All summer I have been chiming in on the ETFO portal (Elementary Teachers Foundation of Ontario). It is an online forum about the challenges and triumphs of elementary public school education in Ontario.
There have been many interesting questions, comments and debates about the challenges in today’s classrooms.
For me: the most important issues in public elementary education are:
- class size: bigger classes mean more management and less learning time
- bullies: every child should be safe at school
- proper support for kids with special needs: read more Educational Assistants
- And turf the EQAO testing: it tests how teachers teach not how students learn
As many of you know, my kids attend the French public system – where full-day kindergarten has been a staple for years. And I’m a big supporter of full-day kindergarten…my big kids thrived in all-day learning (and yes, there is down time…4 year olds deserve down time).
Yes, kids do matter in school. So do good teachers. The only thing that doesn’t matter in school is red tape.
I was compensated for participating in the ETFO programme but the opinions in this post are authentically my own
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