Why old-school teaching fails new Canada
Saturday, April 9th, 2011
Apr 02 2011
From its 19th-century beginnings, public education here was a venture in equity — another way to say fairness. The public back then was mostly white and Protestant, with British or American roots. But the rich among them had their own private schools. Public schools arose to equalize access to schooling… The question is: What happens when the “public” in public education changes? It now includes these new “racialized” groups and it includes Canada’s first inhabitants… some of them are being ill-served in the public schools.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Why old-school teaching fails new Canada
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011
Apr 02 2011
Public education was never public enough. It was too narrow and WASPy, too “informed by Anglo-Christian values and deference to the ideals of British monarchy.” Yet it contained the seeds of diversity and equity. Egerton Ryerson, who created Ontario’s schools in the 19th century, might not recognize the results, or like them, but equity is what the system he launched was meant for. It’s good for all kids, not just the neediest, to get a more complex, messier sense of the messy world they’re part of. It’s more fun.
Tags: Indigenous, multiculturalism, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
In us we trust?
Friday, March 18th, 2011
Mar 17 2011
… the question isn’t: Do Canadians trust Harper? It’s: Does Harper trust Canadians? Trust is an essential component in a successful society and politics is the main way that societies attempt to act together. Those with high trust levels tend to create programs like public health care or education. Those lacking trust do less together; at most they build prisons or surveillance systems to keep watch on each other… If we trust our leaders to use our taxes to do things we can’t achieve on our own, then we pay — not happily but willingly. If we don’t trust them, then we’d rather not pay and we choose leaders who will do less.
Tags: ideology, participation, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Prisoners of the web
Friday, March 11th, 2011
Mar 10 2011
Jesse Hirsh… began by saying we’re all F.U.C.T., which he said stood for, Fully Under the Control of Technology. Meaning above all the Internet. He said it amounts to their religion; it surrounds their lives with meanings, as Catholicism did in the Middle Ages. It is their spiritual reality, which is a virtual one. Yet nothing in the adult world, especially politically, reflects this as their source of connection and identity… No wonder politics makes little sense to many of them, he said. They know other issues matter but the central reality of their own lives goes unrecognized.
Tags: economy, globalization, participation, standard of living, youth
Posted in Inclusion History | 1 Comment »
Let’s declare the mainstream marginal
Friday, February 25th, 2011
Feb 25 2011
It’s possible that the whole idea of a mainstream is flawed and mythical… We worry that our underdeveloped mainstream will get overwhelmed or undermined by other currents — but that’s how cultures develop. They react to every influence they encounter. All cultures, including “mainstream Canadian” have been constantly undermined, “contaminated” and reshaped by encounters with others. It’s a fruitful, messy process… At some point you need to have confidence that what you prize can hold its own, trust your fellow citizens, old and new, and hope something fine and hopeful emerges in the mix.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Stephen Harper – the last Straussian?
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Sept. 17, 2010
Leo Strauss was a German-Jewish thinker who escaped Hitler for the U.S. but despaired over the depravity that liberalism might lead to there as it had in Germany, after the liberal 1920s. He felt almost any means were valid to save Western civilization but, due to liberalism’s strength, the strategy had to be cautious, secretive, even duplicitous, with the truth confined to an elite… Secretiveness, an aura of manipulation and a sense of hidden agendas. From a Straussian view, these are good things as means to noble ends… Some sneakiness is routine in politics but here it gets a high-minded intellectual justification. It’s almost romantic.
Tags: ideology, participation, privatization
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
The people as moral economists
Friday, May 7th, 2010
May. 07, 2010
…First, the people, through their governments, are told to bail out banks by taking over their toxic assets to save the world. Then the bankers, who just this week declared huge profits, turn and tell governments to slash public spending, such as wages and pensions, to cover the deficits incurred in the bailouts. The people absorb the hit both times. This isn’t just theft, it’s brazen… The people have this instinct for the fairness issue in economics because it arises routinely in their own lives. Even when they’re wrong, confused or, for that matter, racist, they’re in the ethical ballpark. They do economics as covert ethics… It’s worth listening to what they say, and not just to those who insult, demean and dismiss them.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Recent Comments