EDEM 628- Discussion on Reform-Change Dip (Feb.8)

During our last class (Feb. 4), we discussed the reform in terms of how well staff members were coping. For example, in my group, we discussed the fact that schools varied from levels of impatience to avoidance and stress. We all agreed that it was the more senior staff members that demonstrated feelings of resistance and avoidance.

In my own school, I have not had much time to guage how my staff is dealing with the reform. The teachers have been using the assigned textbooks with their students but this hardly means that the reform is alive and well.

Another point that I brought forward in my group was how easily most administrators have accepted the reform as the way to go without much debate as to whether it can achieve its desired goal, i.e., greater educational success that translates into higher numbers of students graduating from high school. Some students brought up examples in Europe where similar reforms were implemented and abandoned because they failed to generate desired results.

Sam responded by arguing that the French school system in Quebec has been experiencing a drop-out rate of close to 40% under the traditional curriculum. He then posed the question:"How can we go back to this?"

I think that Sam is right about how the traditional curriculum has failed many students, especially minority students and students of Afro-Caribbean descent. A radical break with the past was needed; however, we do need to study the long-term effects of the reform before we can declare whether it has met its objectives. It is also necessary to look once more at the overall objectives of the reform. If we continue to try to measure its success by hoping to see a significant change in the drop-out rate, we will probably declare this educational project to have been a failure.

The reason I make this dire prediction is because I feel that it is extremely naive to believe that changing the curriculm alone can have such a desired effect. Let us not forget that schools are a microcosom of society and that students are affected by social ills such as poverty, racism and a plethora of pyscho-social variables that can affect their desire to learn and how they learn. If we are looking to make changes at the micro-level of schooling, shouldn't we also be striving to bring down levels of poverty and other socio-psychological structures that impede a child's chance for success?Does a child who goes back to a home and finds his father who is unemployed and stretched out in a couch in a druken stouper care about the new math that is being taught?

If we are truly serious about making a fundamental change in the educational success of students, we must start coming up with answers to help those living in the fringes. We must develop a wider and more comprehensive social network to provide financial and social assistance to the children that are at higher risk. If we cannot successfully meet the needs of such students at the most basic levels, how can we expect educational success for all?