Dear fellow petitioners, We just had a meeting with the education ministry on Monday, July 20th! Our goals for the meeting were 1) to reinstate the standard math practices 2) to stop the Inspiring Education initiative by September 2015. Our team included myself, Dr. John Bowman (UofA mathematician), Mae Chow (lawyer), Lisa Davis (Calgary's CAPSC incoming Vice President), Adrianna (grade 9 student) and her mom. Apparently, minister Eggen was tied up at another event, and so those representing the ministry were Jeremy Nolais (Press Secretary/Advisor), Ellen Hambrook (Assistant Deputy Minister), Mr. Raja Panwar (Special initiative lead), other administrative assistants/AB ed staff - Laura D, Tamara, Paul and Stacey. Mae gave the opening remarks, chronicling our efforts (rally, meetings, legislature, forum) over the past two years, from former Education Minister Jeff Johnson to Minister Gordon Dirks and now Minister Eggen. Mae did an amazing job highlighting our concerns. Dr. Bowman impressed upon them the importance of ensuring basic math skills and the need for standard algorithms (ie. standard methods of calculations such as long division, vertical addition/subtraction). Dr. Bowman also reminded the ministry of the mathematician's Position Statement, signed and submitted by nearly 80 university/college mathematicians in AB. Lisa Davis had driven all the way from Calgary, and as a representative for nearly 30,000 CAPSC members, she spoke passionately of the problems that parents like Shawna Torres in Calgary had encountered in the Inspiring-Ed piloted schools and the lack of response or interest to help from the Calgary Board of Education. Lisa is well aware of the disconnect between the people in the ministry and the reality that parents/teachers and students are facing in the schools. Hence, the most powerful statement of the day came from the very eloquent Adrianna, a grade 9 student, who read an essay (see below) that she had written in January this year, at the request of her mom, when Adrianna begged to leave an Inspiring Ed inquiry-based school. My focus was to direct the discussion according to our list of Key Recommendations (see below). An hour, however, is not a lot of time when there were so many stories to be told. We, however, are really not asking much from the ministry. All they need to do is to acknowledge that the thousands of names on the petitions and the voices of students like Adrianna means that there is something very wrong with the discovery math curriculum and the Inspiring Education initiative, and that they need to take immediate actions to rectify matter. Inspiring Education (inquiry-based, with increased emphasis on project-based learning/group work/over-use of computers/decreased knowledge content) has served to exclude far more students than they have included. It is harming more students than its rhetoric would suggest, and thousands more students will suffer the consequences of this ill-informed experiment if it were to be implemented province-wide. Not to mention all the teachers whose autonomy are taken away. At the end of the day, the failing academic standing of the inquiry-based Inspiring Ed schools, the 20,000 signatures on the petitions, the thousands of students needing tutoring, the thousands of children on waitlists for charter/private schools should tell the government something, and that something is to release our once world class education system from the grips of the educational gurus' inquiry-based ideologies. They need to remember that when we send our kids to school, we parents are not handing our children over to the "state" to do what it will with our children. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that we parents have a choice in how we want our children to be educated. And we want evidence-based, time-proven standards of practice res-established in our public education system. Some may argue that there is choice in Alberta, but the reality is many of us don't have a choice. So what choice we have locally has to meet the gold standard of education. Jeremy Nolais who chaired the meeting from the ministry side seemed genuinely concerned about the reports of what's really happening at ground level. The others seemed to listen intently as well. Though Jeremy had to rush off at the hour mark to head over to another meeting, the other AB Ed staff lingered to listen a bit more and to answer a few more questions. I found this to be a very nice gesture because in none of the previous meetings did anyone make an attempt to linger and listen. The other positive sign is that they asked Dr. Bowman to be a part of the math curriculum review. The next step is a meeting with Minister Eggen in August. Considering that former Minister Johnson effected some requested changes to the discovery math curriculum after one meeting with us last June, I have great hopes that Minister Eggen will do even better -- that he will effect SIGNIFICANT changes to both un-Inspiring Education and the math curriculum by 2015. We need to wrap this issue up once and for all as we cannot afford to lose any more precious time in our children's formative years. Thank you so much for your continued efforts to keep pressure on the ministry and Minister Eggen to make changes by this fall. Kindest regards, Dr. Nhung Tran-Davies https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alberta-Math-Petition/715037091853017?ref=bookmarks http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.2479009 ADRIANNA'S ESSAY: Now this may be hard to believe, but I used to like school, excluding gym class. Being exposed to my present school has not only ruined my grade nine year, I have developed bad habits, despise waking up in the morning, and truly believe I have learned little to nothing useful, despite what my school has led most of us guinea pigs to think. I have come to the immediate conclusion that it isn't me, but the school, that has driven me insane, and left me with the false hope that I was even learning the curriculum. It would be everyone's best interest to let me remove myself from this harmful environment, and start over in a normal school. The first, and perhaps the most important reason I wish to switch mid-year, is the simple fact that, especially in English Language Arts, I can only come up with four things that we have ever done in class. It's been five months. I find myself constantly dozing off, talking to my friends beside me, and just playing on my phone. It may sound bad, but I'm not the only kid doing it, and I'm far from disruptive. Most of the time, I doodle on my paper, watching the clock. Now imagine five months of this. Every. Single. Day. I'm surprised I haven't gone completely mad with boredom, driven way over the edge. In social class, my teacher talks in a one-sided opinion, and can ramble on for hours. They pose many rhetorical questions, ask us to answer them, and spend so much time just talking with us. I'm not saying this is bad, but I just got my first real assignment yesterday in fact, another cloudy question, with only one way to answer. Even if I decided to take the opposition in this assignment, as I usually do, to annoy the teacher mainly, and also to learn the other side of the story, I cannot because there is no information on the web to support it. Exercise in futility? My other core subjects look good from far away, but when you take a closer look, you wonder why they give us tests at all if they just give us the answer. In my math class, the teacher gives us a "formative" test that we do, not for marks, for practice when we take the real test, a "summative". Like a good school child, I print my homework off at home, do it, and bring it to mark and talk about in class the next day. Here's the part that just drives me nuts: our summative test is almost, save a question or two, mirror what formative test we did earlier, except the numbers are different. I now know how to solve it. No wonder I have a high average in math! What about science you say? Well I'll tell you what, it's even worse than math tests, here, the questions aren't even altered a little bit...nope! They are exactly the same as the questions they gave us to study off of for a week. You could even tell which were the questions they copied and pasted, and the ones they created, which, as a total count, were about five questions maximum. Secondly, I would like you to know that the school I am enrolled at currently is a project based learning school. What do I think of this acclaimed great new way to teach students? It is not for me. We miss major parts of the curriculum to finish these large, sometimes school-wide projects, and some projects stretch to cover months. The main excuse that is used to justify halting our learning in many subjects at the same time, because most are cross-curricular, is that this is what you will experience in real life. You mean I get to experience real deadlines, facing real judges, and sacrifice time after school to meet with my group because we cannot finish it at school? I get chastised, literally, verbally reprimanded because someone in your group doesn't get it, or refuses to do work, and you need to get it done? It may seem like I'm having a jolly good time over there, because I'm still getting the marks, but it's killing me inside. I don't believe in project based, and probably never will with this experience under my belt. I work better independently, and that is something we hardly do. Ever. For my last point, I would like to state that staying at my present school, besides harming my mental health, will make it increasingly difficult to transition from the project based junior high setting to a high school setting. Switching schools will give me a taste of what's to come, and maybe I will return to my normal, happy self. My mood has affected my family, and the people around me. Think of school as a job you really hate. You hate going there, you hate most of the people there, you hate the job, basically you hate everything about the place. Many adults have experienced this. What do they do? Simple: they think about quitting, and applying for a job elsewhere, because they quite simply can, I cannot. A feeling comes over me, and I feel like screaming, I feel as if I am in a cage with hundreds of windows, but no door, stuck endlessly, hoping for the day to be done. Also, how am I expected to write any type of high school exam when I've never written an exam that I didn't already know the answers to or already knew what to do, what exactly to expect? In fact, our school doesn't believe in exams! While in every other school kids were running frantically around, studying for midterms and finals, we watched a movie, we went on field trips and just blew through all the hard stuff. What do you think? Really, it's up to you to decide if you want to leave me to suffer, or let go a chance that will never come up again. Learning how to really study for a real test is a life skill, one that I really don't have. There is the risk that my grades will drop, and I will feel lost and behind at a new school, but I say it is better to switch in the middle of the year because everyone knows you are new, wants to get to know you, wants to help you, and the teachers will be slightly more open to you not knowing, being flustered, or late because you got lost. I am a strong student, with a strong opinion and I have been at several different school's now. Truly, I believe, with all my soul, that I can copy down my new friends notes, listen attentively, and adapt quickly. I also understand that if this switch was not the best, at least I'm learning, and at least I'm not at that school. Sincerely, KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR K-12 EDUCATION 1. K-12 Mathematics Curriculum for Fall 2015 • Explicit requirement that students be taught standard algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Standard algorithms are not optional. • Explicit reminders that teachers are NOT mandated to teach and test multiple math strategies for students in K -12. When necessary, alternative strategies can be employed for supportive or enhancement purposes. • Ensure fraction addition/subtraction introduced by grade 4 or 5, and fraction multiplication by grade 6. • Remove the over-emphasis on estimation in favour of regular arithmetic practice for development of efficiency and accuracy. • Reduce time spent on patterns and manipulatives in higher grade levels. • Remove recommendations for use of technology or calculators up to grade 9. • Promptly revise the Authorized Resources list to include other recommended texts such as JUMP math, Singapore Math and Saxon Math. Pearson should NOT monopolize teaching resources or curriculum. • Ensure funding for teacher-training and math-subject specialists. 2. Inspiring Education Initiative (effective immediately) • STOP further funding and implementation of the Inspiring Education initiative as requested by thousands of parents, professionals and experts. • Reduce the dependence of Alberta Education on private tutoring (forcing parents to assume the costs) for ensuring foundational knowledge and skills are learned and mastered; hence, removing the need for a two-tiered educational system. Ministerial Order: • Rewrite the 2013 Ministerial Order on Student Learning to remove former Progressive Conservative Minister Johnson and Sharon Friesen's vision of Inspiring Education, ie. inquiry-based learning. (See 1998 Ministerial Order for what parents want of their children's education, ie broad-base KNOWLEDGE and skills). Libraries: • STOP the schools from replacing our school LIBRARIES with "Learning Commons" as dictated by the 2013 Ministerial Orders. Conflicts of Interest: • Inform the Calgary School Board and other school boards to STOP referencing discovery proponents like Jo Boeler, or TED talk celebrities like Ken Robinson or Alfie Kohn as their guides to establishing policies. • Investigate the conflicts of interest between Inspiring Education and Sharon Friesen, a known proponent of inquiry-based learning, as the steering committee lead of Inspiring Education. Investigate her close ties to David Scott who runs for-profit consulting firm, Galileo Educational Network. The direction of Inspiring Education was predetermined from the outset. • Disclose the salaries of all staff and team-leads involved in the Inspiring Education Initiative, as well as the total cost of all province-wide "information" sessions, workshops and forums for parents, teachers and Trustees. • Remove Pearson multinational digital textbook publisher as a partner in curriculum redesign. Discontinue the partnership between C21 Canada software lobby group from the Ministry of Education. End all business relations between education and corporations. Discovery/Inquiry-based learning: • STOP disparaging our world class school system, eg denigrating it as "traditional" or a factory/industrial-era model, and ALLOW for memorization, practise, tests and the use of formulas whenever necessary. • ENCOURAGE our teachers to TEACH. That is, STOP telling our TEACHERS to "teach less" to become "facilitators" or "guides on the side" for "student-centred"/ "self-directed" learners. • Direct the Alberta School Board Association (eg. Helen Clease) and superintendents (eg. Smeaton) to make public corrections clarifying that our school system is NOT an inquiry-based system and it will NOT be moving towards an inquiry-based model. • Direct all principals, school boards and teachers that inquiry-based, PROJECT-BASED learning should not be the primary focus of instruction. De-emphasize unproven methodologies such as personalized-learning (ie computer-led) or blended learning. • Students should NOT be expected to teach other students. We pay TEACHERS to teach. Curriculum Redesign: • STOP Inspiring Education's attempt to transform our world class education system to one that deemphasizes the importance of "knowing something", ie. acquiring knowledge. • Support a strong content-rich curriculum by NOT slashing content and reducing number of specified outcomes to possibly ten from a hundred. STANDARDS of knowledge and skills should be compulsory. • STOP emphasizing the need to develop cross-curricular competencies or the over-emphasis on soft "21st century competencies/skills" such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. These skills will naturally develop from a focus on broad-base knowledge and strong foundational skills: reading, writing and arithmetic skills. • STOP experimenting on our children (without parental consent) and trying to transform them into "ethical, engaged and entrepreneurial learners of the 21st century." Do not impose psychological practices such as the Zones of Regulation or Fixed/Growth mindset on the whole classroom. Learning with Technology: • Reinstate funding for PRINT-BASED textbooks/resources to minimize screen time. Ensure that the PEN and PAPER is central to learning. Every child is entitled to a textbook which he/she can study from at home. • Instruct the schools to LIMIT unnecessary purchase and overuse of technology in the classroom. Do NOT expect our teachers to have to blog. Discourage the "bring your own device" fad. • PROTECT our children from the overuse, and hence, addiction and dependency on technology in Inspiring Education's quest to "engage" our children. Technology should remain as one of many tools for learning, not the primary mode of learning. Assessment: • Maintain STANDARDIZED TESTING at grade 3, 6, 9 and 12 levels as well as a quantitative GRADING system on report cards. Remove the requirement for students to participate in graded GROUP WORK. Student transcripts should not be impacted by the academic work of other students.