The Learning Curve
Caribbean Camera July 4th
In large states public education will always be mediocre for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. –Friedrich Nietzsche
If you haven’t been to this year’s Fringe Festival to see Lockdown be sure to catch one of the final two performances, Friday or Sunday. You’re doing yourself a disservice by missing this play, especially if you graduated high school more than four or five years ago. The minimalist set and strategic lighting keep the story moving along swiftly, using the whole stage and 13-character ensemble to full advantage. Lockdown juggles so many issues so effortlessly it is best summarized as a theatrical version of that age-old paradox, irresistible force meets immovable object: primal youthful exuberance vs. modern institutional bureaucracy.
It offers slice-of-life laughter, but these moments simply reinforce the sense that the tension is being ratcheted up throughout. Knowing this play offers an honest portrayal of the current high school environment may leave you unsettled, but that’s precisely the point. What may shock you more than the action on stage, however, is the realization that this lamentable state of affairs could be irreparable.
In May the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) announced that “for the first time Canada’s overall score on the Composite Learning Index has declined.” The CLI tracks both formal and informal learning indicators in 4,700 communities across the country, “whether in school, at home, in the workplace or in the community. The indicators are grouped under four pillars—Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Live Together, and Learning to Be.” And only one of them is responsible for the CLI decline.
“This landmark drop in overall CLI is being driven by a decrease in the index’s ‘Learning to Be’ pillar, which includes informal learning,” said CCL president Dr. Paul Cappon. “This includes attendance at museums, art galleries, performing arts or cultural events, and reported household spending on magazines, newspapers and other reading materials.” Federal funding for these informal learning resources has been repeatedly slashed over the years, a trend Stephen Harper heartily endorses since he considers the arts “a niche issue” at best, subversive at worst. The ‘Learning to Do’ pillar prevented a larger overall drop in the CLI thanks to its “marked increase in work-related learning.” In other words, if it ain’t earning it ain’t learning.
But even within a fiscal-centric paradigm, discerning a coherent overall strategy is difficult. In 1999 education spending absorbed 6.6% of Canadian GDP. In 2002 it was 5.2% of GDP despite a cumulative GDP increase of 10% over the same period. And although the number of people 15 years and older attending school, including part-timers, decreased by 1.344 million (7.2%) from 1996 to 2001, StatsCan figures show we spent 6% more in actual dollars in 2001/02 than in 1997/98. As the population grew (1.16 million or 4% from 1996 to 2001) so did the economy and education spending increased accordingly, in terms of real dollars. But the amount spent as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of total government expenditure continued its long-term decline. Whereas education made up more than 15% of governmental spending in 1980, by 2001 it had fallen to 12.5%.
It would be tempting to infer the real dollar increase was instrumental in reducing the national pupil-teacher ratio, which fell from 17.6 children per teacher in 1996/97 to 16.2 in 2001/02, but these numbers are deceptive. Support staff who are not regular classroom instructors, such as special education teachers, librarians, principals and vice-principals, were included in the calculations. The 94,000 additional employees (a 9% increase) in “educational and related services” from 2004 to 2008 will help maintain funding increases and will in all likelihood help reduce pupil-teacher ratios further, but they won’t reduce the number of pupils per classroom.
“My principal aim is to secure the means for directing political and moral opinions,” said Napoleon Bonaparte when as Emperor he created a publicly funded, compulsory school system in post-Revolutionary France, the world’s first. And as Lockdown illustrates, motives have changed little since 1806. With the tantalizing promise of becoming whatever one chooses, children are offered little incentive to choose any one thing in particular. The standard, one-size-fits-all formula is simplicity itself: get a good job after a degree, make a few bucks and spend them on thee.
Sadly, until or unless we start cultivating young minds instead of grooming them to be consumerist zombies, Lockdown’s skilfully crafted dystopia is here to stay.
7 juillet ’09
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