Thanks to the "smarty-pants" approach, Canadian students suffer

"Our high schools are graduating kids who have failed to grasp the fundamentals and our universities are full of students who are struggling to master material they should have learned in high school."

Taken from yesterday's column in The Globe and Mail by Margaret Wente, it contains some pretty dreadful data.  I would have said it was material they should have learned in elementary school, but never mind.  The point is, at every level today's Canadian Student is doing very poorly.

Wente states the obvious, that it isn't the students who are the problem, it's the system.  "They have discarded 'rote' learning in favour of 'discovery' a process by which students are supposed to come up with their own solutions to the mysteries of arithmetic."  Whaaaaaaaaat!!!!  How can you "discover and come up with" the fact that six times seven is 42?  Multiplication tables have to be memorized.  Period, the end.  Apparently the fact this approach has, and is being, abandoned by countries all over the world hasn't deterred legions of dumb Canadian educators from determinedly pressing on.

"The curriculum has downgraded arithmetic to near-invisibility," Wente writes.  "The 'progressive (as in 'non')' approach guarantees that many students will not master basic skills, will not understand fractions and will not learn to multiply or divide two-digit numbers on the own.  After all, that's what calculators are for!"

So depressing.  On the bright side, Manitoba -- where parents and university math professors have been up-in-arms -- they've hit on a brilliant plan:  they're bringing back arithmetic! 

But it's not just math that's a problem.  As I have blogged repeatedly, English grammar skills today are practically non-existent.  Many years ago, browsing a second-hand book shop on Bank St. in Ottawa, I discovered a true gem.  'Grammar is Important' was the title of the book, sub-titled "A Basic Course".  Nothing "basic" about it.  Published in 1949 as a handbook for elementary school teachers, 'Grammar is Important' contains everything you will ever need to know for the rest of your writing life.  And all in 182 pages of lessons and exercises.  Fearful that my kids weren't getting grammar in school, I used to have them complete the exercises in this wonderful book.  They didn't like it at the time, but I think they now appreciate what they learned back then.   

"A knowledge of English grammar is recognized as a prerequisite to satisfactory work in English composition and literature," writes author A.W. McGuire in the foreword.  "It's usefulness in social intercourse and in business goes without saying," he continues.  You better believe it.  "It would seem advisable for grades 7 and 8 to adhere to the order in which the material is presented.  In grade 9 the teacher will select freely for review purposes from the lessons for earlier grades."

In other words, you will have learned ALL 182 pages of grammar by grade 8; the rest is just review.  How's that for shocking?  Not to be a bore, but I had mastered grammar by grade 8 and the rest was all just review -- thanks in no small part to Mabel Anderson, my wonderful grade 8 teacher who used to drill us mercilessly.  Thank God she did.

The table of contents reads as follows:

• Analysis
• Parts of Speech
• Verbs and Completions
• Kinds of Sentences
• Review
• Nouns and Pronouns
• Verbs
• Speaking and Writing Correctly
• Nouns
• Adjectives and Adverbs
• Simple and Compound Sentences
• Complex Sentences
• Classes of Conjunctions
• Conjunctive Pronouns
• Verbals
• Direct and Indirect Objects
• Active and Passive Voice
• General Review

So, if you nail all that, you've killed it for the rest of your life.