Friday, March 23, 2007
WHAT IS BEHIND THIS POST ON HAPPINESS AND COMMUNITY EDUCATION?
By 1990 in Alberta, support from the Alberta Community School Programme by the Department of Education was eroding. Senior leadership in the Department civil service was starting to take on the colouration of their political masters, despite the long established principle that the civil service in governments which had their roots in the British tradition be politically neutral. Community schools espoused the value of both individuals and community. The government at the time in Alberta was placing far greater value on corporate and individualistic interests than those of the broad community.
This article was written to reinforce the interdepartmental nature of the community school programme, which had suffered its first cutbacks in 1986 by a unilateral decision of the Department of Education.
At a 1986 meeting of the Government Priorities Committee it was proposed by the then Minister of Education, Nancy Betkowski, that the entire Alberta Community School Programme be eliminated. The Treasurer, Dick Johnson, turned to the Premier, Don Getty, and said, “Mr. Premier, this is going to affect Steinhauer Community School.” The Premier replied, “The programme will be saved, but with fifty percent funding.” Unbeknown to Mrs. Betkowski and the seniors officials of Alberta Education was that the wives of the Treasurer and the Premier were volunteers at Steinhauer Community School! Also, Mr. Getty used to hold his constituency meetings at Steinhauer .
The ensuing public reaction to the fifty percent cuts to the community school programme across the Province was the largest the Department had ever received since its inception in the late 1800s. The Department got over five thousand letters and calls over the community school cutback action. The result was that the funding was restored, but no new Designated Community Schools were to be added to the Programme.
The decision to freeze growth of the Alberta Community School Programme was also critical to its demise. Designated Community Schools were receiving a great deal of positive publicity throughout the Province. Some principal teachers in nearby schools were feeling pressures to undertake the demanding, participatory process to get designation as a community school. Some complained that they were doing just as much as community schools without the added resources available to Designated Community Schools. However, it was possible to point out to them that they too could take advantage of the provisions of the Programme. That opportunity was a reality test for those principals who were not sincere in their desire to achieve Designation status. Once the opportunity was denied for schools to become Designated Community Schools, critics were free to criticize without consequences.
In the early nineties also, so-called “Management,” middle level public servants, who did all the policy development work and who often implemented programmes that resulted from that work, were totally ignored when highly important decisions were made about the future of those programmes. (“Managers manage, leaders lead!)
Truly democratic organizations greatly value all of their members and see them as a vital contributors. If it were actually needed to do some belt tightening within government, it would have been far wiser to use a participatory process involving leadership staff, support staff and the community in the process. It can takes years for many programmes within government to be established in democratic countries, even those with a real social conscience. They are developed and implemented in an organic way like plants appear in an ecosystem. Provided governments take democracy seriously and use participatory planning effectively, the same process can be used should downsizing actually be called for. Such good process was not used in Alberta in the nineties!
This article appears in this space because it includes a Government Bill to re-establish Designated Community Schools and community education at a time when such are needed more that ever. If, “History is in a race between education and catastrophe,” it is becoming more and more evident that catastrophe is winning.
By 1990 in Alberta, support from the Alberta Community School Programme by the Department of Education was eroding. Senior leadership in the Department civil service was starting to take on the colouration of their political masters, despite the long established principle that the civil service in governments which had their roots in the British tradition be politically neutral. Community schools espoused the value of both individuals and community. The government at the time in Alberta was placing far greater value on corporate and individualistic interests than those of the broad community.
This article was written to reinforce the interdepartmental nature of the community school programme, which had suffered its first cutbacks in 1986 by a unilateral decision of the Department of Education.
At a 1986 meeting of the Government Priorities Committee it was proposed by the then Minister of Education, Nancy Betkowski, that the entire Alberta Community School Programme be eliminated. The Treasurer, Dick Johnson, turned to the Premier, Don Getty, and said, “Mr. Premier, this is going to affect Steinhauer Community School.” The Premier replied, “The programme will be saved, but with fifty percent funding.” Unbeknown to Mrs. Betkowski and the seniors officials of Alberta Education was that the wives of the Treasurer and the Premier were volunteers at Steinhauer Community School! Also, Mr. Getty used to hold his constituency meetings at Steinhauer .
The ensuing public reaction to the fifty percent cuts to the community school programme across the Province was the largest the Department had ever received since its inception in the late 1800s. The Department got over five thousand letters and calls over the community school cutback action. The result was that the funding was restored, but no new Designated Community Schools were to be added to the Programme.
The decision to freeze growth of the Alberta Community School Programme was also critical to its demise. Designated Community Schools were receiving a great deal of positive publicity throughout the Province. Some principal teachers in nearby schools were feeling pressures to undertake the demanding, participatory process to get designation as a community school. Some complained that they were doing just as much as community schools without the added resources available to Designated Community Schools. However, it was possible to point out to them that they too could take advantage of the provisions of the Programme. That opportunity was a reality test for those principals who were not sincere in their desire to achieve Designation status. Once the opportunity was denied for schools to become Designated Community Schools, critics were free to criticize without consequences.
In the early nineties also, so-called “Management,” middle level public servants, who did all the policy development work and who often implemented programmes that resulted from that work, were totally ignored when highly important decisions were made about the future of those programmes. (“Managers manage, leaders lead!)
Truly democratic organizations greatly value all of their members and see them as a vital contributors. If it were actually needed to do some belt tightening within government, it would have been far wiser to use a participatory process involving leadership staff, support staff and the community in the process. It can takes years for many programmes within government to be established in democratic countries, even those with a real social conscience. They are developed and implemented in an organic way like plants appear in an ecosystem. Provided governments take democracy seriously and use participatory planning effectively, the same process can be used should downsizing actually be called for. Such good process was not used in Alberta in the nineties!
This article appears in this space because it includes a Government Bill to re-establish Designated Community Schools and community education at a time when such are needed more that ever. If, “History is in a race between education and catastrophe,” it is becoming more and more evident that catastrophe is winning.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
THE STORY OF THE POSTING BELOW, TITLED, “LIFE CENTRED SCHOOLS… OR WHAT OUR SCHOOLS WOULD BE LIKE IF WE REALLY BELIEVED IN LIFELONG EDUCATION”
Some of these remarks appear elsewhere on this blog, but they are most apropos to this article, written in 1992.
In 1970, Alberta was spending more per capita on its schools than any province in Canada. Yet, we had the lowest rate of community based learning in Canada. This statistic on learning rates describes the average number of adults a year in a given area who engage in any kind of planned learning experience as a part of their ongoing lifestyles. It excludes learning involvement by adults in fulltime programmes. The Alberta rate at that time was ten percent, tied with Newfoundland as the lowest in Canada. This means that, on average, one adult in ten was engaged in a planned, community based, learning experience, whatever the nature of that experience, in Alberta in 1970.
At the time, having already made thirty four trips around the sun, (well, at thirty four years of age), and having worked as an army officer, teacher and superintendent of schools, I was asked to take on the job of Alberta’s first coordinator for continuing education. As I look back at my working experience, which concluded in 1993 with provincial cutbacks to many social programmes, I am most appreciative of the work opportunities I had. My job in 1970 was to up that learning rate by adults in Alberta. Statistics were hard to come by in the discipline, however, it was determined that Sweden had the highest rate in the world of community based learning by adults in that year (1970). Their rate was twenty-five percent. That became the Alberta target.
Over the twenty three years following 1970, two educational programmes were developed and implemented to try to get Alberta up to the twenty-five percent rate of community based learning by adults. These were the Alberta Further Education Policy, implemented in 1975, and the Alberta Community School Programme, which came into effect in 1980.
In 1984, Statistics Canada did the first comprehensive, statistical study of adult education across Canada. The learning participation rate for Canada was nineteen percent. Alberta had a rate of twenty-five percent, the highest in the country. The Canadian Association for Adult Education declared Alberta as “Canada’s Learning Province.”
In 1992, the Paris based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), made up of the twenty-eight richest countries in the world, did a statistical study to determine the best “Learning Cities” on the planet. They identified seven such cities. The list included Gothenburg, Vienna, Bologna, Pittsburgh, Kakagawa, Adelaide and Edmonton.
In the early summer of 1992, the OECD sent a researcher, a thirty something British man named John Hirsch, as I recall, to visit each of these cities to find out why they had achieved the statistical status in community based adult learning to get the designations as Learning Cities.
When he came to Edmonton, I was asked to arranged that he be taken to talk to people involved in Designated Community Schools (hosted at Norwood Community School in the inner city.) Mr. Hirsch also met with people involved with the Edmonton Association for Continuing Education an Recreation (EACER), Edmonton’s Local Further Education Council.
That fall, I received a request from Mr. Hirsch to write a paper for the OECD on our Alberta Community School Programme. The paper was to focus on the idea of the nature of schools should lifelong learning really be taken seriously. Mr. Hirsch asked that I not use the term “community school” in the title of the paper because it had so many differing definitions world wide. Thus came the title, “Life Centred Schools… Or What Our Schools Would Be Like If We Really Believed in Lifelong Learning.” The paper was to be used in an OECD conference on learning cities to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the summer of 1993.
In late January of 1993, I travelled to Paris to deliver the “Life Centred Schools…” paper. As I was already going to Europe, I had also been invited to visit Sweden where interest was growing about the Alberta Community School Programme. They were interested in the fact that Designated Community Schools had increased the adult education learning rate by ten fold in the attendance areas of the community schools despite the existence of a Local Further Education Council in the region. It was there I learned the Swedish community based learning rate had reached fifty percent, while we had reached twenty-five. This did not surprise me because there had been many hurdles put in the way of the development of both the Alberta Further Education Policy and the Alberta Community School Programme.
On my return to Edmonton in early February of 1993, I was met at the airport by my wife, Marjorie. Sadly, she informed me that Alberta Community School Programme had been eliminated by the Province of Alberta as a cost cutting measure. It was an irony considering the international recognition the Programme had received. The opportunity to take early retirement was offered to public servants affected by cut backs and I availed myself of it, effective 1 April, 1993.
The cost cutting measures also greatly diminished the effectiveness of the Further Education Councils. Alberta is now below the national average in community based learning by adults.
The Gothenburg conference on Learning Cities took place a few months later.
A colleague, John Fisher, who was in the position I had occupied when I began my adult education work in the 1970’s, told me about the closing ceremonies at the Gothenburg conference. He asked Mr. Hirsch a question, “What was the most exciting thing you found in your visits to the seven learning cities.” His response was, “That is easy, it was Edmonton, Alberta, and my visit to Norwood Community School where I was introduced to the Alberta Community School Programme. I also learned Alberta’s system of Local Further Education Councils.”
The posting below has some idiosyncrasies. As an advocate of lifelong learning, these give me an opportunity to learn how to avoid such glitches in future! The article starts with five or six pages which are the conclusion of and an appendix to the main article. So, drop down to the seventh posting and click on it to enlarge. Also, you will need to go to the bottom of the visible postings to click on “2007”in the Blog Archive to reveal the full article.
Some of these remarks appear elsewhere on this blog, but they are most apropos to this article, written in 1992.
In 1970, Alberta was spending more per capita on its schools than any province in Canada. Yet, we had the lowest rate of community based learning in Canada. This statistic on learning rates describes the average number of adults a year in a given area who engage in any kind of planned learning experience as a part of their ongoing lifestyles. It excludes learning involvement by adults in fulltime programmes. The Alberta rate at that time was ten percent, tied with Newfoundland as the lowest in Canada. This means that, on average, one adult in ten was engaged in a planned, community based, learning experience, whatever the nature of that experience, in Alberta in 1970.
At the time, having already made thirty four trips around the sun, (well, at thirty four years of age), and having worked as an army officer, teacher and superintendent of schools, I was asked to take on the job of Alberta’s first coordinator for continuing education. As I look back at my working experience, which concluded in 1993 with provincial cutbacks to many social programmes, I am most appreciative of the work opportunities I had. My job in 1970 was to up that learning rate by adults in Alberta. Statistics were hard to come by in the discipline, however, it was determined that Sweden had the highest rate in the world of community based learning by adults in that year (1970). Their rate was twenty-five percent. That became the Alberta target.
Over the twenty three years following 1970, two educational programmes were developed and implemented to try to get Alberta up to the twenty-five percent rate of community based learning by adults. These were the Alberta Further Education Policy, implemented in 1975, and the Alberta Community School Programme, which came into effect in 1980.
In 1984, Statistics Canada did the first comprehensive, statistical study of adult education across Canada. The learning participation rate for Canada was nineteen percent. Alberta had a rate of twenty-five percent, the highest in the country. The Canadian Association for Adult Education declared Alberta as “Canada’s Learning Province.”
In 1992, the Paris based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), made up of the twenty-eight richest countries in the world, did a statistical study to determine the best “Learning Cities” on the planet. They identified seven such cities. The list included Gothenburg, Vienna, Bologna, Pittsburgh, Kakagawa, Adelaide and Edmonton.
In the early summer of 1992, the OECD sent a researcher, a thirty something British man named John Hirsch, as I recall, to visit each of these cities to find out why they had achieved the statistical status in community based adult learning to get the designations as Learning Cities.
When he came to Edmonton, I was asked to arranged that he be taken to talk to people involved in Designated Community Schools (hosted at Norwood Community School in the inner city.) Mr. Hirsch also met with people involved with the Edmonton Association for Continuing Education an Recreation (EACER), Edmonton’s Local Further Education Council.
That fall, I received a request from Mr. Hirsch to write a paper for the OECD on our Alberta Community School Programme. The paper was to focus on the idea of the nature of schools should lifelong learning really be taken seriously. Mr. Hirsch asked that I not use the term “community school” in the title of the paper because it had so many differing definitions world wide. Thus came the title, “Life Centred Schools… Or What Our Schools Would Be Like If We Really Believed in Lifelong Learning.” The paper was to be used in an OECD conference on learning cities to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the summer of 1993.
In late January of 1993, I travelled to Paris to deliver the “Life Centred Schools…” paper. As I was already going to Europe, I had also been invited to visit Sweden where interest was growing about the Alberta Community School Programme. They were interested in the fact that Designated Community Schools had increased the adult education learning rate by ten fold in the attendance areas of the community schools despite the existence of a Local Further Education Council in the region. It was there I learned the Swedish community based learning rate had reached fifty percent, while we had reached twenty-five. This did not surprise me because there had been many hurdles put in the way of the development of both the Alberta Further Education Policy and the Alberta Community School Programme.
On my return to Edmonton in early February of 1993, I was met at the airport by my wife, Marjorie. Sadly, she informed me that Alberta Community School Programme had been eliminated by the Province of Alberta as a cost cutting measure. It was an irony considering the international recognition the Programme had received. The opportunity to take early retirement was offered to public servants affected by cut backs and I availed myself of it, effective 1 April, 1993.
The cost cutting measures also greatly diminished the effectiveness of the Further Education Councils. Alberta is now below the national average in community based learning by adults.
The Gothenburg conference on Learning Cities took place a few months later.
A colleague, John Fisher, who was in the position I had occupied when I began my adult education work in the 1970’s, told me about the closing ceremonies at the Gothenburg conference. He asked Mr. Hirsch a question, “What was the most exciting thing you found in your visits to the seven learning cities.” His response was, “That is easy, it was Edmonton, Alberta, and my visit to Norwood Community School where I was introduced to the Alberta Community School Programme. I also learned Alberta’s system of Local Further Education Councils.”
The posting below has some idiosyncrasies. As an advocate of lifelong learning, these give me an opportunity to learn how to avoid such glitches in future! The article starts with five or six pages which are the conclusion of and an appendix to the main article. So, drop down to the seventh posting and click on it to enlarge. Also, you will need to go to the bottom of the visible postings to click on “2007”in the Blog Archive to reveal the full article.
Friday, March 9, 2007
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