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George Briggs
Web Page: http://www.cisontario.ca |
| Profile: George Briggs is the Executive Director of the Conference of Independent Schools of Ontario. A graduate in Geography from the University of Guelph, George obtained a Masters of Education degree from Brock University and has taught for 35 years in public secondary schools, at Ridley College in St. Catharines and at the Faculty of Education at Brock University. Prior to assuming his duties at CIS Ontario, George was the Principal of Trafalgar Castle School in Whitby, Ontario. | |
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21st Century Kids
September 16th, 2009 | Comments | Posted in Clubs, Events, Private Schools, Service, Students by George Briggs
September 10, 2009 marked the launch of the TEDx Toronto talk, the extension of the remarkable TED talk series. If you have not visited the TED site and viewed one of the talks available you are missing a great source of information and inspiration. Recently, the TED organization has allowed extensions of its series to various cities, hence the TEDx Toronto event. The TED site and the TEDx Toronto site are well worth visits. More »
The Slow Movement
I was browsing through the TED talks the other day and came upon a very interesting talk by Carl Honore praising ‘slowness.’ (If you have not visited the TED talk site you should; there are over 400 twenty minute talks by famous and enormously talented people available on the site.) This blog post is my third one on ‘slowness’ and the summertime seems to be an appropriate time to consider changing our pace of life.
“Journalist Carl Honore believes the Western world’s emphasis on speed erodes health, productivity and quality of life. But there’s a backlash brewing, as everyday people start putting the brakes on their all-too-modern lives.”
There is actually a Slow Movement website that provides some interesting perspectives on slow food, slow schools and slow living.
No Child Left Inside
As summer approaches, it is time to contemplate what we might do with (or for) our kids. How about “kicking them out?”
“No Child Left Inside” is a takeoff on the infamous “No Child Left Behind” Act in the U.S., the Act that has led to an enormous rise in the importance of “high stakes testing.” The overemphasis on testing has caused grievous harm to the education system in the U.S. and we can only hope that it does not migrate too far north.
The “No Child Left Inside” movement is something else altogether. It is a “… growing movement to reconnect children and nature, and to battle nature deficit disorder” according to Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods.”
“Real” Work
Early on in my teaching career I thought I might like to leave teaching to pursue work that was more tangible. By tangible, I mean work that involved a definite beginning and end with a visible product at the end. Say, being a carpenter – start with a pile of lumber – end up with a house – step back and say, “It is good.” I persisted in education however and as I matured as a teacher I began to see the results of my vocation and would not have traded my work for anything else.
This past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine (May 24, 2009) featured an interesting piece by Matthew Crawford titled “The Case for Working with Your Hands.” It explores the concept of the value of the trades:
“…life as an independent tradesman gave me an image that I kept coming back to: someone who really knows what he is doing, losing himself in work that is genuinely useful and has a certain integrity to it. He also seemed to be having a lot of fun.”
Crawford gives up a career in a Washington policy organization to run his own motorcycle repair shop in Virginia and the article provides an interesting perspective on the nature of practical work.
Time for Slow Schools
The Sunday New York Times Magazine of May 3/09 featured an excellent article by Peggy Orenstein titled “Kindergarten Cram.” The article reinforces some earlier posts on the Chalkboard that discuss the importance of play for children.
Not only does play provide much-needed ‘down-time’ for busy kids but it also serves to support the achievement of some important educational objectives. “Play – especially the let’s-pretend, dramatic sort – is how kids develop higher-level thinking, hone their language and social skills, cultivate empathy.”
Orenstein goes on to discuss the dangers of accelerating kindergarten and other techniques for pushing children’s development too quickly. She references the Slow Food movement which appears to speak to the type of change we need in our early education system. The Slow Food Manifesto states: “We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods. A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.”
Orenstein’s call for ‘Slow Schools’ comes from her feeling that “After all, part of what got us into this mess was valuing achievement, speed and results over ethics, thoughtfulness and responsibility.”
I believe that it is important for parents to let schools and school systems know that they too value the important objectives of education rather than our current obsession with achievement, speed and results. Let’s hear it for ‘Slow Schools’ not the ‘Fast Life.’
Messing Around
I believe that I grew up in a kinder, gentler time, in a small town in Northern Ontario, where my friends and I had free run of the town and the bush beyond. I spent a lot of time outdoors with my friends just generally ‘messing around.’ No organized sports, music lessons or after school tutorial sessions. It was called ‘play’ and research now suggests that unstructured play time for children, including unstructured time for teens, is an essential component for healthy development.
A lot of kids today are over-scheduled, so much so that stress is placed on families in an attempt to keep up with the extra-curricular timetable. Witness the rush from school to practice to lesson to game, often with on-the-go takeout meals consumed in the family van. A recent report by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests “Whereas play protects children’s emotional development, a loss of free time in combination with a hurried lifestyle can be a source of stress, anxiety and may even contribute to depression for many children.”
The Family Dinner Table
What if there was a method to set your children up for academic success that was free, and as a side benefit, reduced the risks of substance abuse and grounded your kids in the ethical framework they need to navigate the world wide web? Impossible you say? Not really – the answer is in all of your homes.
It’s the family dinner table.
The “Easy” Button – Life’s Not Like That
I have strong feeling that it is a serious challenge for schools to address “values education” in a society where our students are subject to a constant stream of media messages that may not be encouraging a healthy approach to the “well-balanced” life.
I am particularly struck by two media advertisements, one on television and one from the radio. The television ad is related to the theme of “wouldn’t life be nice if …” and suggests that if a person has a specific credit card, many of life’s challenges would disappear. The radio ad promotes a mythical “easy button”, where, when faced with a difficult task (such as preparing a class speech), one merely pushes the “easy button” and the task is magically accomplished.
These two advertisements suggest to me that the advertising industry is promoting products that make life “easy” and I wonder if our students are being led by these, and other media messages, to the conclusion that only easy paths are desirable. Put another way, I wonder if the virtue of honest work is being lost.