Rojo

I don't think so. I have to agree with the last post. We force people to school so we can teach them how to become productive in society. If we didn't have people in school our nations infastructure would collapse. I doubt that the teachers have as much political clout as you say they do (although I agree they have a lot). Says who??? The teachers whose livelihood depends on it, I suppose. The public system is the most well rounded because it has no particular biase. Religous schooling is obviously slanted. Admittedly private schooling can be just the same as the public school but you have to pay fees to enter. This excludes the impoverished from entering the school. If everyone had to pay for it themselves, people with little money would struggle to get there kids in school. With not enough money to acquire an education a person therefore don't have enough work skills to get into higher income bracket (unless they are extremely motivated). Still in the same bracket as their parents they cannot pay for their own childrens education causing a cycle of poverty. With other people paying for school this no longer happens. In my school people pay nothing to get in and any other fees can be covered by the school, allowing everybody to get an education. One more thing all across Canada people pay for things that don't benefit them. Farm subsidies, sporting events like the Olympics, pine beetle relief, etc. Paying for things that don't benefit you is a fact of life in Canada.

Anthony, I assume that by other types of schools you are refering to people who attend home school and religous high school. I agree it is unfair that some people are forced to pay for the public school system when it is not there kind of school. In an ideal world I believe it would be great if all schools were subsidized so it would be a level playing field and it would be realitvly free to enter any school just like it is in the public system today. However there is not enough tax dollars to go around and therefore the most popular one must be subsidized so people that are not as well off can enter. The public school system is the most well rounded and therefore is the most logical one to be supported.

Anthony whats your big problem with school? It is admittedly a place where people are forced to conform to the views of other people but other wise its on the whole a good place to learn. If school was optional I would still go and I'm sure lots of my friends would as well. This revolt against portfolio is not a major revolution. Its just students speaking out against an un prepared program.

I totally agree with the pro portfolio people in the forum on the issue of the amount of work. It is not that much work at all. The community volunteer work and the exercise is great. It will really benefit kids to get out and do stuff. However my personal beef with the portfolio program is that it is still a work in progress. The impression that I am getting in my school is that no one knows what they are doing. Even the teachers. No one explains the workload to us students and therefore the majority naturally despises it because they think its a monster project. And its not just the students who despise it its also the teachers. I have yet to hear one teacher express public support for the program. It seems that the Ministry has failed to educate the teachers on how to do Portfolio properly. For example my Portfolio advisor last year was the most uninspiring teacher in the whole school and my advisor this year is only an advisor because he wants to get more hours to become a full time faculty member. No teacher wants to touch this mess so they throw it to their companions who are not doing much in the first place. Another problem with Portfolio is that does not promote creativity. I thought that this project would oppurtunity to express yourself. However in fact it is quite strict and requires you to answer tedious reflection questions again and again. It is a whole lot of documentation and not a whole lot of expressing. If only they could make it more openended so people could express themselves more freely. For example one assignment in portfolio is respond to a work of art, sounds pretty free right. However instead of allowing people to respond to it anyway they want the Portfolio lays down 5 questions that have to be answered in paragraph form. Your typical English comprehension questions: What devices are being used? How does the art make you feel? etc. Now some people may enjoy this way of working because it lays down simple guidelines for you to follow. But if people want to express themselves in other ways (like creating their own work of art in response, writing a small essay, etc.) too bad because you have to follow all the guidlines or else you don't graduate. Which brings me to my final qualm about portfolio. Nothing short of a miracle will prevent grad failure rates from rising across the province because of grad portfolio. With teachers still confused and students still admantly against it its guaranteed that some will fall through the cracks. Your average student with a 'B' or 'C+' will still finish the portfolio (although only with a token effort). However its the students that are just barely scraping through high school that will fail because of portfolio. These people will be set back because they will fail to notice Portfolio until it is too late. Now again I'm not fully against portfolio. I believe after a good deal of modifications and reviewing it can be made into an excellent program but in its current form it is useless and is a detriment to the school system. One of the biggest problems with the opposition among us students against this program is that we are not making intelligent arguments (like the ones above). We are virtually saying "portfolio sucks because.....it sucks doing work". We need to do better than that.