You know, I might like Minister David Eggen after all! Today, I, along with Cynthia Cheung (Accountant), Dr. Ken Porteous (Professor Emeritus of Engineering), Marion Leithead (Retired teacher/Doctoral in Education) and Bill Leithead (Retired mechanical engineer) went to the Legislature to officially table the 3000 signatured paper petition against Inspiring Education, with the help of the very nice Wildrose Shadow Education Minister Mark Smith (Retiring Social Studies teacher). During Question Period, Mark was able to pose a few questions to them regarding Inspiring Ed, and his last question, which took me by surprise, was whether Minister Eggen would be willing to meet with me TODAY since I was at the Leg. Minister Eggen gave a non-answer, of course, and so the thought crossed my mind that we were again dealing with the same nonsense. HOWEVER, towards the end of the session, Minister Eggen's Chief of Staff pulled me out of the Gallery to inform me that Minister Eggen was willing to meet with me TODAY, at the end of the session. I did not anticipate that this would happen so soon. I was ecstatic. When I followed the chief of staff down to the meeting room, we fortunately ran into Mark Smith, who offered to join me in the meeting. I am glad Mark did because I had no idea that I would be walking into a room with six other head administrators from Alberta Education, including the Deputy Minister Lorna Rosen and his Press Secretary. Minister Eggen said since taking office, he has heard many concerns regarding Inspiring Ed (thanks to all of you!). Because the meeting was completely unexpected, I had no notes or supporting documents on me. I did my best to say as much as I can within my allotted 20mins including reminding them that we had submitted a position statement (to former minister Dirks) from nearly 80 university/college mathematicians recommending the standard algorithms be compulsory in the math curriculum. Fortunately, Mark was in the room to validate my concerns because he has felt the the impact of Inspiring Ed's inquiry-based philosophy on his teaching practices. From the couple of comments that the ministry team made in response, my impression is that there is a great disconnect between what they think they are doing and what is really happening in our schools because of the broadcasted emphasis on inquiry-based learning from Inspiring Ed. And thus, they have yet to fully appreciate the harm that they are causing. I think Minister Eggen is trying to understand our concerns. I also think he was hoping that the quick meeting today would allow him to say that he has met with me and be done with us, but I was able to cajole him into granting me a real meeting in July to hopefully effect some change by the new school year. Maybe there is hope that Minister Eggen will understand and act in the best interest of our children. I am also hopeful knowing that that Liberal leader David Swann is also in support of us and that the PC's interim leader today also reached out today at the Leg to meet with me. Just need to hear back from the Alberta Party's Greg Clark.