Your 2 Cents – April 2016

Free tuition for college or university promised to students from low-income families

From the Toronto Star, February 25 2016

The new Ontario Student Grant will begin in the 2017-18 school year and means money will be available upfront for needy families earning less than $50,000.

The government says cancelling the tuition tax credit and education tax credit will save $145 million in 2017 and that will fully fund the new grant plan that year, but it is unclear what will offset the costs in the future if participation rates soar.

Your thoughts? Send to: livelaughlearn@algonquincollege.com

Readers’ Comments

‘”Free tuition” is very misleading’

Here’s a nice quote, no idea who the author is:

“If you’re not willing to learn, no one can help you.

If you’re determined to learn, no one can stop you.”

“Free tuition” is very misleading – there’s no such thing as “free” when we talk services, especially educational ones these days. Guess why? Try tell a prof or an admin person at a college or univ. they need to give up (part of?) their salary and benefits to help some poor students. Yeah, you got it: they will look at you as if you’re crazy. So why would other taxpayers do this indiscriminately?

The government discourse goes: give us your money and we’ll distribute it as we see fit. No, thank you very much. That’s voting campaign garbage. I’d like to see some strong criteria on which young people get admitted into higher education institution – being poor is not one of them, in my opinion. How about first showing how smart and committed you are? And then, sure, we’ll find some money for you (people on this continent are pretty good at fundraising). And how about introducing anonymous admission exams so people are tested for their knowledge and offered a place in the school based on how they perform on a task on a given time, not on high-school marks (marks that they continue to DEMAND from their teachers – in itself, an appalling concept! – despite not doing the work)?

You’ll say “there are people who do not perform well under stress” – well, too bad, life is not easy, you gotta learn that at some point. And there’s another good one: “we shouldn’t encourage competition, but cooperation” – fine with me, and how do we choose someone at an interview? Etc. etc.

One more thing: when things come “free” in life, people rarely appreciate them. Look at most of the students whose tuition is paid by their parents, they’re hardly interested to do their compulsory homework well, never mind doing extra. I know what I’m talking about, I’m a teacher.

• Ioana Teodorescu

Of Students and Technology

By Ian Clarke

Writing in the January 30 2015 issue of the New York Times, developmental psychologist and columnist Susan Pinker asks “Can Students Have Too Much Tech?”

She notes that “more technology in the classroom has long been a policy-making panacea. But mounting evidence shows that showering students, especially those from struggling families, with networked devices will not shrink the class divide in education. If anything, it will widen it.”

Bad news

A Duke University study from the early 2000’s tracked the academic progress of almost one million disadvantaged middle-school students against the dates they were given networked computers.

The researchers assessed the students’ math and reading skills annually for five years, and logged how they spent their time. Pinker comments, “The news was not good.”

The study indicated that “Students who gain access to a home computer between the 5th and 8th grades tend to witness a persistent decline in reading and math scores.” Moreover, surfing the Internet was also linked to lower grades in younger children. Not surprisingly, weaker students were more adversely affected than the rest.

Pinker asks the key question: “If children who spend more time with electronic devices are also more likely to be out of sync with their peers’ behavior and learning by the fourth grade, why would adding more viewing and clicking to their school days be considered a good idea?”

Randy Yerrick, a professor of education at the University at Buffalo, believes that it comes down to linking technology to specific tasks; for example, teaching students with learning disabilities.

The technology movement?

The philosopher Bertrand Russell believed that all movements go too far, and it’s not hard to see technology in the classroom as a kind of movement. Perhaps the next few years will witness a more hybrid, balanced approach. Pinker concludes that “the public money spent on wiring up classrooms should be matched by training and mentorship programs for teachers, so that a free and open Internet, reached through constantly evolving, beautifully packaged and compelling electronic tools, helps — not hampers — the progress of children who need help the most.”

Let’s leave the last words to cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”