Vercingetorix
Education in B.C.
Posted on: 04/23/2009 18:10
Traditional education is moribund, and our province will soon be overflowing with schools not of literacy, but of ecology—if the word can be correctly applied to what is really arrant dogmatism. As scientific discoveries are continually distorted, misapplied, and aggrandized, and fear of Climate Change grows, not only teachers, but also the B.C. government espouses “Social Responsibility” to an ever greater degree. On paper, it sounds great. Children and teenagers reach out and try to connect with both one another and the community; learn to abhor the evils of modern culture; and discover how to save the environment from swindling, cutthroat capitalists. It is an avenging recrudescence of communism, one might say.
Unfortunately, whereas Russian and Cuban communists, for instance, value excellence in education, environmentally-minded teachers do not. They regularly interrupt lectures to give homilies on the importance of destroying modern society to conserve nature, arrogantly assuming that their views are the solution which has eluded scientists and economists. Even when a teacher respects professional boundaries and focuses on her job, she is powerless to stop the school administration from convening grade-wide assemblies to promote environmentalism and community mindedness. Students are naturally powerless and try desperately to stay afloat in this sea of dogma; many drowned.
This is clearly unacceptable. First, using schools as a way of spreading ideology, whatever its nature, violates every student’s right to choose what he believes in. It would be well if the B.C. Liberals recall and, one hopes, revivify the division of church and state. In fact, the word church has become too narrow; it would be far more fitting to use, say, dogma, which subsumes not only religion, but all the other isms. Second, the time wasted on community or environmental connection impedes real learning. It is telling, not to say troubling, that B.C. students are easily outscored by their American and European peers on critical thinking tests such as the SAT and GRE.
Since Gordo, as well as his minions, supports environmentalism in the school system, it stands to reason that he would also like to do away with the disabled and the old. After all, the defining tenet of environmentalism, the Intrinsic Imperative, is that humanity must abnegate itself for the greater good, i.e. the environment; it thus justifies his culling of week and infirm, who require more resources than they are worth. But would the NDP do any better, if elected? Herein lies the key question.
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