It must be a generational thing. Did our grandparents ask the same question? Did they throw up their hands at our abysmal ignorance of the simplest questions? Were we so ill-equipped by our schooling to understand our society, how it functions and how we can make a contribution to it?
This is not to say these kids are dumb. Far from it! It is constantly amazing to see how they adapt so easily to the rapid advances in technology. The other day, I was interrupted in a meeting by a grandson just out of grade seven who was sending me my first text message. I thought that device was just a cell phone. He is always showing his grandparents new applications he acquires for the iPod he connects to the home wi-fi.
This is not about the marks the kids get in school. The concern is that the educators are not getting enough useful material into the curriculum. And who writes these curricula? For example, when are we teaching kids to tell time? You constantly see signs saying something is scheduled for 12 am or 12 pm. Half the kids you ask will tell you quite confidently that 12 am is noon and the other half will be just as confident that it is midnight. They simply do not know that there is no such thing as 12 am or 12 pm.
And what about spelling? Have all the teachers said that since we have spell checking on computers, we no longer need to teach students to spell? I politely forgot to mention the spelling in that text message I received. It was supposedly in English but it was some sort of phonetic version. Despite it being in a language, I have never learned, somehow, I understood his message. In teaching people to write decent letters and reports, I usually mention that the purpose of proper spelling and grammar is not to make life difficult for the sender but to make the communication more easily understood by the reader. To use the numeral ‘2,’ for example, to replace ‘to,’ ‘too’ and ‘two’ might save time and space but it does not always make it clear for the reader. Spell checkers and readers cannot understand your intend if you do not know the difference between ‘where’ and ‘wear.’
And what about life skills? Sure, I know I can trust my daughter and her husband to teach their kids about sex and looking after themselves but can we trust all parents? Too many kids are still learning about sex the old fashioned way: after school, in the garage or a friend’s house when the parents are out. And do the parents who think their kids are too young to learn about such things know what to do when their 10 or 11-year old brings home the latest sexually transmitted disease?
This is not a complaint to the people at Queen’s Park. The politicos have enough complaints these days. It is the professional educators who should be doing a better job. The most critical resource of the future is the children we entrust them to teach. Why do we share this feeling that they might not be doing the best job possible?
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