Barbara Kay’s new column is now posted in the columnist section. This one is called “Warm and fuzzy makes Johnny dim”. It’s very interesting reading for anyone intersted in education and how teachers, teachers’ colleges, and their unions are failing our kids.
Here’s a snippet:
A sensational news item out of Toronto this month reports a “rising tide of parental rage.” Parents are swearing at teachers in front of children, mouthing off at the school secretary or even launching (unspecified) physical assaults over marks and discipline issues. “A generation ago,” says Sharon O’Halloran of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, “teachers and other authority figures were held in high regard. Now the pendulum has shifted.”
Setting aside O’Halloran’s failed metaphor—pendulums don’t shift, they swing—her indignation leaves me curiously unmoved. Of course, one never condones uncivil or violent behaviour against pubic servants. And yet somewhere inside me a little imp is smiling. The little imp remembers that after 9/11, the Toronto branch of Ontario’s biggest secondary school teachers union joined the anti-American “root causes” chorus, disseminating an article entitled Why America is Hated, and encouraging teachers to use it in the classroom. Although I normally abhor blame-the-victim games, since today’s scapegoats represent that arrogant juggernaut, the public education empire, I’ll make an exception.
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