Following is the text of a statement that OPERI will be making to the Ottawa Carleton District School Board on June 7th, 2016. The Reform of Public Education to Fit with the Times We are a delegation from OPERI, the Ottawa Public Education Remake Initiative. Our purpose in being here is to provide input for … [Read more…]
Why we remain so stuck in the inadequate old system of public education has been answered in a number of ways. Deborah Meier in David Cayley’s 1999 CBC Educational Debates spoke of a lack of thoughtfulness for the long-range consequences of school reforms. She described educational leaders as “filled with a kind of chutzpah” who thought, “I … [Read more…]
We need a game changer, but the current set of recommendations for the OCDSB Secondary School Program Framework do not begin to accomplish it. The review is essentially a repeat of what the Board did in 2000-2001 with its New Vision for Secondary Schools. Little changed as a result of it, and little is likely to change as a result … [Read more…]
Living and Learning Living and Learning, better known with reference to its principal authors as the Hall-Dennis Report, was commissioned by the Ontario Government and published in 1968. It stands out as perhaps the best report on education ever commissioned by a government. If its recommendations had been properly implemented, public education would probably now … [Read more…]
An OPERI Report March 2016 www.operi.ca Comments from people attending the Ottawa screening of Beyond Measure and the follow-up workshop repeated the view that public education is failing in ways that have dire consequences for students. There was no immediate consensus on how to correct the system, which prompted one participant to say that we … [Read more…]
Last night at Ottawa’s Gloucester High School, OPERI presented the following. Between the lines is the message that real change is not difficult once people understand what it means to be unleashed to learn. Secondary School Reform Eliminating the bells Larry Rosenstock, co-founder of High Tech High, which is considered to be one of the … [Read more…]
ANNOUNCING “It’s a World Café” Tuesday, February 23rd, 7 – 9 pm The Richelieu-Vanier Community Centre – Accueil Hall 300 Des Peres Blancs Ave., Vanier (See below for bus and driving directions, and book sales info.) Free parking on site. This Café sponsored by OPERI is a follow-up to the Ottawa screening of Beyond Measure, but you do … [Read more…]
I recently attended a couple of events where presenters related teenage behaviour to frontal lobe development. The frontal lobe is identified as the part of the brain that handles executive functions. It has been found to be less developed in teenagers than in adults and the conclusion being drawn is that we cannot expect teenagers to show the maturity … [Read more…]
“Collecting data on human learning based on children’s behavior in school is like collecting data on killer whales based on their behavior at Sea World.” “Any wildlife biologist knows that an animal in a zoo will not develop normally if the environment is incompatible with the evolved social needs of its species. But we no … [Read more…]
In his article titled A Message For The Downtrodden, David Mills offers a helpful glimpse of the value of some of our most struggling students. He writes, “I have always felt an affinity for children labelled with conditions such as dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Oppositional Defiance Disorder (yes, our society has actually sunk to the depths of describing children … [Read more…]