Ignorance is Certainly NOT Bliss

Here is a letter sent to the Premier Ed Stelmach, and Finance Minister Iris Evans.

Dear Sir, Madam, and others,

This letter is being written to express my extreme concern over comments made by Finance Minister Iris Evans as reported June 18th, 2009 by CBC.

While many aspects of what was said is extremely troubling, I want to focus on this statement

"The huge failure of Canadians is not to educate the children properly, and then why should we be surprised when they have mental illnesses or commit dreadful crimes?" - Full Story

Not only were these statements made in complete ignorance of the actual cause of mental illness, they perpetuate the uninformed stereotype that someone who suffers from mental illness is uneducated, has low intelligence, and is that Canadians should not be surprised when they commit dreadful crimes. As someone who is university educated, has a spouse and four children, has never knowingly violated the law or has any desire to "commit dreadful crimes", AND suffers from 2 separate and distinct mental illnesses, this comment is inappropriate, hurtful, and should never be made by someone who serves as a representative of the people of Alberta as our Finance Minister.

This is a further attack on Albertans who suffer from mental illness and clearly demonstrates this Governments direct assault on Albertans with mental illness by promoting hate, ignorance, and enacting policies and budgets that prevent Albertans with mental illness from obtaining the treatment they require. This is clearly an attempt at eradicating mental illness from Alberta by "pushing" them out of the province through denial of services and actively promoting ignorance by spreading mis-information about mental illness.

I ask for a full public apology by the Minister of Finance, I ask that she participate in sensitivity training and also be personally educated on the causes of mental illness. I also request that all Elected Officals participate in that education and sensitivity training as the Minister's comments were an extension of the beliefs and actions of this Government. Furthermore, I request that the Minister step down, or otherwise be removed from her position as the Minister of Finanace as such actions and statements are not congruent with the execution of her duties as a Minister of Finance.

Liberal MLA's...WTF is wrong with you?

Reading my daily dose of news is always a guaranteed way to get my ire up and give me something to discuss. Today the news has not failed me, always some idiot spouting off random crap that they heard from someone who saw it posted on this blog written by some self-righteous wanna-be pundit .... mmm ... wait, that's a little close to home. In any case without further adu, the Alberta government recently passed a non-binding motion calling for an end to mandatory testing in grade three students. You can read about this via CBC. I assume that since CBC is the only place I can readily find actually reporting this news, I usually can safely assume that there is really nothing here to report or at least nothing worthy of my interest. However I was pleasantly surprised at the end of the article by a statement that evoked a WTF!!??!!

"Liberal education critic and Calgary-Varsity MLA Harry Chase said standardized tests are a poor way to measure achievement.

"It's absolutely repulsive, particularly at the Grade 12 level, where two hours of multiple-guess [questions] is the equivalent of an entire year of a Grade 12 student's academic performance," he said.

"Standardized achievement tests … serve a purpose for the government, but they're testing guessing as opposed to testing learning and achievement."

This is the exact reason why Liberals are a dead party in this province. This is why the Tory's have had majority after majority for the last 38 years. The Liberal Education critic is denouncing multiple choice as means to test knowledge and has reduced them to nothing more then a guessing game. While, like every method of testing, multiple choice has some weak points, it still remains a vital part of an appropriate testing regime. Liberals, if your listening (and I hope you are) you need to follow the advice I give to my son with ADHD every single day...

"Stop speaking just for the sake of making noise. It will get people to look at you yes, but they will look at you like you are retarded. Think about what you want to say, then using intelligence and logic, state your opinion."

The real problem with politics everywhere in Canada is that no one has any original ideas. Opposition parties oppose everything regardless of what it is. The problem is no one will ever listen to a group of people who simply say "Your doing that wrong" over and over again. Formulate your own ideas independent of whether those ideas support, or erode the governing parties platform. Get elected based on your own platform rather then going to work once every blue moon and simply spouting sound bites that say "The Tories are Bad"

The fact that they Tories passed a motion to do away with standardized testing in grade three students is commendable. Students should be eased into having information crammed down their throats and standardized testing turns grade three into nothing more then a knowledge cram fest. So what exactly should the Liberal Education Critic say in response? Instead of poking at Diploma exams, with a "Multi-guess ... hehe ... hehe ... he said guess" in a Beavis and Butthead manner, perhaps there is a way that would reach further and faster then this. Does the Liberal Critic have a point? Yes absolutely, having Diploma exams that consist of entirely multiple choice questions does not appropriately test knowledge. Every person is different and as such testing them requires different approaches. Personally I loved multiple choice questions as I could almost always deduce the correct answer from sheer logic and remembering brief phrases that were mentioned in class. The results of those test showed me "smarter" then I was, and likely penalized others because their method of thinking was less logically based and more abstract. There is a vital need to promote abstract thought processes and develop a system that ensures these people can succeed. Having the majority of abstract thinkers delve into the arts because the current acdemia testing standards label them as "below average" hurts our ability to promote change and ultimately hurts our progress as a society. I am not trying devaluing the arts, just pointing out that abstract thinkers that may test poorly have amazing contributions to make.

This is a great opportunity to address the deficiency in our testing practices that the Liberals have missed out on. Lets make year end testing, especially diploma exams and university level exams, a combination of testing methods. Every final exam should have a take home component, a written "essay" type component (even Math classes can and should do this), multiple choice, long answer, and whatever other form of questioning is common practice. To allow students to not suffer because of their individual weaknesses, make it a standard practice to weigh each component of the testing equally and drop the lowest mark component. This would give a solid representation of each students knowledge and ability to learn while not focusing on weaknesses.

Ahh but herein lies the problem. This kind of expensive testing is expensive to implement, expensive to administer, and expensive to grade. As it stands now in 2008 we spent 15% of our total revenue on basic education. Compare that to just over 10% allocated to surplus. I think we can make room for spending on the education of our successors. We have all contributed to the mess we are forcing them to inherit, I think we should all contribute to giving them every possible tool to deal with those problems.