Canada: Society for Quality Education

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Canada: Society for Quality Education

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http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/
What We Believe

The People Behind SQE

First and foremost, we are mostly parents and now, in some cases, grandparents. Most of us have at least one child who had serious problems at school - difficulty learning to read; lack of challenging material; bullying, and so on. All of us did whatever we could to help our children overcome their difficulties - massive home support, paid tutors, private schools - whatever it took. But once we had saved our own children, we started to worry about the other kids - the ones whose parents can't rescue them because they can't afford it or don't know how.

Some of us are or were teachers ourselves, and so we have a perspective on education problems from the other side as well. Like so many teachers, some of us have actually been hampered in our attempts to do a good job. We know there is a better way, and that is why we became involved with the Society for Quality Education.

Our Goal

We want every child to succeed in school.

The Root of the Problem

In a nutshell, most public schools are not using the most effective teaching methods and materials available. And, as a result, the students are not learning nearly as much as they could.

The Reason Why Good Methods are Being Rejected

Over the course of the 20th century, the philosophy of "progressivism" took hold in faculties of education. Jumping on the progressive bandwagon became a sure-fire way for educators to earn kudos from their colleagues and get their research published. Championing more traditional methods, on the other hand, became a career-limiting move at most North American faculties of education, remaining so to this day. As a result of the bias towards progressivism, public education has become vulnerable to fads (unproven but widely-adopted ideas), some longer-lasting than others. One prominent example of a relatively short-lived fad was the concept of open-concept classrooms, which put multiple elementary classes into one large room. Of course, the resulting noise levels made effective teaching impossible, and this progressive method was abandoned after a few years, but not before millions of dollars had been spent tearing down and then a few years later re-erecting classroom walls. There have been numerous other short-lived fads in our schools, but the current approach, dubbed "child-centred learning", is the longest-lasting fad in North American education. The child-centred approach expects the classroom teacher to customize his or her instruction to meet the individual needs and interests of each and every student - while also making learning easy and fun. child-centred learning emphasizes hands-on, discovery-based learning and an emphasis on the development of "higher-order thinking skills". Practices such as direct teaching, a focus on factual knowledge, and drilling new concepts are strongly discouraged. The child-centred philosophy is so dominant that today few teachers receive training in alternative teaching approaches in their pre-service courses, nor do most school boards offer them as professional development. Indeed, some younger teachers were themselves educated in child-centred classrooms and thus know no other way. In addition, the use of non child-centred methods is frowned upon by the Ministry of Education and school board consultants. The Trillium List, Ontario's list of approved texts, contains mostly child-centred textbooks. Even the provincial curriculum and tests are child-centred. Most classroom teachers want to do their best for their students, but their hands are tied.
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