This week, I had the opportunity to volunteer for a science field trip at my daughter’s school. The prospect of spending the day with a group of 13 and 14 year olds filled me with some trepidation as this is a difficult age. And while there was much juvenile behaviour and lack of focus on …
Category Archive: Education
May 15
On Jobs and EI
I fully support the statements by Finance Minister Flaherty regarding the idea that there is no bad job, and that people on EI should have reduced opportunity to refuse to take jobs that are “unsuitable”. It is ridiculous for Thomas Mulcair and Peggy Nash of the NDP to argue that “skilled workers” who have education …
May 10
A response to eco-hypocrites
Robert over at smalldeadanimals sent an excellent letter to Charles Adler this week. I recommend it to all. I too work in one of the industries the eco-nuts hate – I have spent my nearly 20 year career designing facilities that either extract petroleum from the earth, refine it into the fuels we use, or …
May 06
On the Quebec Tuition Deal
Premier Jean Charest and his government have made a terrible mistake. They have essentially given in to the students by signing a deal that they can raise tuition but must cut other fees. First, how does this fix the fiscal imbalance of the Universities? The total income will not rise as much as planned, leaving …
Apr 29
More on Students Whining
Further to my previous post, one key thing I’d like to know about the protests in Quebec: What subjects are the protesting students majoring in? I’d be willing to bet that most of them are not studying a STEM field. I would like someone to go poll these students and ask two questions: Name …
Apr 28
On the Quebec Student Whining
The ongoing protests of university students in Quebec over the gall of M. Charest to raise their tuition by $1625 over five seven years, and the growth of that movement to argue over other “social” issues makes me shake my head. Students in Quebec have had it too easy for too long. Truth be told, …
Oct 24
R.I.P. John McCarthy
Yesterday, John McCarthy, one of the fathers of modern computer programming passed away. John McCarthy may not have received as much notoriety among tech people as Steve Jobs did, but he was perhaps more influential. McCarthy developed LISP in 1959, based on Alonzo Church’s lambda calculus, for use in artificial intelligence research. My contact with …
Oct 22
On Canadian History in the Schools
My eldest daughter is in the eighth grade, and she is a fairly typical 13 year old. She likes and excels at math, likes to read and enjoys most of her classes. At her school, they long ago merged what were once Grammar, Literature, History and Geography into one giant mess called “Humanities”. While I …
Sep 29
On Math in the Schools
The teaching of mathematics in our public schools is in a terrible state and Margaret Wente has done a point of explaining one of the key reasons why: An alarming number of elementary-school teachers are so uncomfortable with math, they can’t teach it properly. This means that more and more students are arriving at university …
Jun 15
The failure to explain Capitalism
I have noticed in recent years that some new graduates of university do not understand capitalism. A recent posting by John Westover, entitled The Forgotten Member of the Triple Bottom Line, brought these thoughts forward in my mind. John explains that our educational system has indoctrinated (my word, not his) our young people about the …