Brilliance at the school board

In a stunning moment of virtuosity, the director of learning services at the Calgary Board of Education said, "Literacy and numeracy are the building blocks of a successful educational journey for our children.  We need to set them up with a strong foundation."  (My first question is, are we setting up "literacy and numeracy", or does he mean "our children"?  He means the latter, but actually said the former.  You'd think a guy with his job would at least have had that right, but he didn't.  Sorry, I digress.)

Wow!  What a revelation!  Frankly, that explains everything that's wrong with most school boards today:  Too many "experts" being paid too much money to sit around, think up and spew out new hair-brained strategies such as "Discovery Math".  When someone explained that one to me, I nearly fell off my chair!  Apparently, kids learn how to "discover" correct answers, while getting marks for parts they may stumble upon and get right, even if the answer is wrong.

Beat that!  You can't, or maybe you can.  A while back, these same "experts" did away with phonetics in teaching kids to read.  "Sound it out," was what every teacher I had said when one of us stood up to read aloud in class.  Now, however, kids are supposed to just read whole words without bothering to know what sounds make them up.  Huh@!%#$%^##!@!?

When my kids were in elementary school, I had to tutor them in grammar because they didn't get it in class.  If you can't read or write your native tongue, you are in big trouble for the rest of your life.  During my career -- well, not really a "career", just a string of jobs -- the fact that I could write was a huge asset.  Even though something might not have been my job, someone would say, "Give that to Nancy, she can write."  

When I was head of consultations for GST, I was asked to write the departmental consultation policy.  The fact that it only took me a day or two stunned my boss so much he had to crap on it.  "These are just words on a page," he said, implying that no one could have come up with anything that good in such a short time.  (Seriously, everything one writes is made up of words on a page, but hey, why not insult someone with the remark?)  Much to his chagrin, when it was shopped around the branch for comment, it got nothing but praise; not a word was changed.  He emerged looking the dunderhead he was.

Another gesture I am convinced helped put my name forward for that job was when I sent the ADM a sympathy card when his very odd wife died.  To me, that was the normal thing to do, but when the position in question came open, he must have remembered the card and said to the DM over a round of golf, "Why not put Nancy Marley-Clarke into that job?"  I also went to the funeral parlour to pay my respects to the DM when his sister died.  I believe that paid off too.  These gestures show respect and civility -- all assets when you are doing consultations with pissed off merchants who don't like the GST.

__________________________________

A word about the sham of panels, working groups, Royal Commissions and white papers.  Read today that the ombudsman -- or it is "ombudsperson"? -- for Canadian veterans has released a report slamming the federal government for leaving so many broken vets hanging out to dry.  The government didn't want to help them in the first place, so someone came up with the tried-and-true, sleight-of-hand known as the ombudsperson to "look into the mess" and come up with immediately-to-be-shelved-and-ignored recommendations.  

Same thing happened with the sad journey of Murray Sinclair and his incestuous band of roving investigators schlepping around the country holding "hearings" known as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Girls and Women Inquiry.  They came up with 99 urgent recommendations -- or was it 199?  Anyway, no one's done anything about any of them because they never had any intention of doing anything in the first place.

Same thing happened with the report five years ago into why there was so much sexual harassment and assault in the military.  What did they do?  Appoint yet another judge to do yet another inquiry into yet another mess.  Sexual assault and harassment happens in the military because, hey, it's the military.  Get it?  

The cynicism of this government is breathtaking and yet, Canadians put them back in.  As for the Conservatives, poor old misguided O'Toole's latest move is to demand an investigation into allegations of harassment and bullying in Conservative MP Shannon Stubb's office.  Doesn't he have other things to do -- like proving to Canadians he is ready to govern?

Now, the new defence minister, Anita Anand, is declaring she is going to revolutionarily change the culture of the military and the perfect guy to do this is General Wayne Eyre.  He may be, and good luck to him, but why did it take months to confirm him from his acting role?  Oh yeah, they had to interview every, single person he had ever worked with to be sure there were no salacious lurking female skeletons in any of his past closets.  It's all such a mess.