(Vancouver Sun; published May 20th) I agree with many of the criticisms of FSA testing made by BCTF president Irene Lanzinger. I am an experienced (Independent school) administrator of the tests and I concur that the style and substance of these tests is highly flawed. Accordingly, drawing conclusions about a child’s intelligence let alone a […]

It’s exactly one week to go to the start of this year’s Foundational Skills Assessment (FSA) testing in British Columbia, in which upwards of seventy thousand Grade 4 and 7-level students will spend a total of 4.5 hours completing standardized tests in the areas of Reading Comprehension, Writing and Numeracy over the course of two […]

This week the world has been jarred by the news that chimpanzees are able to outperform college students on some pattern recognition/memory tasks, according to renowned primate researcher, Tetsuro Matsuzawa. While this news inevitably leads to all kinds of giggles about college students and fears of a run on bananas at exam time, it strikes […]

Informal Learning, Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance by Jay Cross, Pfeiffer, 2007 Honouring the Child: Changing Ways of Teaching by Pamela Proctor Informal Learning, Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance “It is no longer useful to define learning as what someone is able to do all on his […]

(this essay published on self design in September 2007) This month, close to half a million kids returned to BC schools, ushered along with news from the Ministry of Education that all students are to participate in a ‘rap-attack’ plan against their bulging waistlines. Described by Minister of Education Shirley Bond as bold and aggressive, […]

(this essay originally published on www.selfdesign.org in July 2007) I remember the night a friend first told me about Open Source computing. It was a gorgeous summer night in 1999, and I listened, rapt, as he extolled its virtues and asserted it would be the Next Big Thing emerging in computers. Programmers everywhere, he said, […]

(this essay previously posted June 27, 2007; on www.selfdesign.org) Adding fuel to my previous posting on the need to foster innovation as an embedded aspect of a Canadian learning society – especially among children and youth – comes a blazing report from the Conference Board of Canada, assessing Canada a grade of ‘D’ in … […]

this essay originally posted in www.selfdesign.org in May 2007) “What kind of trouble is our civilization likely to encounter ahead? How can we cope, and how might we take advantage of opportunities that arise for civilization’s renewal?” – ‘The Upside of Down’, Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon (2006) “It is by logic that we prove, but by […]

(this essay originally published on www.selfdesign.org in May 2007) Well, it’s day one of the 2007 FSA testing period. I happen to be administering these tests on behalf of grade 4 and grade 7-level learners in SelfDesign (an un-graded program), for the second year in a row. For the second consecutive year I’m also following […]

(this essay originally published on www.selfdesign.org in May, 2007) “April 23 – Murray Coell, Minister of Advanced Education and Minister responsible for Research and Technology was joined by special advisor Geoff Plant, to release the Campus 2020: Thinking Ahead report,. The report makes 52 recommendations to government on how to build on the strengths of […]