Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to The Star
It would appear that elementary school education is going to hell in a handcart according to the Doug Ford government and the negative figures coming out of EQAO Math scores. The education minister blames “discovery math.” The problem is far more complex than that. The public and the government has no one to blame other than themselves after decades of grossly under-funding education, a politically sensitive revolving-door curriculum with every new government, patronizing elementary teachers who are predominantly women and failing to recognize the deep and dramatic changes that have occurred in society.
Math scores are not dropping due to any change in the abilities of teachers or students but from subtle, profound changes in social expectations and norms that have transformed education and society through techno-capitalism over the past thirty years.
Over that time the importance of formal education as a top priority has been rapidly declining in the face of the technological revolution.
To begin with student mobility is a major unaddressed issue. Students are constantly moving globally due to family dynamics, economics, war displacement, jobs and the demands of a globalized world. Teachers are expected to adapt with limited resources and services while keeping Math scores high. Students rarely finish where they began and many move numerous times during their school career. In the permissive and often falsely democratic 21st century parents are governed by the “tyranny of the child” through a democracy and freedom promoted by the private sector that has pushed childhood back further and further. Harried parents “democratically” govern their children meaning letting them do whatever they want because its too much effort to discipline them and say no. The result is unruly, self-entitled children who demand, demand and demand. Parents and children are considered to have equal rights. The private sector has taken our children hostage with our own passive consumerist consent.
The technological revolution has transformed childhood and education to their core. Students from the earliest grades have Smartphones and laptops at their disposal robbing them of quiet, technology-free homework time and allowing them access to any form of inappropriate adult content, violent video games that are all the rage and social media galore permitting them to contact anyone in the world. Policing their use has become a major problem in school systems as teachers fight a losing battle for the attention of their students. Banning them from classrooms will help return teacher focus to the curriculum. Spellcheckers and calculators have made life much easier for adults but have also made students lazy about understanding the concepts behind math and language. We are seeing the first generation of “techno-students” being produced. Information is also at their fingertips making plagiarism a major problem.
Today, students go to school not for an education but for the social contact. Schools have always provided a custodial function as well that has become critical with two parents working.
Parents have the same battles with technology at home but the problem is of their own making. They pay for phones and air time while doing little to supervise the technology or its use leading to online bullying and worse. Add to this the distractions of work time for teens, a blizzard of extra-curricular school and home activities and there are not enough hours in a day for students to fit everything in, let alone become educated. Add on to this the availability of vehicles leading to much more socializing by teens and the day is packed with senseless social priorities and activities that teachers are expected to tolerate and manage that have become the core of students lives.
Education has slipped far down the priority list from its previously top position. It is the recipe for falling Math scores and a widespread disaster for society. Ironically, they and their parents still want the great grades when it comes to graduating and getting into their favourite program. They are horrified and hostile when they do not get them. We are living in the “play generation.”
Don’t blame teachers or education for these problems, blame the private sector that Doug Ford loves so much and the technological revolution it has created. Blame the permissive, falsely democratic society and parents. Educators are just the canaries in the coal mine.