Meanwhile, in Canada

[temporal1]

“this guy in my class said his brother lost his wallet in Canada
and someone shipped it back with souvenirs”

[JohnH]

In 2024, 5.1% of people in Canada who died received MAID, a small (0.4%) increase from 2023. This percentage may change with final counts of deaths in Canada from Statistics Canada.

[temporal1]

Montreal may be in my family’s future again.

They were there for work, about 2008-10, i think.
Invited to return. A lot has changed in those years. In Canada, and in my family. A lot to consider.

[temporal1]

ugh.
i wish i could feel relaxed and happy about my family moving to Canada.

When they were there previously, their infant suffered chronic painful ear infections - for 2 years - was constantly on antibiotics (which i thought was a basic no-no). After moving to Dallas, she immediately got tubes in her ears. 2 years of chronic pain and antibiotics!

30 years young:
VivaFrei / Canada’s Healthcare Horror: Woman Sent Home, Dies Waiting Surgery After Breaking Ankle! / 7+min


i haven’t said much. i’ve said nothing’s improved in the years since they lived there.
i’m not sure what more to say.

Virchow’s Triad

[temporal1]

i began listening without much hope for content.
Pleasant surprise.

Their focus is on READING, something i think about quite a lot.
That is, the sadness of so many reports of poor reading skills in so many US schools (i didn’t realize Canada had this problem.)

Very interesting discussion. Comments are interesting, too.

In my view, emphasis is needed wrt PARENTS’ responsibility BEFORE school, too. Before and continuously.
Support and encouragement in the home. Poverty isn’t an excuse. We had so little, but both parents read a lot, and encouraged us. We played lots of family games, many were word games. Tiny budgets! If any at all. Ditto for math. Math games, too. No tech.

And the set of encyclopedias our mother faithfully bought with stamps at the grocers. A&P
We used them!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk_%26_Wagnalls

TheNewsForum
Charlatans in the Classroom: How Bad Ideas Captured Canada's Schools - CounterPoint / 21+min

“On this episode of CounterPoint, host Tanya Granic Allen is joined by Renaud-Philippe Garner, assistant professor at UBC Okanagan and author of the C2C Journal piece “Learning Disabled: How Charlatans and Conformists Have Undermined Canadian Education.”

Garner argues Canada’s schools have been captured by ideas that sound benevolent
but collapse under scrutiny from learning styles that show effects near zero, to the “reading wars,” where the evidence overwhelmingly favours phonics and abandoning it hits disadvantaged students hardest.

He also explains why teachers aren’t the problem, who the real “charlatans” are, and why bad ideas are far harder to undo than to spread.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 – Intro: what happens when education embraces unproven theories
1:24 – Welcoming Renaud-Philippe Garner
2:17 – The single most damaging idea in Canadian schools
3:08 – Learning styles: why the theory took hold
4:38 – The “one size fits all” trope and the polio vaccine analogy
6:04 – Preferences vs. outcomes: the gym analogy
7:09 – Standardized testing shows learning style has no effect
9:22 – Falling reading levels across the provinces
10:04 – The reading wars: phonics vs. whole language
11:22 – The evidence isn’t 60/40 — it’s overwhelming
12:21 – The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s findings
13:10 – Teachers aren’t the ones calling the shots
14:34 – How school board hierarchies get captured
15:10 – What happens when a teacher pushes back
17:12 – Multiple intelligence theory and the Harvard credential
18:07 – How debunked ideas end up in ministry materials
19:04 – Who exactly are the “charlatans”?
20:13 – Why oversight breaks down
21:22 – Final thoughts

GUEST
Renaud-Philippe Garner, PhD: Assistant Professor - University Of British Columbia

CounterPoint
Host: Tanya Granic Allen

[JohnH]

Not necessarily Canada related, but I heard of a situation recently where a teacher had a classroom that was composed entirely of students on IEPs.

The school then got dinged for not "mainstreaming" these students, even though there were no students not an IEP to "mainstream" them in.

In addition, nearly all of them had requirements that they be allowed "extra time" and "a preferential seating location", which is obviously not possible when every student has that requirement.

(The situation started when there were still 1 or 2 non-IEP students in the classroom, and the parents got fed up with their children basically being required to be at a disadvantage to the rest of the class - so they pulled out and went to another school.)

Another absurd IEP I heard about was one where the IEP said the student may use AI tools to do their writing assignments for them. What on earth?

[temporal1]

Not necessarily Canada related, but I heard of a situation recently where a teacher had a classroom that was composed entirely of students on IEPs.

The school then got dinged for not "mainstreaming" these students, even though there were no students not an IEP to "mainstream" them in.

In addition, nearly all of them had requirements that they be allowed "extra time" and "a preferential seating location", which is obviously not possible when every student has that requirement.

(The situation started when there were still 1 or 2 non-IEP students in the classroom, and the parents got fed up with their children basically being required to be at a disadvantage to the rest of the class - so they pulled out and went to another school.)

Another absurd IEP I heard about was one where the IEP said the student may use AI tools to do their writing assignments for them. What on earth?

A horrifying thought! Esp when questionable drugs are so often part of the mix.

IEPs have been discussed on forum, including in this topic:

“Education: 504 and IEP Accomodations”
https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?t=5962