Questions I have for Stephen Lecce after reading his press release

[sabotabby]

I am a reasonably intelligent person who has read many challenging books, and yet I find myself flummoxed and befuddled by the latest press release by our illustrious Minister of Education. For context, the union representing Ontario high school teachers, the Ontario government, and the Ontario Public School Boards' Association are currently in bargaining. Issues like class sizes—which affect staffing as well as workload and the learning environment for students—would typically be included in the bargaining process, but instead the government has chosen to announce them by press release. Unsurprising, as they've replaced the previous Minister of Education, whose experience with kids amounted to managing a goat farm, with Lecce, a trust-fund baby turned PR hack who went to a private school.

You can read the union's bargaining positions here.

Okay, so back in March, the government announced that Ontario students would have to take four mandatory eLearning courses to graduate. This is unprecedented anywhere else in the world. The only places that come close are five US states with spectacular education systems that are the envy of the world—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, and Virginia—and those fine exemplars of student achievement only require one.

Today, presumably in response to public pressure, Lecce halved the number of mandatory eLearning courses. This government likes to halve things, because they are very good at math and 50% is an easy number to math. The press release he issued is something to behold. So here are a few of my questions after reading it; feel free to add your own:

1. Who will decide which students are exempted from mandatory eLearning? Will this include the large swathes of the province without high-speed internet connectivity? How much will the consultant paid to evaluate each individual student's worthiness to be exempted be paid, and how close a family friend must he be to Premier Ford?

2. Will the consultation results with Ontarians be released even though the government refused to release the class size consultations and spent $1 million on health and phys. ed consultations, only to barely change the curriculum from the one they didn't like, and claimed that the results were rigged by "special interests"?

3. How much will this consultation cost, and how many teachers and education workers need to be fired to pay for it?

4. What does "high quality, Ontario teacher-supported" eLearning mean? Does this mean that the course will be delivered by certified Ontario teachers or a private company with links to the Ford family?

5. How is eLearning hands-on?

6. How does the government's cuts to the education budget, which have led to massive cuts to STEM subjects, help students gain STEM skills?

7. How can students without access to quality hardware and software learn STEM skills on their own?

8. Under 10% of high school students currently take eLearning courses, which the government plants to increase to 100%. Of that 10%, how many successful eLearning students are not motivated, academically inclined students on a university pathway, who speak English as a first language, do not have significant learning disabilities, own a computer, and have access to high-speed internet at home?

9. How does the province plan to ensure that all students can access fast, reliable wifi by next year, given how far we are from having that now? Will the province ensure that First Nations communities all have wifi? While they're fixing that, can they also fix the drinking water?

10.  What in the blazes do they mean by: "Many courses will be designed to not require connectivity to complete the course material." Will students without reliable wifi receive paper correspondence packages?

11. How will they ensure that students don't just cheat on their eLearning courses like mine try to do?

12. When I was in Grade 10, my science teacher almost failed me for refusing to dissect a frog, suggesting that hands-on dissection was a curricular expectation without which one could not pass Biology. Was he wrong? Did he lie to me? Could I have just done a virtual reality simulation? Could thousands of frogs be spared every year?

13. How does Mr. Lecce think virtual reality works, exactly? Are students all going to have awesome cyberpunk headsets?

14. What if students puke in the headsets like I do when I wear one?

15. If most students struggle with math even with direct teacher instruction, how will they manage Grade 12 Data Management through eLearning?

16. Grade 10 students are 15-16 years old. Will they be left unsupervised to complete their Careers modules?

17. What is Stephen Lecce smoking, and is it better than the usual quality of Ontario government weed?

Perhaps I shouldn't be so mean to our poor government, though. They are having a No Good, Very Bad Day. Their attempt to gut Ontario student unions (a trial balloon for turning Ontario into a Right To Work state) was struck down in court on account of being completely illegal and arbitrary. Ha. Ha.

Comments

[grimjim]

Prediction: the rollout will be halved and halved repeatedly until select statements can be deemed a success in the end.

Example: Where will the budget be for VR headsets? Or will it be BYOD? Technically rolling them to just one classroom would mean that the hyped VR biology class can be offered and even delivered just barely. Or they could offer it and simply be unable to deliver it.

I would not be surprised by IT cost overruns or persistent malware infection due to skimping on security budget.

[sabotabby]

I suspect they'll use Google Cardboard because some boards already have partnerships. Google likes to give you things free in exchange for collecting all your data. But that's still around $20/student. I have a large box of Cardboards in my classroom that no one wants because VR is not very advanced or useful and it makes about half of people who use them nauseated.

Also, those still require a cell with data.

IT costs are already through the roof. Most schools in Toronto use cinderblocks, which means limited wifi connectivity even with a modern system.

[lapinlunaire]

Could your school get off-brand Cardboards or even assemble them (from actual cardboard)? I feel like VR is actually great, I'm a visual learner so I'd probably have found lots of things easier by messing with them in VR.

[sabotabby]

We have a massive box of them. The kids normally get about a half-hour of interest in them before either 1) getting bored, or 2) getting migraines/nauseous. None of the teachers want them as 100% of us get migraines or nausea.

[dewline]

Skimping on IT security will be nearly inevitable.

[ironed_orchid]

Oh ffs

[sabotabby]

It is the subject of some debate whether or not they actually know what they're doing.

[dagibbs]

This post is an example of why you are an awesome human being!

(And our Ontario government is full of not-awesome I'm-not-sure-they're-actually-human beings.)

[sabotabby]

Thank you!

Some people in the Ontario government are decent and human, but they're all in the Opposition.

[lapinlunaire]

I obviously don't know about the others but yes to 12.

For one thing, most students don't go into fields where they'll have to dissect anything. When they do, it's not a couple of hours this one year that will make a huge difference, plus over here many schools likely don't have the budget/equipment/staff for this, so students end up having to practice those skills when they get to university anyway. The main point of these biology exercises is to give students the notion of which organs exist, what they often look like, where they're placed, etc. As far as that goes, there's very realistic simulations and models. There's other ways to obtain organs. Plus, afaik, nowadays regulations over here about when and why you can dissect vertebrates in school labs or use them in other school experiments are stricter.

My mum is a Biology teacher and she's sympathetic to not dissecting animals because she was against it as a student too. When she needs to show kids what organs look like (she's very hands-on about science) she just gets pig organs, since her students eat pigs anyway, and she'd probably be sympathetic to any kids who couldn't handle them for religious reasons or something. I didn't take biology in high school but if I'd had a teacher who wanted to dissect frogs, I'd just go ahead and fail and my mum would probably not kill me.

[sabotabby]

The worst was this wasn't even a Bio class! It was the compulsory general science class that you need as a grad requirement. But it was the Bio teacher teaching it and he hated girls, so he insisted on the dissection. My mum ended up coming in and arguing for me, so I got to do a polymer clay model that was hella accurate and still only scraped by on that unit.

[lapinlunaire]

I'd also like to note that I'm in favour of eLearning but as an opt-in thing, mostly because it would have helped me SO MUCH when I was younger. But it sounds like a really terrible plan to implement if there's no existing infrastructure and budget and if it's going to screw over already vulnerable students. :/

I don't know who Stephen Lecce is but based on your politicians I think he might be smoking crack.

(Sorry about the dissection ramble lol I just feel strongly about that stuff)

[sabotabby]

It's great for independent learners, who I'd unscientifically guess are about 10% of the student population—approximately the percentage that is currently opting in. I hate eLearning even though I teach it, personally, but to each their own. Expecting a 14-16-year-old to have the kind of self-discipline that I as an adult barely have is a sadistic task.