Tag Archives: school

Faith-Based Funding an All or Nothing Proposition

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By Jason Menard

A group called the Multi-Faith Coalition for Equal Funding of Religious Schools is demanding that the Ontario government provide financial support for all religious education system – but what they’ve done is open a Pandora’s Box which may result in the final separation of Church and State when it comes to education.

As it stands now in this province you have the existing Public and Catholic school boards. Grandfathered in from time immemorial, or Confederation in 1867, the Roman Catholic school board has been guaranteed funding. And now, as our communities change so too must we look at what’s fair in a new light.

Because we’ve always done it is no longer a valid argument. To deny one faith the right to have their religion-based education system funded smacks of discrimination. In fact, in 1999 a United Nations committee found that Ontario was violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

So, in this case, equality is the right thing to do – but there are two ways to get there. We can either provide funding for all religions to establish school boards and run educational systems – or we can cut off the flow of money to the Catholics.

While in a perfect world we’d be able to offer across-the-board-funding, the fact of the matter is that we don’t have the necessary resources to be everything to everyone. Which makes the choice clear – one publicly funded school board open and accessible to all, and those who want their children educated in an alternative system will have to foot the bill on their own.

In this country, the only two types of school boards that should be funded are ones based on language – English and French, befitting our status as a bilingual nation. We are a secular society and, as such, our government has no place in defining its practices – or funding programs – based on religious beliefs.

Maybe, at one time, it made sense to offer a separate Catholic school board due to the religious demographic makeup. But increasingly Ontario is benefiting from an influx of immigrants – many of whom are representatives of a wide variety of religions. By choosing to publicly fund one religion over another, we are in fact tacitly affirming their second-class citizen status. But it’s not just enough to cut off funding and wash our collective hands of the teaching of religion in the classroom – that would be depriving our children of a valuable learning opportunity. Instead, we need to get creative with our education system and work towards developing a curriculum that meets the needs of today’s reality and anticipates the requirements of the future.

Instead of guaranteed funding for one religious system, the Ontario government, and those of all provinces around Canada, should redirect those resources towards the creation and implementation of a new program in our school system – the teaching of faith.

The issue of religion in the school system is a touchy one for many. There are those who would love to see a return to the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in the public system and the distribution of those little red New Testaments. And that’s truly a fine proposition – as long as they’re accompanied by little blue Talmuds, little yellow Qurans, and a rainbow of texts outlining the belief systems from around the world.

We need to stop focusing on one religion at the expense of another. Atheist, agnostic, Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, or whatever — we all will benefit from a generation that has grown up learning about each other’s religions, beliefs, or lack-thereof. Intolerance and hate breed from ignorance. Understanding the shared concepts of religions, in addition to where they differ, will bring us closer together as a people.

And, by teaching faith, we are in fact bringing out students closer together. We would enable students with different religious beliefs to share their stories, their particular practices and rituals, and their history with their classmates – opening them up to a greater world of understanding. In addition, beyond learning the respective tenets of the various belief systems, our students would be able to explore the nature of faith and why it has existed since the earliest humans. An examination of why certain people believe will help gain insight into the human character.

The world around us is changing rapidly. And, as our world becomes increasingly multi-cultural, a learning system that embraces all belief systems from Atheist to Zionist would help our next generation learn about tolerance and prepare them for an increasingly integrated society.

We are less segmented and our cultural fabric is interwoven with threads from a variety of races, creeds, and religions. And not one thread is more important than another – which is why, in an all or nothing proposition, the Ontario government must choose nothing at first, and then work to develop a public program that includes all for the benefit of everyone.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Our Empty Words Are Only Spoken in English

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By Jason Menard

For an allegedly bilingual country, we do a horrible job of showing it. And it’s time that we, as a country, literally put our money where our mouths are.

The Canadian government has set the goal of having half of its students graduate bilingual by 2013. It’s a lofty goal, but one that will never happen unless changes are made to the curriculum. French language instruction in this country, from coast to coast, must be mandatory for the duration of our students schooling.

Forget the fact that a significant number of students in Canada drop French as soon as its no longer compulsory – the quality of French that’s being taught is deplorable. Not to condemn our hard-working teachers, but they’re just not equipped to handle the demands that teaching a second language requires.

Simply put, our French teachers can’t speak French.

Oh sure, they have the rudimentary knowledge and they’ve got the basic accreditation required to do a passable job. But they don’t have the skill or expertise to help our children succeed. A building is only as strong as its foundation, and the quality and level of French that’s being taught in the elementary school system is deplorable.

My wife, whose first language is French, and I (functionally bilingual) have had the displeasure of reviewing our bilingual son’s French homework since he switched to English school. We could accept the rudimentary level being taught, as one would assume that everyone’s starting from zero. What we couldn’t accept were the mistakes: glaring errors, wrong words being used, incorrect grammar, and poor agreements. And then we wonder why our kids can’t speak French. There’s a problem when, in the past, our son’s French teacher has refused to speak to my wife and I in that language.

And it gets no better. Coming out of high school, our students may think they can speak French. But when they come face to face with an actual francophone, they’re unable to carry on a conversation. Having come through the Ontario high school system and taking two French OACs, I know first-hand that the majority of my fellow students were capable of conjugating a verb – but putting it into practice in anything more than a basic conversation was beyond their scope and capabilities.

Compounding the problem is that there’s really no perceived need for Anglophone students to take French if they’re not living in Quebec. I’d hazard a guess that, other than the remote getting stuck on the French CBC channel, their exposure to the language of Molière is fairly limited. As such, there’s no impetus for our students to take the learning of a second language seriously.

Unfortunately, all this does is further fracture our country. Many English speakers can’t understand the frustration that Quebecers feel when travelling outside of la belle province. They don’t understand the anger, resentment, and feeling of a lack of respect that comes from living in a country that, on one hand, professes to be bilingual, while on the other hand doesn’t practice what it preaches.

Now living in Ontario, I find it embarrassing that when my Francophone in-laws come to visit, they’re unable to find anyone to converse in their own language. They are forced to converse in English, whereas my experience has been that the opposite is rarely true. That’s Ontario! A neighbouring province to Quebec! Is there any wonder why some Quebecers don’t feel Canadian when their own country makes little to no effort – and places no premium – on being able to communicate with a significant segment of our society.

Due to the fact that they’re living in a region surrounded by over 300 million English speakers, most Quebecers will have a rudimentary understanding of English, and – unless you’re extremely rude – will make an effort to find common grounds for communications. Yet we treat French as an afterthought in the rest of our country.

The more rampant xenophobes will cling to the argument that we don’t make the same accommodations for other ethnicities, but that misses the point that this country was founded and flourished as a bilingual nation – an amalgamation of English and French to create a new Canada. Just as my expectation for living in Japan would be that I would be required to learn Japanese, so too is there an expectation that immigrants to this country be able to converse in English or French. But woe be to the person who chooses French thinking that knowledge of that language will open any doors outside of Quebec.

If we’re truly committed to being a bilingual country – and the reasons and benefits are numerous, while the counter-arguments are non-existent – then we need to invest in our future. French must be mandatory until high school graduation. And the quality must improve. We must either hire native speakers, or require more than a couple of courses for French instruction certification.

Otherwise, we’re just paying lip service to the cause of bilingualism — and our empty words are only intelligible in English.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

More than Just Students of Life

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By Jason Menard

By overwhelming our children with homework are we not preventing them from doing the very thing we’re sending them to school to do? Learn.

My son, one month into his sixth-grade year, is slowly going pasty white from lack of exposure to the sun. At this rate, we’ll have to change his name to Quasimodo due to the nice hump that’s forming from being hunched over a desk each and every night.

Like many students, my son is faced with a mountain of homework each and every night. And because it takes so long for him to climb his way to the top, he’s not afforded the opportunity to stop from time to time and simply enjoy the view.

I’m all for giving homework to kids to improve their study habits, work discipline, and to show that with effort comes reward. However, we appear to be placing unfair expectations on our children — accepting something as the norm for them, which the majority of us wouldn’t appreciate in our adult lives.

As we progress through our careers, we strive to find that sweet spot in work/life balance. We look for that elusive zone wherein we don’t just live to work, but we work to live. Although some of us may take our jobs home with us, we’re all working for a day when we can strike that delicate balance between what we have to do to make a living, and what we want to do to live life to its fullest.

So why should we expect any less from our children? More importantly, why are we placing such a premium on the knowledge gleaned from sticking a nose in a book if it comes at the cost of true learning?

Life isn’t just about what you learn in a text book, or what you summarize from a chapter. It’s the sum of all your experiences: intellectual being a component, but no more or less integral than the emotional, social, and physical. In an attempt to ensure success and optimal use of time, we’re sacrificing the best part of our kids’ childhood – the ability just to have fun and be a kid. Throughout my life, I’ve learned as much, if not more, through my interaction with others and through the exploration of my own interests than I have in any lesson-planned activity or curriculum.

My true passions are not the ones that have been lectured to me, but rather the ones that I’ve searched out and discovered on my own. The most rewarding work I’ve done in my life hasn’t been assigned – it’s been assumed as a result of my own interest. But without the time to go out and explore the world and their own interests, our children are in danger of becoming one-dimensional.

Essentially, the purpose of any education isn’t just to memorize trivia or to get good grades. The true value of a good education comes from the fact that we learn how to learn. We learn how to explore the world around us with an open, yet critical eye. We learn how to be open to new experiences and value them based upon their own criteria – not a strict adherence to existing beliefs. We learn to take each new day as an opportunity to better ourselves by allowing the world around us to unfold and reveal itself to us, open for our interpretations.

Yet, in order to experience life at its fullest, we need to have more than just an intellectual knowledge of its concepts. We need to be able to feel and understand. The old adage states that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. But it’s not just the memorization of facts that will prevent us from repeating past transgressions – we need to understand the context behind actions and be able to empathize with people and situations.

If we don’t allow our kids to explore those aspects of their lives, then how can we expect them to truly succeed?

This isn’t to say that all homework is bad. Far from it. Homework teaches kids valuable lessons about the future: the need for preparation, the need for constant self-improvement, and the understanding that there is a world of information out there waiting to be explored. Yet, those lessons shouldn’t be taught at the expense of living their lives. It’s one thing to know how and when a painting was created, but if we don’t understand the emotions and feelings behind its creation, then most of the value is lost.

Let’s apply the concept of striking a work/life balance to our kids. We need to understand that going to school is a job – and with it comes the reward of having some down-time to explore their own personal interests. We expect that right as adults, so why are our expectations different for our children?

We have to stop thinking of down-time as a negative concept. We have to look at play not as a waste of time, but rather an integral part of the learning and aging process. Whether it’s in a group or on their own, our children’s social, physical, and emotional development can only benefit from the opportunities available only during free time.

We need to find that balance between when kids have to be students of life and when they’re actually allowed to be participants in life, because that’s the most valuable lesson they’ll ever learn.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

The Definition of Life Isn’t Found in a Dictionary

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By Jason Menard

I suppose congratulations are in order for California eighth-grader Anurag Kashyap for his impressive achievement of winning the United States’ 2005 annual spelling bee. But, for some reason, I can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for the kid.

Cruising through the world appoggiatura, the 13-year-old Kashyap took home the grand prize: scholarships, savings bonds, and books from Encyclopedia Britannica. And, officially, the 15 minutes of his fame is rapidly winding down.

Now I have no doubt that the home-schooled Kashyap is going to be a phenomenal success in life. Why he’ll probably finish high school early while taking university courses at night, so that he can graduate from his Ivy League university at 20. But somewhere, in the back of my mind, I can’t help but feel that this kid – and others like him – will miss out on something important in life.

Pageant moms have become a running joke in our society, symbols of parents living vicariously through their kids to satisfy their desire for recognition and success. North of the border, we’re familiar with the hockey dad, who takes his kid’s involvement in the sport way too seriously – and occasionally being barred from the local arena for his, uhm, enthusiasm.

But while we’re free to condemn these parents for their obsessive behaviours in the athletic and aesthetic fields, why don’t we do the same when obsession rears its head in the intellectual field?

Words are my way of life. They’re my passion. I love writing, I love editing, I love the whole communications kit and caboodle – but, save for the purposes of this column, I’ve never had the need, nor do I ever anticipate ever having the need to use the word appoggiatura. In fact, unless you’re deeply immersed in the world of advanced music appreciation, chances are you could happily go through life without this particular collection of letters appearing in your vocabulary.

Kashyap? He didn’t come by this word on his own volition – he studied it as part in parcel of attempting to win this spelling bee. It’s not learning for the sake of gaining a greater appreciation of the world, it’s obsessive studying of obscure words for the sake of this contest.

And what do we do with it now? Like the mathematician who tries to impress his or her friends with the fact that they have memorized Pi to 132 digits, their feats become nothing more than party tricks – and, not to stereotype, but I’m not certain they’re getting invited into too many parties. And I’m pretty sure most of us wouldn’t want to go to the types of parties that they are getting invites for – that the majority of people don’t appreciate.

So this kid has learned to be the top speller for his time. But where does he go from here? Does obsessively poring over dictionaries adequately prepare one for life after school is done? Where is the social interaction, where is the physical development, where is the ability to function as a part of a greater community on a variety of topics that’s so important in both business and life?

Many of us shake our heads at athletes who drop out of school in their high school years for a chance to live the dream of playing their chosen sport for life. And then, when the inevitable crash comes, what are they left with? What have they learned? Is this obsessive dedication to intelligence any better? While it may leave one more financially secure in the long run, how does it impact their social abilities?

What ever happened to the idea of raising our kids to be diverse, independent thinkers that are open to new experiences? By focusing them so acutely on one task or one interest, we do them the disservice of giving them tunnel vision – and they miss out on the little things that make childhood, and life, special.

I was in the advanced/gifted classes in my youth. I had friends who went that route, focusing only on things that made them smarter – not necessarily things that made them better. So, while some of us chose to balance our thirst for knowledge with a desire to broaden our perspectives, others withdrew within themselves, shying away from others, and only feeling comfortable with topics that were familiar to them.

The bitter irony of all of this is that experiencing life affords you the opportunity for a greater appreciation of the things we learn as we age. Anyone can study enough to recite Shakespeare’s sonnets by wrote, but it’s not until you’ve experienced love first-hand that you truly understand what the words mean.

If variety is the spice of life, some of these kids need to be shaken up a little and experience more than a dictionary. Education isn’t bad – but it’s not the be all and end all. What we need to realize is that an education is best at teaching us how to learn, how to appreciate, and how to contextualize our experiences.

Simply put, you can’t find the answer to everything in a dictionary.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Chewing the Fat on our Kids’ Health

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By Jason Menard

Does it really come as any surprise that Canada received a D for its overall commitment to our children’s health, when our kids have us setting an example?

On Thursday, May 26, 2005, the Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth was released to the public and the results certainly give us something to chew on – unfortunately, it appears that we’re chewing on fat.

Essentially the report states that Canada is failing its kids by not ensuring that they’re active enough each day to ensure optimal growth and development. The report continues by saying that “less than half our kids are expending the energy required to maintain a healthy weight, and to develop healthy hearts, lungs, muscles, and bones.

But should we really expect anything less? We’ve gone from a society that had to chase down our own food and kill it with our bare hands to survive to one where we can sit in our boxers at a computer screen, click a mouse, and have our groceries delivered to us.

And it’s a good thing that we only need one hand to use a mouse, because the other’s usually immersed in a bag of Doritos.

Physical activity, which was once a given component of daily life, is now nothing more than an afterthought for the majority of people. Instead of being an expected part of our day, exercise is treated as a luxury for which we don’t have enough time. Most of us – and speaking as a parent, I am more than guilty of this – find that by the time we’ve come home from work, prepared dinner, and done our evening chores, there’s precious little time to enjoy with the family. So because it’s difficult to shoehorn physical activity into our evenings, we make excuses to avoid it.

The end result is that, because of this, we have to shoehorn our own butts into our jeans. The long-term effects can be catastrophic, with poorer long-term health, increased diabetes, and a whole host of other health-related problems all of which can be attributed to our added girth. It’s a good thing

We’ve undervalued the importance of physical activity at school. We look down our noses at physical education classes – and really, is there any profession more maligned in our popular culture than the gym teacher? Instead of realizing the value of daily exercise, we look at gym class like a glorified recess. We talk about the three Rs and lament how our kids aren’t getting a solid foundation in the basics, but there seems to be no recognition that a fourth R should be added to the list – running!

However, the problem does not lie within the confines of our schools. It’s time we look squarely in the mirror for the real source of the problem – the parents. The Report Card gives parents a D for Family Physical Activity, professing that only 43% of parents are physically active with their kids. The saddest thing is that the number drops off as our kids get older: a reduction of 25% by the time our children turn five, and a further drop-off of 30% when they become teenagers. It appears that we, as parents, abdicate our responsibility believing that the school system will pick up the slack.

The end result of all of this? The prevalence of childhood obesity in our kids has jumped from 2% in 1981 to 10% in 2001 – and is there any reason to believe the trend hasn’t and won’t continue?

A 1998 Gallup Poll showed that 78% off Canadians were in favour of instituting 30 minutes of daily physical activity in schools, but that’s not enough. Our kids are not somebody else’s responsibility, but when it comes to ensuring the health of our children, a tragically large number of us take a hands-off approach to their physical development.

Unfortunately, the school system is going to have to be the one that picks up the ball we’ve dropped – after all, the exertion may be too much for us. Parents aren’t going to change their ways no matter how many publicity campaigns or surveys come out. It’s easy to sit here and say we should all spend a half-hour riding a bike, going for a walk, or tossing around the ol’ pigskin with our sons and daughters – but we have to deal with reality here.

This isn’t a matter of who should shoulder the responsibility – it’s about who will. Our school systems – both elementary and secondary – are in the best position to quickly and effectively institute mandatory physical education periods. Just a half hour a day will give our kids a good foundation. There’s really no reason why gym should be an elective course in high school – if we put a premium on developing the mind, we need to do the same for the body.

Looking long-term, by making exercise a regular part of our kids’ lives, they’ll be more likely to continue to make it a part of their everyday routine. Ideally, spending a half-hour or more working out, walking, or just being active won’t be an imposition but rather an afterthought in their lives.

And then maybe they can turn around and show us the right way of doing things. For the good of our health, our kids will have to be the ones teaching their parents – because we’ve shown that, when it comes to healthy living, we’re no role models.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved