EDUCATION BACK TO THE FUTURE

Last Thursday's Elmira Independent has a Letter to the Editor which I have been unsucessful in getting a link to. The title of the letter is "School goes back to the future" and is a mother's opinion of where our public education has gone over the last several decades versus what she sees as "classical education". Classical education was the system used up until perhaps a century ago when so called professionals started to take charge of it. In her opinion the current public school education as she sees through her kids performance (or lack thereof) is not doing a good job.

She recently attended an information session at Fellowship Christian School which I believe is in Winterbourne. My kids went to the former Winterbourne Public School (now closed) and it is a gross understatement to say that my wife and I were appalled at some aspects of our childrens' so called education. Despite one pathetic year both my children have since excelled in academics with my son having graduated from Conestogo College as well as having received an Honours Bachelor of Science from a local university. My daughter recently received her Phd. in Biology from the University of Western Ontario. She received enrichment classes in public school and while she too experienced minor difficulties due to the iron clad tenure of a single teacher; I will admit that her educational needs basically were met through the public education system.

If this parent (Jackie Satnik) chooses to send her children to Fellowship Christian School I expect that they will receive an education based upon commonsense and proven curriculum. Just the expressions edubabble and flavour of the month theories tend to express what some have seen as attempts by school boards and other so called professionals to overly complicate the teaching of our children.