every night (now full time teachers), english language CEGEPS are filled to the brim on the island because allophones think that door might shut.

  Marois has previously been against this, weirdly as PQ numbers drop they play the nationalist card hard. She should ask Gilles Duceppe how that worked in the Fed.

• Kate 18:53 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  qatzelok, if you’ve studied in French from maternelle to grade 11, you might switch to English for CEGEP for all kinds of reasons, including broadening your mind. Having your language choice limited at that age is enforced ignorance. The vast majority of people on this continent communicate in English; restricting people’s understanding of the language hobbles them and reduces their opportunities.

  Ephraim, you’re right that many practical jobs are not well served by what kids learn, and more vocational stuff is needed, although I don’t know how you do this without always making it sound like “these classes are for the smart kids, the dummies can go over there and do woodwork.” But someone has to think about this. A university degree is not relevant for many jobs where it’s a requirement, but it’s the quickest way for employers to weed out the illiterates and select people who can at least follow orders and complete a task. I think there has to be some shift in perceptions here as well.

• qatzelok 20:30 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  @ Kate: “The vast majority of people on this continent communicate in English; restricting people’s understanding of the language hobbles them and reduces their opportunities.”

  Sounds like the entire continent has been hobbled. How many cultures/languages were in Turtle Island before the “opportunity” people came here and democratized everything? A hundred? A thousand? French is just another culture for commerce to destroy via its propagandized (but well meaning) converts. Ireland used to have a language too. But I guess it hobbled them to maintain it.

• qatzelok 20:33 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  @ Ephraim: “The more bilingual the population, the higher the incomes. ”

  This is how the surviving Acadians became Anglophones: “Learn English and you’ll get rich.” Now, they’re poorer than ever and are quickly losing their culture. Same with the Cajuns. They learned English so they could become poor AND cultureless. Why is Germany so wealthy? Or Luxembourg? They have lower rates of bilingualism than Quebec.

• Kate 20:34 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  Ireland makes sure every kid learns some Irish in school, but nobody thinks the path to prosperity lies in only speaking Irish. In fact, the Irish have won by using English better than almost anyone else.

  French is also a language of colonialists, which displaced native languages too. There’s nothing sacred about French. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. If you’re going to rack up a list of oppressed vs. oppressive languages – a silly exercise, but go ahead – French is way over on the oppressive side.

• qatzelok 20:37 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  So it’s good that Ireland and Scotland had their languages destroyed so that the people there aren’t so hobbled? And to learn a few words of a dead language like Gaelic is cute, but also pathetic. This is all that dead cultures have left, right? This and all that money they raked in by learning to speak English.

• Kate 20:38 on 2012/08/09 Permalink

  qatzelok, there’s nothing I can say against your hatred for English. But I can suggest one thing. Stop writing in it. It’s not doing you any good.

• Diana 00:27 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  Just a few comments I thought were missing from this conversation:
  1. The 9-to-5 seems to be an awfully long time for kids to be at school, especially if even adults working these hours get so bored…and in fact the “9-to-5″ jobs are ending soon precisely because people hate working for so long. I doubt that children would like the prospect of staying at school longer just because it’s a traditional work time. I do agree that education needs more diversification, but that has to come with an overall course reform (perhaps even the civics course) not with extending school hours.

  2. In regard to the language debate between Kate and qatzelok: English was created as a language that people could use to communicate amongst each other never mind their nationalities. I find it strange when people start complaining how horrible it is “that people are all speaking English and losing their cultures”. That’s simply not true. First, you cannot lose a culture (that would be negating the whole concept of culture)–losing traditions, sure, but you can hardly tell me that all traditions are great. Regardless, secondly, it’s funny when something is invented and upon being used in the way it was invented it is also vilified. Kind of like eating ice cream and then complaining that it’s bringing a smile to faces of children. Sure, English isn’t the most beautiful language or whatever, but it was created for international communication–and it works.

• ant6n 07:30 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  @Kate
  7. Insurances. Health (together with the whole system), dental, drug, liability, property, unemployment.
  8. Legal recourse, how to file sth with the police or other agencies, small claims.
  9. Social/Government programs. I.e. housing, daycare, …

  This language thing is silly. Just require all graduating CEGEP students to have a certain level of French proficiency (C1?) and be done with it. They should require English as well (B2?).

• ant6n 07:30 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  10. Taxes.

• qatzelok 08:35 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  @ Diana: “English was created as a language that people could use to communicate amongst each other never mind their nationalities.”

  Never mind their nationalities? So the Cherokee and Apache were enticed to speak English as a way of uniting the world into one happy family? The Acadians were ethnic-cleansed so they could spend their summers at English Kumbaya camp in Louisiana? Half the world was brutally colonized as a way of “giving peace a chance?”

• ant6n 09:41 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  @qatzelok
  And the other half was brutalized into speaking French. blabla. Get over it.

• Kate 10:06 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  @anton, those are good additions to my scheme.

  @qatzelok, I can’t picture what you think is the ideal to counter reality. Would every village have its own language incomprehensible to any other? I think you need to read up on linguistics, especially on how languages arise and die out, because it’s a process that goes on all the time. Smaller languages fizzle out as the speakers adopt some language that gives them access to life outside the local village. Lots of languages died out around the Mediterranean, for example, with the coming of Greek and then the dominance of Latin. Was Latin evil? What does that even mean?

  Look, this is the list of languages by number of native speakers. Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi are the top four. All are used as common languages by many non-native speakers who grew up speaking more local languages but found out they had to speak a more widely understood language to become more mobile, to work, to trade, to expand their lives into a different sphere. With worldwide communications, you can’t get by speaking only Irish or Basque – you’ve got to also speak English or Spanish. This isn’t evil oppression, it’s just a fact of life.

  (Oh, why do I bother?)

• Philippe 12:07 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  @Kate: You can certainly get by speaking only your country’s language. I’ve spent several weeks on business in northern Germany these past few years, and was surprised at how only marginally useful English was. I once tried ordering a hamburger with fries, only to be asked “Was ist ‘fries’?” That was on a military base with some US personnel on site, not some backwater farmland. On the other hand in the Netherlands I’ve been served in an English so perfect that if they hadn’t first addressed me in Dutch I would have had to believe they were British. Globalisation and technology will certainly play a part in the spread of languages, but it seems to me that a stronger factor is that if a language pool (in terms of speaker) is below a certain threshold, the people will be more likely to acquire a second or a third language.

• Kate 14:12 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  Philippe, it depends what you want to do. But you’re right, it also depends on the size of your language pool. Obviously it’s possible to grow up, study and thrive in Quebec in French only. People do. But anyone who aspires to a job which involves travel, or – like many academic positions – involves being able to read learned journals, communicate with colleagues, and so on – will need to have English and possibly other languages too.

  I once had a Dutch neighbour who spoke English fluently with me, French comfortably with other neighbours, and told me (and I had no reason to doubt him) that he could also manage Spanish, Italian and German. He was in his mid 30s at most, and while an energetic kind of guy, not an intellectual savant. He was working here as a salesman for some industrial product company. But, and I think this is important, he didn’t feel that acquiring these languages had been a burden or an imposition. He’d just lived in various parts of Europe over the course of a few years and picked up the lingo wherever he was.

  We’re so weird about this here. I’ve met people from Africa who speak several local languages as well as English and French. I’ve met people from Asia who can sling several mutually unintelligible dialects of Chinese or Vietnamese, and then come here and learn English and French. Why are we making such a BFD about learning one other language?

• qatzelok 18:54 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  @ Kate: “This isn’t evil oppression, it’s just a fact of life.”

  So then why not permit Quebec to completely francicize the Anglos here? It’s not like North America is hurting for more Anglophones. And speaking the language of the majority is just a fact of life. At least, when it’s other people’s cultures you’re destroying, right?

• mare 23:19 on 2012/08/10 Permalink

  I’m a Dutch guy living in Quebec. I speak Dutch, English, French and German and understand Italian, Spanish and Swiss German well enought to have conversations and read the headlines in newspaper (context helps a lot ). The main reason the Dutch speak English well is television. All US and British TV shows are subtitled and even at a young age you read the subtitles but still get a feel for the original language and subconsciencely pick up words and the tone. That is a huge benefit when you later start to actually learn English. You can see that older Dutch people, that weren’t brought up with TV are also much worse English speakers with much heavier accents. In Germany they have language laws like in Quebec and all Tv program’s need to be dubbed and computer software needs to be available in German localizations. Germans therefore speak much worse English than the Dutch because they simply aren’t exposed to it as much. The fact that the Dutch speak their languages made the Netherlands a very wealthy country, even though they lack a big population that buys local products (like the US, Germany and France). Have the Dutch lost their culture? Will they forget their language in a few generations? I don’t think so. Among themselves they speak Dutch. They read books by Dutch authors or translated into Dutch. There are Dutch movies, plays and TV programs and they all are consumed with great joy. Will Quebeckers all stop speaking French without Loi 101? I seriously doubt it. What I do know is that if you are a uni-lingual Quebecker, if that language is English or French, you’ll miss out on a lot of things that are happening here. And if you only speak French you basically live on an island surrounded by sharks that you can’t and won’t leave. Not healthy. I think everyone in Quebec should learn English as well as French and speak with your family and friends the language that works best, even if that is Creole, Chinese or Vietnamese. There really are more pressing problems than language, but it’s an easy way for politicians to divide the waters. And that makes me sad.

• ant6n 06:48 on 2012/08/11 Permalink

  @mare
  Quebec-style language laws in Germany? Where did you hear that?
  I’d say Dutch speak good English and German, because it’s a small country and they have to, but also because Dutch as a language is basically a mix of English and German, the closeness of the languages makes it easier to learn.

• mare 09:38 on 2012/08/11 Permalink

  @ant6n
  They have language laws, like they have them in Quebec. Not Quebec-style language laws though.

• mare 09:39 on 2012/08/11 Permalink

  Oh, and Dutch is not a mix of English and German. That’s saying like French is a mix of Italian and Spanish.

• Kate 13:07 on 2012/08/11 Permalink

  why not permit Quebec to completely francicize the Anglos here?

  “francicizing” is such an odd word to use for people. See, normally when we talk about anglicizing something it’s a book or a text – translating it – not a person.

• Kevin 07:34 on 2012/08/13 Permalink

  Don’t bother. @qatzelok is one of those people trapped in the stupid philosophy that everyone who speaks a language is a member of the same culture. He literally sees no difference between an anglo born and raised in Montreal and an American from Tennessee — or a cockney.

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