Teacher Teacher

[Gran Torino]

An article by Charles Adler

What says NSMB about it? Is Chucky right or is he way off?

Here’s a fun fact for you: Justin Trudeau spent a little while teaching at a Vancouver high school before entering politics. He also has a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of British Columbia.

So he’s been on the frontlines of education before. He can honestly say he has experience in the field.

That may seem a little odd, based on his thoughts on how today’s teachers should approach the practice of education.

You’ve read about educators who forget to be educators, instead choosing to be armchair child psychologists, or mouthpieces of big labour, or – my personal favourite – “co-parents.”

But to Monsieur Trudeau, it’s a great new development when teachers don’t think about how to get the kids to do well in school.

Last week, Trudeau gave a lecture at Queen’s University to 31 student leaders from the Upper Canada District School Board. According to the press release, the purpose of the speech was to “talk about the importance of reminding students of their personal power and impact.”

He used the word “empower” a lot during his address. According to him, that’s supposed to be priority number one for today’s teachers.

What happened to priority number one being the act of teaching the material to the students? Apparently it’s not “diverse” enough.

Here’s the quote:

Trudeau said the hierarchical model of success that existed for so long in western society – the idea that academic success means success as an adult – must be altered.

“The kinds of success we’re looking at now are going to be as diverse as the students themselves are,” he said. “As a teacher, you must demonstrate that these students have power.”

What does THAT mean? That you don’t have to do well in school because you’re already “powerful?” That anyone’s idea of success is valid if they say so? Folks, this is what we talk about when we’re talking about an entitled generation.

I have no doubt that plenty of Canadian kids were raised to believe in hard work, individual effort, the value of a good education and a good career, and live those beliefs to this day.

But there are also plenty of Canadian kids who never learned to take responsibility for themselves and expect everyone else – school staff, parents, employers, the government – to do it for them.

Trudeau isn’t talking about “empowering” kids. He’s talking about coddling them. Can’t read or do math at a college level by the time you finish high school? Hey, no problem! You’re so special that it doesn’t matter!

And so-called “student leaders” are the ones hearing this. How many of them will buy it? How many of them will repeat it to their fellow students?

I wish there were more voices of responsibility reaching out to our kids. Instead we get a prime minister’s son and left-wing media darling who has always believed that he fell off the special tree and didn’t miss a branch on the way down.