Seeing learners in a different light

 

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus of Education, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

 We moved to a new residence about a year ago. The walls in our previous home were primarily cloud white. The ones in our new home are three shades of blue-grey in the light to mid-grey range. When we hung the artwork from our previous home in the new one, we began to see the paintings and photographs differently. The blue-grey walls provided a different context for the art. And, because our new home has more and larger windows, we saw the art in an entirely different light, literally.

Seeing the art in a whole new light started me thinking about how the way we have ‘framed’ certain observations in education have propelled us in directions that would be different if we had framed them in a different way.

Consider the observation that some children begin school without knowing some shapes, colors, letters, and numbers, etc. There is a commonly held expectation that students without such knowledge find learning more challenging. The problem is often labeled “lack of school readiness”: that the knowledge that some children possess when entering school makes them “school ready” and other children’s lack of such knowledge prevents them from being seen as ready for school. This leads to judgments and action that are different from ones that one might make if the observation was framed differently.

Instead of framing the problem in terms of what children lack, it could be considered as a problem with schooling. Why do schools define some knowledge as valuable and its absence as a problem? Framed in this way, one might ask: are schools ready for the range of children for whom they will be responsible? Other related questions are: what strengths do children entering school possess upon which the school can build? How might we recognize and validate the range of knowledge that students do bring to school?

I expect that a change in our frame of reference would help us to make the school environment more welcoming to Indigenous students, to children for whom English is an additional language, and to students with special needs – and their parents, too. And I expect that appreciating various types of knowledge would lead to greater success because that framing would lead us to a different course of action.

Recognizing and validating a broader range of knowledge conveys the message to learners that what they know and can do is important in school and that they can be proud of what they know and can do. This may make the transition of children from cultures where, although they do not have the expected “school readiness” skills, they possess other important skills such as listening to elders, making observations, and sharing – skills that are also important for successful learning.

As almost every teacher knows, children who believe they are successful are more persistent learners because they recognize that they have already learned things of value. Students’ expectations about their own success also influence learning. Having been successful learners in the past engenders confidence in learning things that are new to them. The children who are ready for school in the conventional sense might learn that the knowledge they possess is not the only knowledge. They might see that there is a broad range of knowledge recognized and valued by the institution.

Just as I came to have a different appreciation of our artwork when it was seen in a new context, recognizing what children know and can do at school entry might prompt us to treat them differently. Seeing and appreciating what they bring would create a more welcoming environment for them and help to increase their success.

Don't confuse devolution with democracy

 Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

In his Globe and Mail opinion piece, Paul W. Bennet tries to make the case that “Canada’s bureaucratic school system needs a top-to-bottom overhaul.” His argument for giving greater responsibility to local schools seems superficially attractive if one ignores that the inadequate school system response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a product of doing exactly what Bennet recommends: devolving the responsibility for responding to the pandemic to local school boards. 

Bennet claims that “the centralized and over-bureaucratic school system proved to be vulnerable and ill-equipped to respond to the massive pandemic disruption.” I, on the other hand, argue that the ill-equipped response to the pandemic was a result of the improper delegation of responsibility from provincial ministries of education  to school boards, most of which lack the capacity to respond to the demands of providing online learning that they faced in the spring and continue to face in the fall In turn, many boards delegated responsibility to individual schools.

Rather than exercise their ability to coordinate the educational response to the pandemic, provincial governments promulgated guidelines for local school boards to apply as local conditions warranted. As circumstances have shown, neither school boards, nor the schools to which they in turn delegated discretion, had the capacity to exercise that delegated authority because they lacked expertise, resources, and, of course, experience.   

I agree with Paul Bennett’s assessment of the inadequate response to the pandemic, but not his analysis of its origins. There is no evidence that, in vesting control in local schools and communities, schooling would be better – and plenty historical evidence that it would not.

Delegating authority from provincial to local authorities is a convenient reflex for many provincial authorities. Such delegation provides political cover when things go awry as they often do when the course is uncharted, and even when they do not.

Long before Confederation, Egerton Ryerson, the Methodist minister who vigorously advocated for free, universal schooling, expressed his reservations about local school authorities and argued for a strong central educational authority vested in the hands of government. Ryerson’s concern about the capacity of school boards to govern in the public interest was justified. Provincial ministries of education often found it necessary to dismiss local boards and replace them with an appointed trustee when the boards were unable or unwilling to govern in the interest of the citizens they are supposed to serve.

Local control of education has a superficial appeal to those unfamiliar with its history. Local school boards were established at a time when Catholics and Protestants were deeply fearful that, if one or the other gained control of the local school, it would be to the detriment of the group that was not in control because, at that time, school curricula were imbued with religion. The solution was the creation of small, local school boards largely separated by religion. Religious segregation sounded more benign when it was dressed up in the cloak of local democracy.

Bennet opportunistically uses the admittedly inadequate educational response to the COVID pandemic to attack the education system, implying that the quality of public education is poor because of the way the system is organized.  Though it has its shortcomings, Canadian public education is – relative to other nations – a high performer when it comes to reading, mathematics and science - the domains for which there are international comparisons.

The shortcomings of the Canadian education system are not ones that would improve by dismantling the system and “reinventing it from the schools up” by giving more responsibility to “those closest to students.” Such a change would erode one of the system’s strengths, namely that the very small differences between schools do not appreciably affect student achievement.

Canadian public education does not need institutional disaggregation. It needs greater institutional coordination in things such as online learning. Given the comparatively small curricular differences among the provinces and territories, cooperation among ministries of education should be able to produce much higher quality courseware than any that a single province could produce on its own, and at a lower cost. If anything, reform of Canadian public education should involve more, not less, cooperation and coordination.

Why the Government of Canada will NOT appoint a temporary Minister of Education during the COVID-19 epidemic

 

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

Adhering to the dictum “never let a good crisis go to waste,” Irvin Studin has proposed in The Globe and Mail  that Canada needs a temporary Minister of Education to address what he calls “Canada’s postquarantine education crisis.” I do not dispute that COVID-19 has produced an unprecedented crisis in education. In fact, I recently published a blog addressing the question: “Will Public Schooling Withstand the Disruptive Impact of COVID-19?” 

Studin’s opinion article begins by clarifying that lawmaking in education is the exclusive responsibility of the provinces and declaring that he is “not calling for any constitutional change whatsoever in this regard.” He makes clear that the establishment of a Federal Minister of Education would not require a constitutional change.

Although the provinces were granted the jurisdiction to make laws in relation to education, there is nothing in the Constitution Act that prevents the Canadian government from using its leadership role and spending powers to influence public schooling in Canada. Whenever the Government of Canada has wanted to influence public schooling, it ­has not been shy from doing so. In fact, the Government of Canada has supported or undertaken many initiatives in the realm of public schooling.  For example, the Government of Canada provides funding for PISA and, based on agreements with the provinces and territories, it also provides financial support for minority language education and second-language instruction.

Like Studin, I have argued that Canada must use its leadership position and its spending power to ensure that Canadian public schools remain the strong institutions they are. A federal department of education could provide leadership and funding to public elementary and secondary schooling in areas central to the interest of all Canadians and coordinate the work of the various federal departments and agencies that engage with public schools.

Such a department could: sponsor research about the effectiveness of various approaches to education; develop policy papers to stimulate public debate about the directions that public schooling might take; coordinate the collection and interpretation of data pertinent to such issues and decisions; and report periodically to the Canadian people about public schools.

There are several specific areas that I think demand the attention of the government of Canada. First and most important is the education of Indigenous learners. Significant achievement gaps between identifiable groups detract from the promise of Canadian public schooling that the outcomes of schooling should not be determined by one’s background. The gap between Indigenous and non-­Indigenous students is a national disgrace that requires immediate, coordinated attention which the federal government seems reluctant to provide.

Sympathetic as I am to a federal department of education and to using the post-quarantine crises in education instrumentally to achieve such a goal, the immediate appointment of a temporary minister of education is not prudent.

The introduction of a federal department of education would be a delicate matter for any government at any time. Ensuring the provinces – and especially Quebec – that the Government of Canada would play an entirely facilitative role would be essential.

Education is, in part, about nation-building – a topic that is extremely sensitive for Quebec. Building the French Nation in Quebec is an enduring project in which Francization – the integration of immigrants to French language and culture - plays an important part.

 A temporary minister of education would not be able to earn sufficient credibility and muster the resources necessary to produce a short-term impact. The uneven response among provinces and school boards thus far is in great measure attributable to the reluctance of provinces to do more than set guidelines. If the provinces were to take a more prescriptive approach, they would “own it” when things go awry – as they inevitably will.

Much groundwork would be required were any federal government prepared to attempt to formally establish a permanent Minister (and Ministry) of Education.

How the school system can [almost] stifle a student’s initiative

 

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

 [permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

As readers will know, many school jurisdictions closed schools and shifted to online ‘learning’ in March 2020. I put quotation marks around learning because the application and success of online learning was and continues to be – let us say – uneven.

One 17-year-old sought to repeat Grade 11 because he wanted to improve his already strong academic standing so that he may pursue a scholarship to a high ranking university, and the possibility of earning a place on an NCAA baseball team. He felt that time missed due to medical absences prior to COVID-19 and the educational situation during COVID-19 deprived him of the solid foundation for further study and the pursuit of his goals.

The counselor said that she thought that would be fine, but that she wanted to check with the school’s administration. Two weeks later, the parents received an email informing them that their son’s request to repeat grade 11 was denied. The parents sought a review of the decision by the school’s principal. The school reaffirmed its decision to deny the student the opportunity to re-enroll in grade 11.

In denying the opportunity, the parents were told their son’s grades were “good enough” and that they “will not go down” [from the 87 average he had earned based on the work he had completed prior to the shutdown]. They were also told that, if their son had been afforded the opportunity to repeat grade 11, it would be unfair to other students. When they reminded the school that he seeks admission to a highly competitive school, the school said, “we’re not in the scholarship business.”

I tried to discuss the matter with the vice-principal of the school. I made clear that I was planning to write a blog about the issue and wanted to understand the situation from the perspective of the school’s administration. I stressed that is was not my intention to name the student, the school, or the school board, and that I had the parent’s consent to discuss the matter. I said that “I would be grateful if you would confirm the school’s decision and its reasons for the decision before I write and post the blog.”

In an e-mail exchange with the vice-principal, he informed me that “the [School Board] does not share or discuss matters related to individual students, even with parent permission, for privacy reasons.  As such, I cannot provide comment.” The vice-principal is wrong. Privacy protection does not prevent a parent from authorizing someone to discuss such situations with school officials. If they could, that would prevent a parent from having the assistance of an advocate or a lawyer.

I did not correct the vice-principal. I thanked him for his reply and asked about the grounds for denying anyone under the same circumstances the opportunity to repeat. If there is policy, please refer me to that policy.

He replied by sending me a link to the board’s policy that, in essence, said the decision was subject to the exercise of the discretion of the school administration. I had already obtained the board’s policy and learned that it leaves such matters to the school’s administration.

The parents never received a written decision stating the reasons for denying the request. The reasons provided to the parents verbally seem arbitrary and unreasonable in failing to give sufficient regard to the student’s educational plans. Moreover, the failure to provide written reasons for such a decision is a breach of procedural fairness. To appeal such a decision, there needs to be a written reason explaining the grounds for denying the student the opportunity.

The decision of the school struck me as inconsistent with the mission statement in the mandate statement for the school system in British Columbia.

The purpose of the British Columbia school system is to enable learners to develop their individual potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy society and a prosperous and sustainable economy.

It is also inconsistent with section 1 of the School Act that defines an educational program as one “designed to enable learners to become literate, to develop their individual potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy, democratic and pluralistic society and a prosperous and sustainable economy” (emphasis supplied).

It is also at variance with the practices common in many school districts to offer specialty programs to enable students to pursue their interests and abilities, subject to the school board’s capacities and fiscal circumstances. For example, in addition to French Immersion programming and alternative schools of various kinds, there are public schools that offer programs for high performing athletics or arts students that allow those students to combine a half-day of schooling with a half day in a gymnasium or concert hall.

According to my reading of the provincial regulations and subsequent verification with the Ministry of Education, there is nothing that would prevent a student taking or seeking to repeat classes at a particular grade level as long as the student is of school age. Moreover, there is no limit to the number of credits a student can earn toward graduation. In this light, the reasons given to the parents verbally seem capricious and to my way of thinking mean-spirited.

The student was determined to repeat the grade. Undaunted by the absurdity of the school’s decision, the young man will pursue his desire to further his education at an independent (private) school even though it requires sacrifices by his family.

I was impressed by the student’s mature judgement – something I lacked at his age. I was dismayed by the decision of the school to deny him the opportunity to further his education and by the lack of procedural fairness. He has shown persistence in the face of small-mindedness. When he told me the story, he was unfailingly polite about the school’s decision and personnel, exhibiting maturity of another kind. An equally determined student whose parents did not have the ability to use part of their retirement savings for an independent school would probably have had his or her initiative stifled.

There are four take-aways for parents and educators. One is that decisions must be supported by written reasons. Without them, a parent is unable to effectively appeal under Section 11 of the BC School Act. A second is that parents are entitled to authorize others to assist them in pursuing matters of this kind. The school board has no ability to limit disclosing information if the parent consents. A third is that there is nothing in regulation or legislation that would prevent a student taking or seeking to repeat classes at a particular grade level as long as the student is of school age. Fourth, there is no limit to the number of credits a student can earn toward graduation.