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April, 2014

  1. Adjusting Worldviews To “Sustainability” Agendas

    April 10, 2014 by Tunya

    HUNDREDS Of Worldviews Stripped To FIVE For Ecology Purposes

    If someone tells you they have a firm worldview that consistently governs their behavior and beliefs do you believe him?

    There are many tricky issues around the topic “worldview”.  Just see Amazon.com and Search for “worldview”.  Tons of books come up. And it’s interesting to read the reviews— many differing views.

    Worldview is NOT a settled matter.

    But now worldviews need to be grouped, classified, and measured.  And to make things simple five is better than 100s. In the cause of global ecology there will need to be instruments to psychometrically measure and pigeon-hole people.  Just as IQ tests were developed to help screen soldier recruits for war, worldview tests are to be developed to advance the ecology movements and to deal with resisters. 

    Here is the glossy cover of one such effort  — Worldviews and the transformation to sustainable societies http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/handle/1871/48104/cover.pdf?sequence=6

     If the language seems inscrutable here is the paper on this topic  http://www.ivm.vu.nl/en/Images/Exploring%20Worldviews_tcm53-355582.pdf

    Still inscrutable?  Well here is the first sentence of the above article:

    “A change of behaviors in a more sustainable direction is generally considered to be of vital importance for realizing the urgently needed transition to an ecological economy and society.”  (Annick Hedlund-de Witt)

    I am fairly certain this paper was written with generous funds  — public or private.  I am fairly certain, also, that this resulting paper is just another plea for more (probably massive) funds to start developing these instruments of measurement, selection, coercion and treating resisters.  

    A lot of it reads like highly charged propaganda in the name of “how society should be organized.”

    If one is following the epidemic of theories, experiments and proposals to “transform” society via global education — and said person is showing some deep foreboding and fear — then one could easily be labeled a conspiracy theorist.  But more people are starting to see some pattern to this foisting of massive changes on schools and society and starting to ask questions. Why are children told in schools they can change the world?  Why is sustainability being built into curriculum across subjects?

    It takes decades to understand and deal with medical epidemics.  How long will it take before this man-made mind-change epidemic is fully understood before too much damage is done? 

     


  2. It’s all about ideology in BC Education – more

    April 5, 2014 by Tunya

    It’s All About IDEOLOGY In BC — Part THREE

    I’ve sent this essay to more people than just this blog.  This is what I attached as background.

    [ Disclosure: As a veteran of 40+ years in parent rights issues in education I wish to pass on to young parents some of my observations.  My eyes were opened wide when in my early involvement with BC party politics (NDP) I found that the teacher union had considerable influence with the Ministry of Education.  Also, suddenly, “new members” overwhelmed our Youth Wing when it was preparing a submission to government on widening choices in education and that proposal was defeated.  It became clear that the teacher union opposed choice and was generally unsympathetic to parents.  I soon left the socialist party for efforts where choice enjoys a positive reception and now have a libertarian point-of-view. Young parents tend to be very trusting of authorities. My intent is to — hopefully — update parents about the very political and power-hungry atmosphere in public education so that parent voice can still carry some influence in decision-making before it is too late. ]

    So, to continue: But first I must say this to Tara and other young parents struggling to find common sense in education today.  Please don’t give up.  Easy to say, and parents don’t usually have an appetite for conflict and are too busy raising families.  The system’s first priority is its own survival but parents have their children’s survival as a priority.  And accountability from our overseers — the government and boards — is, unfortunately, tied up with compromises. That is why these Math Wars are important and parents cannot give up on this.

    Furthermore, nothing can more outrageous and meant to bully than for a unionist to say political interference in schools is none of parents’ business.  If ideology dominates teacher behavior — this is just not acceptable.

    Now, to add more information about the volatile and precarious state of education affairs in BC.  Today, we heard that Phase One of job action is being planned. So, what else is new?  40 years in the wilderness is not just in the Bible!

    In my earlier essays I mentioned how important Professional Development is — in the right hands.  But, in BC much is in the hands of the teacher union.  They say it is an “autonomy” issue.  Teachers are the drivers, not the driven.

    I stated how PD seems to be a taboo topic — no-one seems to have correct answers.  In fact, there seems to be a lot of buck-passing, which just strengthens my suspicion that something sneaky is going on.  Perhaps PD HAS been passed to the BCTF on a silver platter.  I’ve asked, but any information provided is obsolete because our College of Teachers has been abolished, and it NEVER did get involved in PD — perhaps because the union was shown in investigation to have generally run the agenda. “Regrettably, it must be said that the disruption and dysfunction that has dominated the attention of the College Council, particularly since 2004, has put the core public interest, and the interest of students, at risk . . . “ (6)

    So, I will be looking further, to find out who is responsible for a) ensuring currency of teachers in their “professionalism” and b) VERY IMPORTANT, since a radical shift — a transformation — is being proposed in curriculum and practice  — just how is “re-education” to take place.  This second part can’t be stressed too strongly because for unprepared teachers to try and bluff and bluster their way through this is to invite serious psychological and cognitive damage to kids.  Iatrogenic damage induced by the practitioners.  Won’t there be cause for legal remedies for negligence and malpractice?

    That PD is a bargaining chip in current negotiations tells me how cheaply held is this important matter.  I heard the BCTF president at their recent AGM declare (from my notes) — “our commitment to Professional Development has never been greater, teacher-led Professional Development has never been more important . . . The Ministry of Education has created a new position — Superintendent of Professional Development — but that’s still not been filled.”

    I can only interpret that Jim Iker was signaling strongly to his constituency that PD would be big-time. I’m sure I noted his seeming satisfaction that the Ministry had not yet filled this PD position.

    In comparison to another well-functioning Teaching Council (Scotland) another report stated that BCCT “failed utterly . . . the blame for this failure rests squarely on the attitude of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, which rejected the professional aspect of the College’s mandate in favour of its own agenda, and put the interests of its members and its own ideology ahead of the public interest.”  The report goes on to conclude that there is little to expect by way of positive change, because of “their [BCTF] constant and costly recourse to the judicial system, their apparent failure to learn from experience, and their stubborn refusal to adopt anything but confrontational tactics.”

     (6)      A College Divided: Report of the Fact Finder on the BC College of Teachers, 2010, Donald J Avison http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/pubs/2010_factfinder_report_bcct.pdf

     (7)      The British Columbia College of Teachers: An Obituary, Alastair Glegg, Historical Studies in Education, Fall 2013


  3. Social Contract NOT “evolving” But Steered

    April 4, 2014 by Tunya

    “Evolving Social Contract” (?) —  Deliberately Steered

    YES!  Norms and ethics evolve over time.  Usually without force or coercion.  Same goes for some kind of general social contract — usually results in a more civic society.

    There is a lot of literature on this and I like to see how even rules evolve without necessarily being written down or legally regulated — see Nobel winner in Economics work, Elinor Ostrom, on governing the commons, etc.

    But this Common Core business and all its siblings is anything but evolutionary and spontaneous. It's non-consensual, untested and force-fed human experimentation without safeguards.

    It’s coercive in so many ways but most glaringly it’s how it’s bought with cold cash.

    Last night at 3:am I just awoke and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Thought I’d check my emails and saw a new and thoughtful anti-CC video — Building the Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjxBClx01jc

    It’s a very complex show and very mixed up without a clear story line.  However, regular visitors on this blog are already tuned-in and will undoubtedly appreciate the video (40min).

    I did hear one thing I never knew before.  When states and universities sign on to CC, they agree NOT to produce remedial courses in universities and colleges for remedial math and English.  About 40% of K-12 grads seem to need these in post secondary.  Is this true?  And Why?

    Secondly, I heard this loud and clear, that even though there is so much questionable about the coercive implementation of CC, it’s the question of “Just whose child is it?” that’s equally worth challenging.

    This is produced by HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) and I praise them.  There is much food for thought — just wish it was better organized to more clearly differentiate who’s Pro and Con.

    I think the issues surrounding home education are the canary in the mine.  As long as we can still educate children free of the state or central control, freedom has a chance.

    [Posted on Invisible Serfs Collar April 01, 2014 on topic  — Dynamic Digital Dialectical Classrooms=Deliberate Transformational Change in Students and Society http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/dynamic-digital-dialectical-classroomsdeliberate-transformational-change-in-students-and-society/ ]

     


  4. It’s all about ideology in BC Education

    April 2, 2014 by Tunya

    posted in Society for Quality Education blog, Ap 02, 2014

     

    It’s All About IDEOLOGY In BC 

    Ideology is not just about politics and power and who wins in periodic elections.  It’s about “worldviews” and “mindsets”.  What gets “embedded” into the mind.  And this embedding goes on — not episodically as in elections — but continuously in and through our public schools. 

    The teachers’ union, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, believes in “vanguardism”  — being at the forefront of methodical change.  The BCTF casts itself as a “social justice union”.  Each of the 60 plus locals has a social justice committee and this is where the activists, as arms of Headquarters agendas, do their reconnaissance, expansion and enforcement.  Sounds like war?  Well, it is equivalent.  “School Wars” is the title of a book that aptly describes the tone of our history of insurrection and turmoil on the education battle field. 

    Collective bargaining in BC education is not just about bread-and-butter and working conditions issues.  It’s also about who is in charge of the minds of the young in BC.  For you see, professional development is a big issue in the demands at negotiations. 

    This issue of PD is “telling” — because one just cannot get straight answers here.  Just how much PD is organized by the BCTF and how much by the employer?  Perhaps Geoff Johnson, being an insider, could give us a report? And, the content?  I’ve seen in listings where labor unions bring in prepared packets as take-aways.

    The BCTF is not your ordinary militant teacher union as so many others are.  It does not belong to the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.  They belong to Education International (EI) — an activist left organization.

    There are factions within the BCTF and it’s always the most militant faction that gets to dominate the executive.

    BC historically has experienced “frontier characteristics” in its development.  It provided opportunity for pioneers of all sorts as well as for militant labor organizers. Hosts of communist unionists from Scotland and England started to dominate the resource industries. (1) In this climate, when the socialists (New Democratic Party) finally gained electoral power in 1972, the “radical Marxist” Jim MacFarlan, BCTF president, was there to assert influence. (2)

    It is from those days — 4 decades ago — when the ideology of “worker control of the workplace” became embedded in BC politics.  This division remains strong to this day, especially in public education, with the “irresistible force” coming from the BCTF and the “immovable object” being the government of the day.  Governments of every stripe — socialist, liberal or conservative (Social Credit) — have struggled hard to maintain “management rights” against this barrage. (3)

    I suspect that “management rights” is the reason for the Liberal government’s appeal of a recent court decision that interpreted that it was in violation of fair bargaining.  Twice the same judge made that interpretation. And that’s why we have courts of appeal.  It’s the interpretation that’s in question.  That’s my guess.  In other words, just who governs BC education anyway?

    It’s not that BCTF sees itself as “above the law” in pursuing its ideological agenda for the minds and hearts of the young of this province. But it does display resourcefulness and cunning that’s astonishing. From the days of the 70s we still have some warriors still ensconced in BCTF HQ — pre-eminently Larry Kuehn, ex-president and now head of Research and Technology. This is one strategy he relayed to a labor researcher — “The key to our strategy was to restructure ourselves in a way which assumed that we had the right to bargain the whole range of things and then to try to take that into the bargaining arena … the strategic view was that if we did that for a period of time and we have restructured the reality then the law would follow.” (4)

    It’s not just in BC that this militancy and incursion into policy is being challenged.  Australia, which had a recent changeover of government from Labor to Conservative Coalition, is presently undergoing two Reviews:  a) Curriculum Review, and b) Teacher Training Review.  An issue in the election was whether there was undue political left influence on the curriculum.

    While I’m hoping for a better interpretation from the courts about who rules BC education I am now even more worried and suspicious of what Geoff Johnson has disclosed — “the professional arm of the BCTF is champing at the bit to move alongside government with the careful implementation of some of the ideas in the government’s B.C. Education Plan”.  THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL.  There’s a lot about “critical thinking” and from what I see that’s mainly about who’s oppressing whom.

    Just what is in store for our children and grandchildren in BC?  If the “transformation” is anything like the Common Core in the US we do have a lot to be worried about.  And, this post by Tara Houle and the mathematics cause she is involved with is just one example of parents being concerned about a “dumbing-down” of the curriculum.

    On this topic of departures from standard math this debate has gone across Canada.  A Math professor, Robert Craigen, U of Manitoba, did examine some of the proposals for the BC Ed Plan, and I am aghast as his pronouncement —  “What possessed the Ministry to give the BCTF full control over design and content of the curriculum? I’ve seen some of their modules and sample course plans, lessons . . . If I lived there and had small children I’d be seriously thinking about leaving the province, for their sake.” (5)

    And let me close by saying there has not been even ONE invitation by the BC Ministry of Education for the general public to know or be involved in this radical shift.

    NO — I am not looking forward to the continuing ideological warfare in BC, whether it’s in the body politic or in the classrooms of BC.  CHOICE — Oh, Blessed Choice — When Will That Come To BC?

    (1) Militant Minority: British Columbia Workers and the Rise of a New Left, Benjamin Isitt, 2011

    (2) From Educational Government to the Government of Education: The Decline and Fall of the British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1972-1996, Thomas Fleming, http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/edu_hse-rhe/article/viewArticle/454/611

    (3) Worlds Apart: British Columbia schools, politics, and labour relations, before and after 1972, Thomas Fleminghttp://www.bendallbooks.com/catalog/publications/worlds-apart-british-columbia-schools-politics-and-labour-relations-before-and-after-1972/

    (4) Structuring Reality So That the Law Will Follow: British Columbia Teachers’ Quest for Collective Bargaining Rights, Sarah Slinn, 2011 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Structuring+reality+so+that+the+law+will+follow:+British+Columbia…-a0274699540

    (5) Teaching Elementary Math: Why is Teaching the Basics Making a Resurgence? October 6, 2013 by Paul W. Bennett  https://educhatter.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/teaching-elementary-math-why-is-teaching-the-basics-making-a-resurgence/

    [UPDATE:  23 August, 2014.  Teacher union still on strike.  School Start Sept 02 in doubt.  Minister of Finance promised parents will receive $40 day that schools are unavailable.  No negotiations since 08 Aug. I’ve heard that another bargaining chip is that union wants 50% involvement in hiring of new teachers.  My concern about ideology transmission is heightened if this is true, and on top of PD being a big issue — is this another methoid to ensure the “desired” mindset through hires and continuing training? TA]


  5. Education for self-sufficiency

    April 1, 2014 by Tunya

    Education For Self-Sufficiency

    Every year, in our neighborhood, I see the same pattern repeat itself — the pair of crows raise a chick or two that eventually seem to disappear into self-sufficiency (I hope) — the mother skunk has her babes that also seem to disappear into self-sufficiency (I hope). The fact is, I see these same parents start afresh every new year. The parents have brought up their young to such a point for them to be free on their own.

    Janet Lane, in this well-argued article, also hopes that our children will eventually “move out of the basement” — to self-sufficiency (we hope). The point of her article is that education should be realistic enough to help place students eventually into

    gainful employment, thus, why not have business provide input into school curriculum? Many jobs will come from the private sector.

    So should students also learn about entrepreneurial, charity, environmental, public service and hosts of other occupations as well as continuing in post secondary education for professions?

    How this is to be done may, however, need more ideas than just the school visits by representatives of job fields and counsellors. I have an idea, which would also add the needed dimension of “critical thinking” that Janet Lane also mentions as a

    requirement for future jobs.

    Also critics would be part of the action and provide their input.

    I propose the development of texts and curriculum to provide Opposing Viewpoints. This is a double-barrelled approach whereby students not only learn opposing viewpoints on a topic but also learn to identify propaganda techniques.

    I have in front of me — Zoos, an Opposing Juniors Viewpoints book. Students learn the techniques of slanted words and phrases, scare tactics and the difference between sound reasoning vs propaganda. Viewpoints are presented — I like zoos, I hate zoos — Zoos provide wholesome entertainment, Zoos exploit animals for entertainment, etc.

    It would be great to use this approach to learn about the pros and cons of the oil industry, for example, or any other employment related topic. But instead of one author as in the Zoos book, spokespersons for different viewpoints would present, with an overall editor examining the presentation/propaganda strategies used.

    I like this approach to critical thinking using real examples. Is this a good idea?

     

    [published in National Post, 31 March, 2014 re opinion piece by Janet Lane, A Place for Business in the Classroom http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/03/31/janet-lane-a-place-for-business-in-the-classroom/http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/03/31/janet-lane-a-place-for-business-in-the-classroom/