In the wake of the debacle in one of Ontario's catholic school boards (where the board enacted a rule banning the word, "gay" from student support groups), it is a good time to talk about why Catholic schools are a BAD IDEA.
There are so many ways to argue this...the safest is to take the, "we are a multitheistic society" tack. Of course we are, but thats not what really matters. I believe that the point we need to address is that both catholic AND public school students are being dangerously shortchanged, for very different reasons.
Creating a healthy environment for learning is not possible in a catholic school.
Faith and learning each require a completely different frame of mind. Faith, by definition, requires an unquestioning belief. Learning is questioning, without limits. It isn't possible to indoctrinate and educate under the same roof, because learning is about nurturing critical thought and religious belief can only thrive in the absence of critical thought. "Question this, but not that"..."listen to me but not to them, fear what they say". But, "try to keep an open mind, kid."
A teachers job is not to teach students what to think, or how to think, but how to think for themselves - no easy task at the best of times and nearly impossible in a catholic school.
Sadly, public schoolers are faring even worse than their catholic-school buddies down the street.
I give half-day science enrichment to grade 7 classes. More often, it is catholic schools who can afford to hire me. I have been in many schools where the student/teacher ratio is 15/1 or less. I have seen many, many more SMART boards in catholic schools than in public. Why do they seem to have more money?
Because they can keep on functioning with fewer kids, and they can have a child removed if s/he doesn't fit.
Meanwhile, ask a public school teacher what she would change first to give her students a better education and she will tell you - she needs fewer of them. So why oh why do we allow a whole separate system to drain our public funding when our public school kids are drowning in overcrowded classrooms?
Given that we are being forced by repeated funding cuts to diminish the education experience of public school students, that public school teachers are underpaid and overworked, AND faith does not belong in the classroom anyway, I'm not sure why we aren't screaming for change by now. Please, enlighten me.
Our kids are running out of time.
