The New F Word and Kids

Recently, I watched an episode of TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin on my computer. The episode was called "The New 'F' Word," and I had missed it when it first aired in January 2011, despite the fact that a good friend of mine, Charlie Keil, a professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto, was one of Paikin's guests on that occasion. The hour-long show consisted of a discussion of the recent decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to ban the Dire Straits song "Money For Nothing" from Canadian airwaves because of its repeated use of the anti-gay slur "faggot."

I was twenty minutes into the show when my 11-year-old daughter, J, walked into the room. Although she did not stay long, I am pleased that she walked in when she did, and saw the show's title displayed across the screen. The ensuing discussion—which occurred while I paused the show, and which I have transcribed below—served as a unplanned continuation of a conversation that began when she was quite young. (See here.) I'm not a big fan of the phrase "teachable moment," but I do believe this was one.

J: Hey, what's Charlie doing on there?

Me: He's a guest on the show.

J: "The New 'F' Word"? What's that? Charlie won't even say the old F word. [She's right! This is revealed near the end of the show, starting at 46:25.]

Me: The new F word is "faggot." It's a pejorative term for "gay." Have you heard it?

J: No. Why are they talking about it?

Me: Because a song containing the word has been banned from being played on the radio.

J: Good.

Me: But it's complicated. In the song, the word is used satirically. Do you want to listen to the song?

J: Okay. [I find the the original version of "Money for Nothing" on YouTube and play it for her.]

Me: So you see, the person saying the word in the song is a character. He doesn't represent the singer's views.

J: I still think he shouldn't say it. But I guess it's like in a story when there's a character you're not suppose to like, who says nasty things.

Me: Yes.

J: Or like in Billy Elliot, when the miners say the old F word because that's the way they would talk in real life. [J and her twin sister have said they do not want to see the stage version of Billy Eliot because of the swearing.]

Me: Sort of. But it's a bit different because the old F word isn't directed at a specific group. The new F word is worse because it targets gays.

J: Yes, but I still don't want to hear either the old or the new F word.

Me: But do you understand why some people might object to the new F word being banned?

J: Sort of. But if it upsets people to hear it, maybe it should be banned.

Me: But, J, in art—in songs or stories or plays—you have to be able to critique ideas or words, and to do that you have to be able to say them. When they're used in that context they're not necessarily hurtful.

J: Maybe you just think they're not hurtful when they're used that way because you're not gay.

Me: Maybe.

Elections and Kids: Desperate Times

The first election I remember clearly was the federal election of 1972, in which Robert Stanfield ran as leader of the Progressive Conservatives against Pierre Trudeau. The reason I remember that political race in particular, has to do with my best friend Ann. I adored Ann and her family. Her father was an executive at Coca-Cola Canada, her mother a kindhearted former kindergarten teacher, and their airy suburban side-split (a literal mirror image of ours) overflowed with beautiful, happy children. Ann's parents seemed to be more particular about certain things than mine. For instance, they cared about brands. They drank Coke, never Pepsi (although after Ann's father transferred to Pepsi, this allegiance abruptly switched, something that puzzled me somewhat); they ate Kraft peanut butter, and Kraft macaroni and cheese. Store labels were not acceptable substitutes. Store brands were acceptable to my parents, and I complained about this state of affairs to my mother. She tried to explain that the products themselves were mostly the same, so it didn't really matter, but this explanation struck me as feeble. My parents clearly didn't understand the world the way Ann's family did.

Another brand Ann's family liked was the Progressive Conservative brand. Pierre Trudeau was anathema to her family, as he was to many of of our neighbours. The sign on Ann's front lawn was oversized—and blue. I spent a lot of time with Ann's family during that election; I spent a lot of time with them in general. I fantasized about being part of their perfect family, although I was fond of my own less perfect version as well. So that June, I practically lived with Ann, which meant I spent a considerable amount of time riding around in her parents' station wagon, as her mother and father carried out their chores. I remember one day in particular when Ann, her younger sister and I were being driven around our neighbourhood by Ann's father. I don't recall how it started, but the three of us, sitting happily seatbelt-less in the back of the car, windows wide open and a warm wind whipping our hair, began to cheer every time we passed a Conservative sign, and boo when we passed a Liberal sign. (In our suburb, NDP signs were conspicuous by their absence.) Ann's father chuckled and smiled at us as we did this, and I remember the whole outing being a lot of fun.

That evening at the dinner table I told my parents what we had done. My father laughed; he said nothing. It wasn't until years later that I discovered my parents had never voted Conservative in their lives. My mother supported the NDP and my father was a Liberal, who occasionally voted NDP. Yet at the time, they felt no need to tell me this. They seemed unperturbed by my unbridled enthusiasm for Robert Stanfield and the Progressive Conservatives.

Fast forward almost 40 years. My 11-yr-old twin daughters are in the car with my husband and me. We're driving around our neighbourhood during a spring election, and my daughters are noting the preponderance of Conservative signs. We pass a Liberal sign and the girls begin to cheer. From that point on, they cheer every time we pass a Liberal sign. (In our suburb-in-the-city, NDP signs are conspicuous by their absence.) Sitting in the front seat listening to them, I realize that we have become Ann's family—a family in which children are initiated at a young age into the world of partisan politics. I begin to think about how this situation came about, especially in light of what I thought were my beliefs about children, politics and indoctrination. (See here, for instance.) For the truth is, in retrospect, I admire my parents' restraint. I respect them for refusing to tell us what to think politically, for allowing us to mature, and figure out for ourselves where we stood on serious issues.

In the family that my husband and I have created, things are different. At the dinner table one evening not long ago, one of my daughters asked what the Conservative Party of Canada stood for. My husband answered flippantly, "They stand for the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer." My daughter seemed a bit shocked so I added, "That's not how they would describe what they stand for," and I proceeded to try to explain the CPC in a manner more in keeping with how a supporter might explain it. I talked about how some people believe the role of government is to tax citizens who can afford to be taxed so as to provide services and programs to all people, but especially to those who would not be able to afford such services otherwise. I went on to explain that other politicians believe government should be as small as possible, and that taxes should be low, so people can decide for themselves what to to with their money. That was as much fair-mindedness as I could muster, and I couldn't help but add that the problem with the latter approach is that it disproportionally favours the rich.

So why have I chosen not to exercise the same degree of restraint during this election that my parents exercised effortlessly throughout every election that occurred during my childhood?

The answer is complicated. My mother and father were quite possibly more mature in their parental role than my husband and I. Or perhaps they were simply less willing to talk openly to their children about politics and other sensitive issues. But I believe there's more to it than that. The political landscape in Canada has changed drastically in the last four decades, but most noticeably in the last decade. In 1972, there was a consensus among the major political parties about what Canada could or should be. It was not a well-defined consensus, but I believe it stemmed from and incorporated Trudeau's notion of a Just Society, which I interpret to mean a society interested (at least in theory) in providing a decent quality of life for all its members. Am I indulging in pure nostalgia here? Possibly. But the fact is, "red Tories" like Stanfield—and at the provincial level, Bill Davis—would be considered liberals by today's standards. So my parents had no real reason to fear a Progressive Conservative government. But in the wake of the merger between the Canadian Alliance (successor to the far right Reform Party) and the Progressive Conservatives in 2003—which brought into being the Conservative Party of Canada—conservatism has taken on an entirely different cast. I do fear another Conservative government—with reason, I believe. Though he has never managed to achieve a majority in Parliament, Stephen Harper has attempted to remake Canada in the image of the worst elements of American Republicanism. He has used loopholes in parliamentary law to perpetrate innumerable abuses of power and to subvert the democratic process. He has prorogued Parliament on two occasions: once in 2008, while facing a confidence vote in the House of Commons (and the perfectly legal prospect of an opposition coalition forming the government), and again in 2010, to avoid handing over disturbing information regarding the Afghan detainee file to the House of Commons. In March of this year, his government, having refused to furnish adequate budget information regarding its plan to build new prisons, was found in contempt of Parliament, a first for Canada, and indeed for any Commonwealth country. (For a full list of Harper's abuses of power, see here.) Currently, Harper is running for re-election on an strikingly Bushian platform of sustained tax breaks for corporations and their wealthy shareholders, increased military spending, and a promise to build shiny new prisons, even though the crime rate in Canada is down.

So perhaps we can be forgiven for being a little more forthright with our children about the current political scene in Canada. The truth is, as a parent, I'm afraid: afraid that should Harper achieve his majority, the Canada I knew as a child—a Canada which my parents and Ann's took for granted, one which poured money into schools, health care, and social programs, and taxed its citizens progressively in order to do so—will cease to exist as my children grow into adults. Perhaps, in other words, desperate times call for desperate parenting.

The Toronto Homework Policy

This review of the 2008 TDSB homework policy was written last spring as a guest post for Sara Bennett's StopHomework site. (Sara Bennett, along with Nancy Kalish, is the author of The Case Against Homework.) The post can still be found there, but the site is largely inactive, as Sara has moved on to other pursuits. It remains, however, a great resource for research and lively discussions on the topic of homework. My post originally appeared in two parts—because it's long!—but I'm posting it here as one piece, on the third anniversary of the enactment of the TDSB homework policy. As a result of my review, the homework situation at my daughters' school did improve somewhat (see here). But old habits die hard, and much room for improvement remains.


The Toronto Homework Policy: A Parent's Perspective

On a recent Saturday morning, my 10-year-old daughter emerged from the basement on the verge of tears: “The temple’s collapsed,” she announced. Though it sounded dire, she was speaking not of an actual building, but of the model of an ancient Greek temple she and a classmate had constructed out of cardboard the previous week. They had piled on the white paint, and the structure had simply buckled under the weight. Later that day I glanced out the window to see my two daughters turning cartwheels on the back lawn while my husband diligently sawed wooden cylinders into pillars for the new temple. It was a brilliant spring day, and soon my husband would finish his task and call my reluctant daughter in out of the sunshine to start rebuilding the temple. What is wrong with this picture?

From the perspective of a homework skeptic, many things: arts and crafts busywork, weekend homework, parental involvement. But the main problem is that I live in Toronto, and my children attend public school in a board which in 2008 enacted one of the most progressive, “family friendly” homework policies in North America. So what happened?

When I read the news in early 2008 that the Toronto District School Board was re-evaluating its homework policy, my heart did a little happy dance. At the time, my twin daughters were in third grade. Although we had not yet experienced homework overload, the prospect of a reformed homework policy thrilled me because the following year my daughters were due to enter mid-elementary French immersion, a program renowned for its heavy workload both inside and outside the classroom. Suddenly there was hope that French immersion would provide a qualitatively (as opposed to quantitatively) different experience for my daughters, with enrichment enabled not by means of extra work, but simply through learning the curriculum in a second language.

The TDSB—the largest school board in Canada, serving approximately 250,000 students—appeared to have done its homework, so to speak, on homework. Spurred on by parent Frank Bruni and sympathetic Trustee, Josh Matlow, the board reviewed and eventually rewrote its homework policy, approving a new family-friendly version on April 16, 2008. The new policy (available online here) re-defines “effective” homework, promotes “differentiated” assignments and removes punitive consequences for incomplete work. It virtually eliminates homework in the early elementary years, and mandates substantial decreases for all other grades. But perhaps the most progressive feature of the Toronto policy is its recognition of the deleterious effect of homework on family life. It stipulates that homework should not be assigned on scheduled holidays or “days of significance,” and that “time spent on homework should be balanced with the importance of personal and family wellness . . . .”

My excitement back in 2008 was not unfounded: this was a good policy. So why two years later am I complaining about my children's homework?

Before I attempt to answer this question, I should note that many parents I’ve spoken to have indeed noticed a decrease in their children’s homework. But my experience—and that of other French immersion parents I've consulted—has been that teachers continue to assign homework inconsistent with the new policy. On curriculum night in September 2008, the Grade 4 teacher warned parents to expect a difficult year. She explained that the nature of “mid-immersion”—its compression compared to immersion programs starting in Kindergarten—made it necessary to work the children particularly hard. (There was scant mention of the new homework policy, no hint that the program might have to be adjusted in order to comply with it.)

She was not kidding. On a nightly basis, students were expected to review copious notes from class, practice spelling words, complete math and grammar sheets, and study for tests (two per week). In addition, there were projects to be completed outside of class. Although my daughters loved learning in French and their grades remained strong, they were unaccustomed to a such a heavy workload. They began to show signs of stress (read, meltdowns) almost immediately. By Christmas, they were proclaiming their hatred for school; I prepared to pull them out of French immersion. After the holidays, homework eased up—marginally, but enough to convince me I would not be irreparably harming my daughters by keeping them in the program.

Grade five was initially better. On curriculum night, the teacher professed her dislike of homework; as a parent herself, she understood how busy today's children are. Yet this teacher is renowned within the school as a kind of project queen. Every year, her students (or their parents) produce extraordinary projects in science and social studies, which are displayed on designated days to the other students and teachers in the school. And sure enough, it was the projects—spaced inconsistently and piled on top of regular homework—that nearly did us in. Three of them were clumped together in the space of five weeks in the spring term when, as my daughter put it, kids have “had it with the torture of school.” To be fair, the teacher allocated class time to the projects, but often project time encroached on core subjects such as math and grammar, so more homework came home in those subjects. Moreover, class time was not allocated to the building of temples or eyeballs or machines; parents were responsible for supplying materials, and were expected to provide space and time at home for their children to complete all of the arts and crafts components. As a result, my daughters had little choice but to spend multiple weekends—including “days of significance” and holidays, such as Passover, Easter, Mother's Day and Victoria Day—working on various elements of assigned projects.

Frustrated and confused by the contradiction between the new policy and the homework we were experiencing, I decided to do a little investigating. I asked several people—the principal of my daughters' school, the superintendent of our particular school district, and my local school Trustee—a simple question: Is the homework policy a set of voluntary guidelines, or is it binding? The answer, it turns out, is not simple. Howard Goodman, school Trustee for my area, summed up the confusion when he answered: “somewhere in between.” Both he and John Chasty, the area Superintendent, insisted that schools are expected to comply with the new policy, and that responsibility for implementation lies with principals and teachers. However, as Goodman reminded me in an email, the TDSB is “a highly decentralized organization which works hard to be responsive to . . . local conditions.” In other words, the board tolerates a certain latitude in the interpretation of its policies in order to empower schools and teachers to respond flexibly to the needs of students.

I began to wonder whether the TDSB counts French immersion—along with other enrichment programs such as gifted classes—as a local condition necessitating a “liberal” interpretation of the homework policy. Not so, according to Lyn Gaetz, principal of my daughters' school. The new recommendations, Gaetz told me, were well received by teachers at the school. She explained that she meets with the teaching staff yearly to discuss the policy and to monitor its implementation. No program is exempt, but Gaetz did acknowledge the challenges the school has faced reducing homework in French immersion.

My sense from talking to teaching staff is that most of them—French-immersion teachers included—believe they are complying with the new policy. And returning to the document itself, I see how this belief is enabled by a discernible vagueness of wording. For example, in reference to the early elementary years, the policy notes the “strong connection between reading to or with elementary children every day . . . and student achievement” and goes on to encourage regular reading at home, among other family activities. One would be hard pressed to object to such a recommendation, but its lack of specificity allows for some bizarre interpretations. The teacher of a third-grader I know seems to have interpreted it as an endorsement of reading logs. As followers of stophomework are well aware, reading logs are a discredited form of homework which often instill in children a loathing rather than a love of reading. Yet so convinced is this teacher of the value of reading logs that she instructs her students to complete them during major holidays, such as Christmas, a demand clearly in conflict with the new policy.

Another troubling area of vagueness is the section on homework in the later elementary years. Time guidelines for these pivotal grades (3-6) are conspicuous by their absence. And the one directive specified—namely,“Homework may begin to take the form of independent work”—is so vague it barely counts as a directive at all. I suspect it is commonly interpreted to mean projects, since projects are considered a more creative, engaging form of homework than, say, drill work. This may be true, although, as most parents know, many projects are comprised of arts and crafts-type busywork. Even the most educationally valid projects are labour-intensive, especially when they are assigned as group endeavours, which adds an element of scheduling chaos to the mix. And when projects are used as the principle means of covering the curriculum, as they seemed to be for much of the spring term in my daughters' class . . . well, before you know it you have temples collapsing and tearful children rebuilding them in dark basements on brilliant spring afternoons.

Which leads back to the initial question: what went wrong? Has the Toronto policy failed to achieve true homework reform? One could argue that my experience with French immersion is atypical, and that it renders invalid any answer I might offer to such a question. But one could also reasonably view French immersion as a kind of microcosm of elementary education in Ontario, a system characterized by an over-stuffed curriculum (the phrase “mile wide and inch deep” comes to mind) and an over-reliance on standardized tests as a measure of quality. In French immersion, as elsewhere in the system, homework overload and curriculum are inextricably intertwined. To paraphrase blogger Fred Baumgarten, who has written about this interconnection on his blog Homework Headaches, when you pull at the thread of one, you inevitably catch the other, and the whole overwrought educational fabric threatens to unravel.

But issues of curriculum are beyond the scope of this post. With respect to the homework policy itself, ambiguous language and inconsistent enforcement notwithstanding, I regard the April 2008 revisions as a huge step in the right direction. I applaud Frank Bruni for instigating them. The TDSB also deserves credit for taking the issue of homework overload seriously enough to review the research and change the policy. However, the last two years have taught me some crucial lessons. Policies—even well-meaning, progressive ones—must be seen as works in progress, in continual need of re-evaluation. More importantly, I have learned that passivity—my own in particular—is part of the problem. A change in practice does not flow seamlessly from a change in policy. It is up to all of us to remain vigilant and advocate for the the ultimate stakeholders in any educational system: children.

All-Day Kindergarten

Recently, I wrote a guest post for Activekidsclub.com, a website devoted to promoting active, outdoor play for children. The post concerns all-day kindergarten, a program which the government here in Ontario has committed to providing for all 4- and 5-year-olds in the province by the year 2014. You can check it out here.

Letter to a science teacher

If I haven't blogged for a while, it's because my husband and I and the twins have recently taken two trips: one pleasurable, to Quebec for March break, and the other an all too familiar (figurative) journey to school-project-hell and back. I've written about how and why I dislike school projects previously on this blog, so I won't repeat my arguments here. What I do want to do is share a letter I wrote earlier in the school year (November 2010) to my daughters' science teacher, outlining my concerns about a project he assigned. I was worried that this was to be the first of many unreasonable, pedagogically questionable projects, and after last year's experience with project overload, I decided to see if I could nip the problem in the bud by detailing my concerns to the teacher. This is the letter (with minor deletions and changes to protect the innocent)I wrote:

Dear Mr. X:

We are the parents of J and E in your Grade 6 science class. J and E are enjoying science so far, but we do have a few concerns about the previous project and the one new one that has recently been assigned. While the girls were working on the habitat project, a number of issues and problems arose that we would like to share with you in the hope that these problems can be addressed, and possibly resolved in time to make a difference for the second project.

The scope of the habitat project: We found that the scope of the habitat project was a little too broad. We believe that 11-year-olds do not possess the developmental tools to take a large subject and circumscribe it so that it becomes a workable, doable project. Since our daughters seemed initially to be at a loss regarding how to limit their topic, we directed them to ask you for more details regarding what was expected. They told us that your response to this, and to most questions, was: “what do you think?” While we understand the pedagogical goal inherent in this type of response, it was not particularly helpful to our daughters, since what they were looking for was specific guidance on the amount and type of work expected. Like many of the students in your grade six class, our daughters are hard-working, high-achieving kids who have been taught to strive to meet expectations. When the expectations are not clear (and unfortunately, the Rubrics section for this assignment on your blog was blank), they feel disoriented. Since no specific guidance on the number of plants and animals to be covered was provided, we took the liberty of giving our daughters some suggestions. Both girls chose to cover more than 15 animals, and since they also felt (although, again, they were not sure) that they should write several sentences about each animal (along with the required classification), the project took them a very long time to complete at home. The girls spent the better part of two consecutive weekends and multiple evenings working on this project. This made it a very stressful endeavour both for them, and for all of us as a family, as very little non-project activities could be planned for those weekends/evenings.

Time in class: We do realize that you gave the class . . . time at the computers to work on this project, and we are thankful for that. However, you may not realize that many of your students—our girls included—are not proficient on computers, as they do not use them regularly, either at home or anywhere else. So, for instance, when they research topics at school, they know how to save the information, but they do not know how to print it, at least not in the manner you suggested: i.e., by first copying the information into a Word document. They would need step-by-step guidance on how to do this, in order to learn to do it efficiently, or at all, and they have not received such guidance.

There are two other reasons why the time given to work on the project in class was not particularly productive for J and E: they cannot type with any degree of speed or fluidity, and they have not been taught how to transfer their work to a memory stick, so that they can bring it home for final formatting, etc. So any actual written work done on the computers at school had to be repeated at home, which was not a productive use of time, and greatly added to the hours required to complete this project.

Bibliography: We believe that the requirement of a bibliography at this grade or age, should be accompanied not simply by a reference to [board] guidelines (which are clearly geared towards high school students, and are confusing and out of date, to boot), but by detailed instruction on why one includes a bibliography, how to put together a bibliography, where to find copyright information in a book, or an encyclopedia, etc. The [board] guide, for instance, does not include a single sample entry for a Wikipedia article, despite the fact that Wikipedia is the source children use most frequently for research projects. The girls told us that you commented that students should include authors in their bibliographies. Given this requirement, perhaps during the research phase, you could direct the children, not only to the computer, but also to books, where they will indeed find actual authors, and where the copyright information is more straightforward. In any case, we believe that, since classifications were requested for every plant and animal mentioned in this project, the required bibliography was beyond the ability of most 11-year-old children to complete independently.

I should add, that J and E enjoyed working on their projects, and they both learned a lot. They are also excited about the topics they have chosen for their next project, In general, they are enthusiastic about science class, and we don't want that enthusiasm to dampen because of problems they encountered while working on the first project. That is why we have decided—respectfully, and in the spirit of constructive dialogue—to bring these concerns to your attention.

We are available to discuss these issues further, either in person, via email or by telephone.

Sincerely,

J and E's parents

I delivered this letter (not without some trepidation) to Mr X's mailbox, and a few days later he called me. I was nervous about speaking to him because on past occasions, teachers with whom I've raised concerns or to whom I have written notes such as this one, have sometimes become defensive, which leads to an unproductive exchange. (I should note that I accept my share of responsibility for failed communications; it is quite possible that the way I spoke or worded my written messages rubbed the teachers the wrong way. This is something I'm continually working on.) But I needn't have been nervous. Mr. X was extremely gracious and receptive to my concerns. He tried to address them all individually, noting, for example, that he thought my daughters' class had been taught how to create proper bibliographies in grades 4 and 5 (which was not the case). He also admitted that he'd made some assumptions about the kids' knowledge of computers and research that he should probably not have made. We ended the conversation amicably, with him assuring me that he would try to do things differently for future projects.

The good news is, he did change things—a lot! Since I wrote that letter, for instance, there have been no more take-home projects. All work in science is now done in class, and it includes a balance of research and group experiments, such as designing a small electric car! Since I did not want to overload Mr X, I had not even mentioned in my letter another of my concerns: namely, the lack of experiments in what was, after all, a science class. But the letter seemed to propel him to re-think everything, and now the class is completely different. At the beginning of the year, the girls were complaining that in science class, they were either plopped in front of the computer (researching) or watching boring movies. They actually disliked the class intensely and, in fact, instructed me to change the second sentence of my letter from "J and E are enjoying science class so far" to "J and E are enjoying science so far." Now it is, hands-down, their favourite class. They especially enjoy the experiments, and one of them has even expressed a new interest in becoming a scientist or at least in continuing to find out "how things work."

And the bad news? Mr. X only teaches the girls science. Their core teacher, Mr. Y., is the one who assigned the social studies project that resulted in our recent journey to homework hell. The project displayed all of the problems I detailed in my letter to Mr. X, and then some (for instance, a completely useless "artistic" component). So what to do? Do I write a similar letter to the core teacher? Ask to meet with him? It's tricky because he is my daughters' main teacher, and I've already had to approach him concerning several other, non-project related issues (such as incompressible math questions!). I do not want to alienate him or stress him out, but I also do not want him to assign another project such as the one we just suffered through. The girls learned next to nothing from it, which is perhaps the most important reason I object to context-less, single-focus research projects for 11-yr-olds (and is itself the topic for another post!). Any ideas regarding what my next steps, should be would be greatly appreciated.

Semi-Private Schools

A long time ago—in another life, it seems—my husband and I found ourselves looking to buy a house in the greater Boston area. During this ultimately fruitless period of house-hunting, our real estate agent accompanied us on numerous expeditions to quaint urban neighbourhoods and not-so-quaint neighbouring suburbs. In her attempt to sell us on a particular house, the agent would invariably say something like, "The local school is wonderful—very high test scores." We were surprised by this, because we were quite obviously childless, and had never expressed the slightest interest in children or schools. We informed our agent that proximity to schools, good or bad, did not matter to us, that we were more concerned with proximity to decent restaurants and bookstores. She ignored us and continued to rattle off test scores of the schools close to the houses we viewed. It must be an American thing, we figured, something to do with the inequitable way schools are funded in the US. We were pretty certain school test scores were not of equal concern to house-hunters in Canada.

It took us many years—during which we became parents to twins, moved in a panic back to Canada, and slowly realized that babies grow up to be kids who eventually attend school—to realize how wrong we were.

Recently, the Toronto Star published the results of an investigation into fundraising disparities among public schools in certain boards within the province of Ontario. I was not surprised that our neighbourhood junior school was one of the highest-ranked schools in Toronto in terms of money raised through fundraising. I was, however, somewhat taken aback to discover that during the year being studied (2008-2009), our school raised—through a combination of school and parent fundraising—$252,072 more than the elementary school at the bottom of the Toronto School Board list. (See full report here.) What is a person who believes in public education to make of such an obscene discrepancy? How is it even possible?

Two explanations spring to mind: first, the government of Ontario no longer adequately funds public education, and has not done so since the Harris years, despite promises by the governing liberals to amend the flawed funding formula introduced by the conservatives; second, perhaps as a result of its decision to continue underfunding education, the government has chosen not to set limits on fundraising by, for instance, restricting the uses to which parent-raised money can be put. In my daughters' school, some of the money raised by the parent association goes to programs such as "Scientists in the School" and "Learning Through the Arts''—curriculum-related programs whose presence in a school should not be tied to the availability of parent-generated funds.

But the fundraising issue is also part of a larger picture of education in Ontario (and elsewhere in North America) that has emerged in the last few decades. Specifically, it is an integral part of a cycle of inequity in which (as my Boston real estate agent understood) standardized tests scores also figure prominently. Before the advent of standardized tests such as EQAO in Ontario, inequality among schools—including differences in parental involvement and fundraising—no doubt existed, but standardized testing has amplified existing differences through its direct effect on real estate values. A high-scoring school drives up surrounding property values, which leads to parents-of-means moving into the neighbourhood, contributing time, energy and money to the school, which in turn leads to even higher test scores . . . and on and on the cycle goes.

The result is the creation of a tripartite system of schooling in Ontario, consisting of public, private, and what people in my neighbourhood jokingly refer to as "semi-private" schools. In a semi-private school, private money, to the tune of more than a million dollars for some high schools in the province, is funnelled into the public school, making up for any deficiencies caused by inadequate government funding. Well-heeled parents who contribute the money are thrilled to save the $28,000 in private school fees. Indeed, for these parents it's a fantastic deal. For the parents of students attending the province's truly public schools, not so much.

The Gentleman's C

Last week, my daughters received their second term report cards. The changes in report card formats introduced in Ontario this school year (see here) meant that this was the first report they've received in Grade 6 to feature actual letter grades. In all subjects, both girls received grades of A-, A, or A+. This should be cause for praise and celebration, right? Well, yes and no.

Along with the report cards, a letter was sent home to parents of Grade 6 students detailing the awards their sons and daughters are eligible to win in their graduating year. The letter explains,

...students have much to look forward to in the last term of school as they begin to set goals for improvement in term 3. This is a perfect time to announce the graduation awards' criteria. Every grade 6 student upon completion of their grade 6 program will receive a graduation certificate. In addition to celebrating graduating classes, there will be special awards presented in the areas of Arts, Sports and Academics as follows[.]

The letter goes on to delineate the various awards, which include the catch-all Honour Roll ("Awarded to all students who have received all level 4 grades [A-, A, A+] in the following subjects: English, French and Math"), the traditional yet amorphously-defined "spirit" or "character" awards, and awards in specific subjects such as music and phys. ed. (but interestingly, not math or science).

If awards were based on this term's report cards, both my daughters would qualify for the Honour Roll. But frankly, I'd be happier if there were no Honour Roll; in fact, I'd be thrilled if the school scrapped the awards ceremony altogether. I believe kids—11-year-olds in this instance—are already under enough pressure to perform. They should not have to expend additional energy in their final term worrying about keeping their marks up, knowing that one slip-up on a test could prevent their name from being engraved on the 2011 honor roll plaque to be prominently displayed in the school's front hall for all to see, forever!* My daughters work hard enough, fret about their schoolwork enough. They shouldn't have to concern themselves with year-end awards too. Yet they know that many of their over-worked, over-scheduled, high-achieving friends will "make" Honour Roll. They would feel embarrassed and disappointed if they did not do the same.

But for me the issue is not merely personal: there are valid educational grounds to oppose awards ceremonies as well. For instance, whatever happened to the notion of intrinsic motivation? Hasn't a half-century's educational and pedagogical research shown that true learning does not spring from prodding kids with carrots and sticks, as if they were lab rats in some dubious behaviourist experiment? Hasn't more recent research demonstrated pretty convincingly that kids learn best in the absence of intense external pressure to perform? Why, then, is it considered so controversial when a school actually heeds this research and re-conceives the traditional awards ceremony so as to reward the individual efforts and achievements of all graduating students? (See an account of a BC school that has done just that, here, here and here.)

I don't know the answers to these questions. And clearly, it's too late for me to agitate for the abolition of the awards ceremony at our school. To be honest, I'm pretty certain most parents would object to such a change as strongly as the principal and teachers. So what can parents of soon-to-graduate 6th graders do to mitigate the pressure emanating from the school to "achieve"—in the narrowest definition of the term—at all cost?

My unorthodox solution was to introduce my kids to the concept of the "Gentleman's C." I sat the girls down and told them how, in the early part of the last century, at American (mostly Ivy League) universities, "gentlemen" believed that to work too hard or long at academics meant you didn't know how to enjoy life. I dutifully explained the classism (and sexism) inherent in such a notion—how the self-identified "gentlemen" who espoused such views were privileged enough not to have to worry about C's affecting their chances of finding gainful employment. Cutting to the chase, I told them, "For these "fun-loving" students, to achieve straight A's would have been almost unseemly. A grade of C was considered perfectly adequate for a "gentleman." I chose not to belabour the point, hoping merely to plant a seed of doubt in my daughters' minds as to the value of high marks. I concluded my "lecture lite" with a charming verse from a 1909 poem by Judge Robert Grant called "Extinct Harvard":

The able-bodied C man! He sails swimmingly along.
His philosophy is rosy as a skylark's matin song.
The light of his ambition is respectably to pass,
And to hold a firm position in the middle of his class.

I didn't bother to mention that the poem is satire. But the looks on my kids' faces told me they knew.


*Grade 6 students must also contend with the pressures of EQAO, the province's standardized tests. But that is a topic for another post.