Chris Spence and His Vision of Hope

Keep your eyes wide open for the latest exciting educational initiative courtesy of the Toronto District School Board. Rumour has it 1.7 million dollars is going to be spent on Dr. Spence's brainchild, "Vision of Hope". Almost 400,000 of that will be spent on a ONE DAY EVENT st the Air Canada Centre where teachers will no doubt be brought in, awe-inspired, and sent home with glossy keepsakes outlining the wonders of the "vision" and the importance of staying faithful to the message.

Hmm. Sounds pretty evangelical, doesn't it?

Will we all stagger out of there, throats parched with ardent hope, gasping "I am healed! We are saved!"? Maybe we will all go forth from the ACC like JC and each find 12 boys to mentor who will in turn become disciples and then go on to create another monument to male hierarchy not unlike the RC church.

Perhaps the promised glossy pamphlets will distract us from the daily reminders that we don't have enough office staff, caretaking staff, youth workers, psychologist or social workers in our ever increasingly complex schools. Perhaps these shiny objects will make us feel like we're being paid for all the extra work we must now do to support all the wonderful initiatives - student success, boys literacy, decreasing suspension rates, pillars, pathways, differentiated learning...who can keep track?

It's true that giant corporations in the business of separating people from their money have in the past been able to succeed by selling glitzy style over shaky substance. But recently, many of these companies have been brought to their knees and they have been exposed as being based on nothing more than smoke and mirrors. That's why the economy is in a tailspin and people are all buckling under the pressure of crippling debt loads and reduced family incomes.

That's why I don't understand why the leaders in our educational system are content to offer Madmen 1950s solutions to 21st Century problems.

You can RAH RAH RAH, and send out as many glossy pamphlets as you please Dr. Spence, but until someone decides to actually focus on the substance of learning and not the optics of leadership, the only vision I see in our future is a dark foggy tunnel.

Student Lies

Student lies are nothing new. We’ve all been students at some point, and we all remember telling one or two fibs. My dog ate my homework. My printer ran out of ink. My alarm didn’t go off. Most lies told by students are designed to cover up basic laziness and procrastination. The general rule of thumb here is that you can use one or two of these per teacher, per semester, no questions asked.

However, some unfortunate souls slip into chronic dependence on these lame excuses. I call these students “slackers”. They know it, I know it, and usually their parents know it too. As their excuses re-run and become increasingly shameful (I had diarrhea and could not leave the house) or lacking in integrity (My grandmother died) their marks correspondingly decline. Inevitably, these chronic liars end up feeling overwhelmed and incapable of catching up. That leaves them only two choices: slink off quietly into absenteeism and failure, or come up with A Whopper to save the day.

I have on occasion, I must confess, been able to sit back in my classroom chair and look up in admiration at a wide eyed and brilliant young slacker who has come to me with A Whopper of such imaginative proportions that I have had no choice but to give them a pass and suggest post-secondary education in the field of drama, creative writing, or law. (One such story involved a TTC bus, a SWAT team, a Tim Horton’s coffee and a blind Rottweiler. Enough said!)

There is, sad to say, a darker side to student deception. It usually takes the form of plagiarism and is the direct result of despair. Typically, these liars have realized they are completely out of their depths and they have no idea how to demonstrate an acceptable level of achievement in the course. In fact these students are usually so lost and confused that they turn in work that is so obviously not theirs that getting caught is inevitable. And that brings us to the darkest kind of student dishonesty: denial.

Again, there is a direct correlation between the level of denial and the student’s achievement. The lower the achievement, the more indignant the denial. Present a low achieving cheater with an exact copy of their essay from the internet dated 1972, and you will see as grand a performance of outrage and indignation as if you had made some comment questioning their paternity or their mother’s virtue. I suspect that in these moments, the student succumbs to their own performance and sincerely begins to believe they are telling the truth! Now convinced themselves of their own veracity, they go to Vice Principals and Parents with tales of such teacher unfairness that they are unable to hold back the tears. Guidance Counselors are brought in. Special Education teachers are consulted. And finally it is concluded that the poor misguided young person had no idea that this kind of “borrowing” from another source is not allowed. The teacher failed to make this clear to the student beforehand and thus the teacher is deemed at fault.

Homework
Think about this:
Why do some students end up feeling so desperate that they are driven to cheating?
Why are so many parents unwilling to believe the teacher’s professional judgment?
Why do so many teachers stop expecting honesty and real achievement?

The Truth

The truth. Not the most popular concept these days. But for me, it is the one thing that matters above all else. Being truthful is the key to success and happiness in all aspects of life. In personal relationships, at work, and especially within your own head - the truth is required or eventually things will fall apart.

Ah, you say, but sometimes the truth hurts! Isn't it better to lie a little, just to make people feel better? Just to get through the rough spots? Just to avoid conflict and pain?

Yes, sometimes the truth does hurt. So does surgery and childbirth and training for the olympics. The pain that comes from truth can be exquisitely sharp. But without it, the cancer of deception slowly grows. It thrives in darkness and swells and bloats until it has the power to suck the life out of the healthy cells. Eventually, the body tires, gives up and dies.

This is the disease that is eating up the life blood in our education system today.

Everybody lies. All the time. About everything.

It is time for someone to tell the truth.