Bottom-up, child centred approach to education needed

Dear editor,

When the ‘state’ forces children to attend school, there is an assumed ‘duty of care’ on the part of the provincial government.

What should we conclude about a government which, for 15 years, refused to provide the services to our children, which were, or should have been, guaranteed by the terms of a collective agreement freely entered into by the teachers and the government? Why should it have been necessary for the Supreme Court of Canada, in a 20-minute decision, to enforce the Charter and force the provincial government to accept its legal and ethical responsibilities to our children?

All of which raises the question - whose children are they? And who can we trust to safeguard their learning opportunities? Simply put, parents and their teachers must be the primary decision makers, with the community also accepting that it does indeed ‘take a village to raise a child’.

The Comox Valley is an aging community and we are going to have to pull together to create the conditions for parents and children to thrive in and feel secure for the long term.

All others – administrators, trustees and ministry officials – should be in support roles, ensuring that the resources are in place for children,parents and teachers. In addition, a rural school system like ours has to depend upon a collaborative relationship with other agencies and local government.

Regardless of who forms government next week, it should be evident by now that we need either a Royal Commission or at least an All Party Public Education Committee to examine the policy and structural obstacles to community ownership of our children’s education. We need a bottom-up, child centred approach not the continuation of a top down ‘command system’ better suited to the military. The challenge for all of us is to participate in fashioning a common narrative and consensus to guide planning our children’s learning. Simply relying on social media as the basis for communicating and discussing fundamental issues is not working.

By actively engaging in a renewal process for public education we will, working together, hopefully, take back our schools.

Jack Stevens

Comox Valley