Education vs. Politics

I hate conspiracy theories. I don't read about them, ignore Area 51 and alien invasion and all sorts of similar ideas and ideals that seem to have a life of their own (well, except as escape literature in the form of science fiction.)

On the other hand, sometimes I begin to wonder about some of the things I've seen over my 50+ years on this planet. This page has been rattling around in my mind ever since my kids started school; maybe even longer.

It begins with (and probably ends with) questions. Mostly they are rhetoric (not demanding an answer, just trying to make the reader think) but some might really need answers; answers that I neither have the time nor the energy at the moment to search for.

The following questions must be taken in the light of my 2 late teenage boys, both of whom have tested above average in intelligence, and neither of whom have any overt or obvious learning disability greater than many of my peers from 35-45 years ago.

I've been a part of the computer revolution since the days of vacuum tubes and plug-board programmed logic; before the popular use of the transistor let alone integrated circuits. More importantly, I've watched the evolution of store clerks from someone who could count out change without having the cash register calculate if for them, to those who can't change a $5 bill into two Toonies and a Loonie without asking the cash register how to do it.

I watched as my youngest brother (6 years younger) and everyone else in his class was taught using sticks of various lengths and colors (Cuisenaire) in grade 1 at Queen Mary elementary in the Point Grey neighbourhood of Vancouver, so this is not just something that came along about the time my own kids were born 20 years ago, it has been going on for close to 40. I was one of the lucky ones who had to recite the "one and one is two, one and two is three, one and three is four, ..." and the times table and the alphabet until it stuck in my mind as a habit impossible to break. My kids can't do simple arithmetic in their heads without sitting down and really thinking about it.

Now I know that I have some talent for such things - I'm not dumb - my mother told me so. That doesn't mean I'm a prodigy either. I still have to do the math in my head one number at a time instead of the prodigy's gestalt of looking at a page and being able to factor the primes, do square roots, and solve quadratic equations - none of which I can do without a lot of paper and pencils. The point is that at least for simple arithmetic, I can do it without a thought, totaling up a column of numbers with carries and decimal points without taking my shoes off; multiplying 2 10 digit numbers with decimals together, and dividing one number into another - all on paper, with a pencil to note the answers and the interim numbers. And I can make change without having to see the amount the cash register tells me to count.

My kids and most of their peers and a lot of the adults only slightly younger than I am simply can't do this; certainly not the ones educated in North America anyway. Few of them have any clue when it comes to the numbers and statistics thrown at them by the news media when talking about what the various governments have done recently - in fact I'm fairly certain the news people don't understand them either.

Few also know how to correctly figure out what 20% of something is; a skill vital in today's discounted society (who actually does pay retail???)

The warriors of our planet have come up with what they call an EMF bomb that will destroy any electronic items anywhere within a given area (you can actually make a crude one in almost any reasonably equipped machine shop if you understand the principles behind it.)  If one ever is let loose around our North American society, nobody will be able to file a tax return, total up what the milk bill should be, or even figure out how many people died in the battle - which is far scarier than the fact that most of the cars (that contain more computer chips than all the PCs put together) won't run.

I attended the 40th High School reunion for my wife's school (she's a bit older than I am - I didn't actually graduate at 14 ;) a few weeks ago. I'd also attended the 20th and 25th previously, so knew a number of her school mates, and we got to talking about our now grown children, since Michael was a babe in arms when we first met at the 20th.

One of the themes that came out not only in our table's conversation but in general as some of the teachers and the principal (who was there) were speaking and spoken about, was the fact that all in attendance appreciated that they had had a far better education than any since them seemed to have received, especially in the realm of language skills.

I watch my children sitting at the keyboard communicating - either writing reports for school (both are still struggling through High School English, one for the first time and one to get a better mark so he can go on to college) or sending e-mail, and I wonder at how they got as far as they did. In fact, both our children have done better than many - they both read for pleasure, books! But #2 son can't spell the same word the same way twice - and in many cases gets it wrong both times!

#1 son got some Montessori pre-school and they did things like word-sounds, phonetics, etc. but #2 son, although also at Montessori for a time, didn't even get this. Many of their teachers in subsequent years couldn't spell any better than they could it seemed - or were told to ignore spelling or whatever. All I know is that while their comprehension is very high and their vocabulary is fairly large too (something I think my wife and I had more hand in than their teachers), if either is called upon to write something, their spelling is worse than useless.

The possibility that they or any of their peers might grow up to want to participate in governing our country puts me in mind of some of the correspondence I've seen come out of our bureaucracy and governments of the current times - full of syntax and spelling mistakes - and completely illogical in some cases. Oh woe is us.

  The previous questions and their discussions lead to these ones. Somewhere along the way the system has broken and it seems that there are few who either want to fix it or who, having decided that something needs to be done, can get into a position to actually effect change.

I had an interesting discussion with an ex Conservative candidate for Federal office a few weeks ago at a friend's 60th birthday party. I've know Michael since university days (as have I known Ted, the birthday boy) but have only recently had any really in depth discussions with him about anything of national importance. I won't go into the whole conversation since it lasted several hours and at least 2 bottles of wine, but both of us have come to the conclusion that there are major problems with the Federal government in Canada that will take a "great statesman" (or a revolution) to resolve - and that the chances of Canada's education system producing such a beast are somewhere between slim and none.

The fact is that at this time in our history, only the rich can really afford to take the time to achieve the right to govern us - the rest of us have mortgages and other obligations to deal with that simply won't wait while we spend the time working our way into the machine, if it would have us.

People in the urban landscape today are so busy working long hours, driving long hours in rush-hour traffic to get to second jobs, and dealing with the myriad of other "sand" in the wheels of life that we don't have any time to do much beyond bitch and complain on the talk radio (holding our cell-phones to our ears, driving with our knees while stuffing a hasty egg-mcmuffin in our faces because we can't take the time for a real breakfast.)

Some of it is our own fault. We've adopted the Western world's idea of a 2 car garage (we have 4 + motorcycle), a TV in every room (we have 5), fast food (we just had pizza) and urban sprawl (I'm 25 miles from downtown) with a single family home and grass to mow.

We also have what in effect has turned into a dictatorship with the one man who controls the party with the majority of seats in the house of commons (Jean Chrétien today) being in the position of power the envy of the western world. At least the president of the USA can only rule for a maximum of 12 years out of 16 (2 terms consecutive and 1 more term) and the populace actually gets to vote directly for him. We have no say in who is leader except very indirectly (and if you think that what a blue collar worker thinks is going to happen will actually happen, you don't understand the politics of money - so we really don't have any say).

We also get to pay for the political machinery whether we want to or not. An excellent economist and economics commentator, Michael Campbell, makes the observation that every four dollars donated to a political party in Canada actually costs the taxpayer five when you take the deduction and matching rules into account. And on top of this, the latest law is that the parties get money according to the number of votes they got in the last election - almost guaranteeing that the winning party will have more in the coffers to fight the next one (and win.)

And now the Liberals are proposing a $700,000+ going away party for good ol' Jean when he finally steps down - and while the news commentators tell us it is the Liberal party that will be footing the bill, you can see by the previous paragraph that this is pure hogwash - the Canadian taxpayer is footing the bill, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

So, the moneyed powers are the ones who want to keep the population dumb and stuck in a work and commute hell so they don't have the ammunition or the time to do anything about the lot the government has dealt us. Now the moneyed powers have just added more of our money to their piles so they can keep us in line even better!

My friend Spider Robinson writes a sometimes column in the Globe and Mail which was at one point called "the Crazy Years" after an epoch Heinlein wrote about in his "Future History" series. I expect that people a hundred years from now will look back and find that this in an apt moniker for the times. Spider applied this to the '90s.

I read today about the governor of California being in the line of fire for recall. Heinlein writes about the antics in Friday; "But Californians do not limit themselves to electing, recalling, indicting, and (sometimes) lynching their swarms of officials; they also legislate directly. Every election has on the ballot more proposed laws than candidates. The provincial and national representatives show some restraint - I have been assured that the typical California legislator will withdraw a bill if you can prove to her that pi can't equal three no matter how many vote to make it so. But the grassroots legislation ("the initiative") has no such limitation." Admittedly he was talking about a future when he wrote this, but I really fear we are living that future. He continues "In many cases an official has not yet been sworn in when the first recall petition is being circulated."

California has the same population as Canada, with a year 2000 gross state product of about 1.3 Trillion US$ according to www.usc.edu compared to over 5 Trillion in Canada for 1998 according to: adv.asahi.com (first figures that come to hand on Google).

On the one hand, I look at the mess that California is in, with a deficit of billions compared to Canada with what purports to be a surplus of several billions. On the other, at least Californians have some say in the matter within a reasonable time frame - we have to wait until the current powers dies of old age it seems. Our surplus is hard won (much of it seemingly on the backs of we here in the West, sending large amounts of such things as gas tax into general revenue but getting no help with our deteriorating roads and other infrastructure) - but there is still fat to cut considering the recent excesses of our late privacy commissioner; purported to be a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of Ottawa and the other levels of government. We don't have effective access to information laws or policies, and so much of government is done in secrecy that we don't have any idea until something is foisted on us or announced as having been passed. The checks and balances of a truly democratic society simply are not available.

As for "the crazy years" - you only have to look at the "reality" TV, bizarre behaviors showcased on recent "weird homes" episodes or Ripley's Believe it or Not.

But those are tame compared to the fact that a significant number of people today view the lotteries as their retirement plans. This can only be compared to the number of people that thought the stocks in "dot com" companies trading at multiples in the hundreds (of times annual income, let alone profit) were a good investment despite the lessons of history (which they obviously didn't get in school!)

Crazy!

and getting worse

stop the planet, I want to get off

richard