Middle school students in Ottawa this year will be learning about conjugating verbs instead of the proper way to operate a belt sander. And if you think that decision is about positioning students to succeed in a global economy, well, you obviously don't read comment threads on newspaper websites.
At a meeting one week ago, the Ottawa Elementary School Board voted 5-1 to eliminate the industrial arts program at Shepherd Middle School to be replaced with foreign language classes. Board member Mary Ganiere voted in opposition; board member Michael Bannister was absent.
"I think more kids need industrial arts," Ganiere said. "Too many kids are not high academically and they need to go into the trades. I think this helps them."
Superintendent Cleve Threadgill said the decision was made to swap the programs to offer a more enriching curriculum.
"Foreign language is obviously a way to target higher original thinking skills," he said. "And the world we live in is smaller than it used to be."
Now, a critical thinker might wonder why a school board made such a decision just days before classes were to start —especially when the language to be taught is entirely dependent on what teacher can be hired on such short notice. (Note: if this were a sitcom, you'd just have a shop teacher in coveralls trying to explain how in French some words are feminine and others are masculine.)
But no, the faithful commenters at MyWebTimes.com immediately took this dialogue to its only "logical" conclusion: this country is going to hell.
I give you now a few select comments with the user names removed to protect the stupid. Original spelling and "grammar" left as is.
Continue reading "Mourning the loss of choices for students."
No comments:
Post a Comment