Parents ‘n Schools

One of the best examples of the future of schooling delivery, easily available for your review right now, is the library of speakers, lecturers and presenters at www.ted.com.
Visit that site.
Browse the growing library of themes, styles and speakers.
Examine the ratings and the lists and the recommendations.
And watch, and listen… and learn.
Guest lecturers, freely available, able […]

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You know how, in your work everyday, you grow to know more and more about the very specific things you work with and are responsible for… you grow to be expert in a certain form of contract, a specific paragraph of the Income Tax Act, an item of current fashion, a model of car, a […]

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If every parent concerned themselves with their child’s government schooling as deeply and as steadfastly as each of you do, government schooling wouldn’t know what to do with them all. There’s only so much photocopying and laminating. Only so many field trips.
If everyone had your appetite for information and involvement, government schooling would be quickly […]

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Imagine government schooling as a pipeline, into which one end government stuffs money and out of which the other end children are delivered, schooled to some extent and in some manner. Government itself cannot see everything that is going on along that pipeline, and it cannot observe every child that is delivered. It hovers over […]

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Sometimes I come across stuff that I just can’t WAIT to get up on this site.
Here is some of that stuff.
www.onceuponaschool.org
When you are there, go to “About Us” and take the time to watch Dave Egger’s TED Prize presentation, which is linked to and featured on that page.
It presents the genesis of this 826 initiative […]

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There really is no “typical” involved parent, any more than there is actually a “typical” student (as the government school system maintains, every child is “unique and special”… it is just statistically that they’re mostly the same — same for parents). But in my observation there are some characteristics.
Community-mindedness. The parents you see involved in […]

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There was no revolutionary war fought to earn the freedoms expressed in the Magna Carta. Merchants and townsfolk escaped feudal rule the old-fashioned, reliable way — they bought their way out.
The same, I believe, will happen for those striving to escape the feudal times of government schooling. Alternatives will best be purchased.
Either directly through non-government […]

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As a primer to new readers of PnS, and a refresher to the rest of you, I have added a new category that collects up some of the posts from the first 150 entries that I particularly value.
Don’t get me wrong. They’re all golden, each precious entry here on PnS, and you should read every […]

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By my observation, the average half-life of parent involvement in government schooling is about six months — or about the time it takes a new parent enrolling their first child in Kindergarten to realize that public education (in Alberta, at least), is not entirely the scary and harmful place that the evening news or morning […]

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I have heard a school superintendent say that the biggest problem he faces is teachers leaving the education profession. The Alberta government announced this spring $2.5 billion to cover teachers’ share of their unpaid pension liability, relieving teachers of an increasingly sizable deduction from their paycheques (very quietly, one of the largest ever increases in […]

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