00:04:48.780I'm also going to put an ad, I'm going to put an invite onto this platform, Stephen Lecce.
00:04:54.260any time you would like to have a conversation on this podcast.
00:04:59.140I know I'm nobody, Steve, but let's be honest, neither are you.
00:05:05.220I think it's time you sat down in a room with an educator.
00:05:11.460You don't need to be me, but with an educator who's been in the system,
00:05:15.520who understands the curriculum, who understands government,
00:05:18.540who understands policy, and you sit down and you have a televised discussion,
00:05:23.980slash debate um to root through these issues that's what i want for you that's what i want
00:05:32.120for all of our politicians but right now i'm putting that offer out to mr lecce i would love
00:05:38.920to i'll come where you are hon anytime anytime all right let's go through your list sir
00:05:43.780whoo number one focus on reading writing and math
00:05:49.280i'm curious steve what do you think we're focused on what and and by the by this is kind of one of
00:06:01.360those statements that makes it sound as though you are hanging out with the santus maybe a little
00:06:07.660too much or just, you know, copying from his playbook, right? It makes it sound like
00:06:14.140these skills that we've obviously, what, chucked out the window in favor of coloring
00:06:20.600are completely overlooked. We're ignoring them. We haven't been focusing on them. All of this
00:06:28.340effort that teachers are doing has gone to nothing remotely resembling reading, writing,
00:06:35.660and you say math, but you really want to just say arithmetic because it's the same expression
00:06:40.440that was used since 1942. Couple things. Number one, we are. The presumption that in, especially
00:06:51.620in our elementary schools, we are not focused on these core learning strategies is perhaps the most0.91
00:06:59.560ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Number one. Number two, you're boiling0.84
00:07:05.760education down to the creation of automaton. We no longer live in a world, we no longer live in
00:07:15.560a world where these basic sort of building blocks are enough. We live in a world where kids can get
00:07:26.080access to anything at any time with the click of a button we cannot live in this
00:07:35.080kind of atmosphere we cannot teach in this kind of atmosphere atmosphere while
00:07:42.220setting the bar to this level we can't that's number one number two how many
00:07:50.260kids are in each class, Steve? When you increase the amount of students in a grade one, two, three,
00:08:00.180four, five, whatever, and you increase that ratio, how do you expect teachers to be able to have the
00:08:08.660time and the ability to spend with individual students? And when those students come with
00:08:15.780many different learning exceptionalities how do you expect them to fixate and be able to help
00:08:25.160those kids who are further behind than some and still push the ones in order to make them excel
00:08:34.480how is that supposed to happen well we're in this category what's your test for this
00:08:44.200Because while every other institution in the world is starting to recognize the inefficiencies, the lack of credibility of standardized testing, while Harvard University itself is chucking out the SATs, you're what?
00:09:05.020going to go back to more standardized testing as somehow a level of clarity on what they've learned
00:09:13.300are you okay are you going to bother to listen to any sort of educational expert along the way
00:09:20.940or are you going to simply sit in an echo chamber that's trying to figure out the best way for you
00:09:25.560to save money. As for math, I have a question for you. Why not create specialty teachers that are
00:09:37.520math experts, that are math teachers, where their sole job is to focus on a skill that is difficult,
00:09:46.580that, you know, in learning it, it requires you to see the world differently. And the more ways we
00:09:54.820can view math and can you know configure math the better off each student will be we need math
00:10:01.660experts are you going to hire them are you going to pay them what they're worth because I'm telling
00:10:06.940you right now if I were to go back to teach grade four I'd be qualified to teach math via your
00:10:13.900academic standard what a joke what a joke you haven't created a sit you want some real change
00:10:21.940create a system in which elementary school teachers who are amazing and fantastic and by
00:10:29.640the way are balancing not only learning but foundational socialization skills that will
00:10:37.880last a lifetime and you're shoving 25 30 kids in the room with a whole bunch of learning
00:10:43.620exceptionalities and then when they don't do well at math you're blaming who steve
00:10:47.400who are we blaming here you're not blaming you who are you blaming
00:10:53.320right why not have more education go into elementary so that they can streamline their
00:11:06.100expertise that they can figure out ways to build that foundational knowledge so when a kid is
00:11:12.320taking math in grade 5, 6, 7, and 8, they have a strong foundation rather than be consistently
00:11:19.380pushed through because guess what? It saves money. So that's number one. And by the way,
00:11:28.760how do you force reading, Steve? And this is a genuine question. I have kids that will do
00:11:39.340anything to avoid it. They'll sit and stare at the page for God knows how long in order just to
00:11:47.560pretend to flip it to avoid doing the reading. Do you understand that problem? Do you understand
00:11:52.820why it is? Have you hired child psychologists and developmental experts in order to understand
00:11:57.820the cultural shift that we have undergone that has really taken that away from our kids in a
00:12:04.320significant way you think that's going to cost us less money to fix less money to get at you think
00:12:12.200the same old reading writing and arithmetic you think that methodology that worked 50 years ago
00:12:18.380is going to work today are you i have i i get so irate because of your and everybody within that
00:12:28.620government's lack of foresight and lack of understanding of what we now sit in. Because
00:12:34.680your second point is accountability that drives better student outcomes. What does that mean?
00:12:39.220First of all, nobody knows what it means. You want to know why you use the word? Use word like
00:12:42.860accountability. When people hear accountability, they think blame. So they think, cool, we're
00:12:48.000going to have standardized tests and we're going to have standardized test scores. And somehow
00:12:52.160that's going to be indicative if if my of if my kid is doing well and if the
00:12:57.380teacher is doing their job right is this is this it this one test so what are you
00:13:03.020setting up then you're setting up for the teacher to teach to the test what a
00:13:07.220nightmare hasn't worked any single place ever what a disaster and you're setting
00:13:15.000of sites to blame who? To blame who, Steve? How are you going to blame a teacher for poor, let's
00:13:25.800say, reading skills within their classroom when? Let me give you a couple of examples. You could
00:13:31.180have kids with dyslexia. You could have kids on the spectrum. You could have new students coming
00:13:36.300from all over the world that come to our schools, and we try to find space and ways to involve them
00:13:43.700and inspire them and make them feel a part of the community? How are you supposed to have a standard
00:13:50.700reading level when you have all of that exceptionality in it? I would love to know
00:13:57.500your answer. I'm pretty sure you don't have one. I'm pretty sure what you want is the teacher to
00:14:03.340teach the test, the kids to do well on the test, the kid to then graduate the grade and move on
00:14:08.380to something else, but to hell with what? To hell with education, to hell with learning
00:14:14.960how to think critically, to hell with understanding possibly what the natural progression is of an
00:14:23.880individual student's learning path. You're creating the illusion, the pretense of some
00:14:33.140sort of significant change in accountability with these ridiculous standardized tests it's
00:14:39.860embarrassing and i understand only 17 of the population voted for you but if i were that 17
00:14:46.420my head would be hung so far down i wouldn't even know what to do with myself
00:14:53.300what's a better student outcome how are you balancing better student outcomes with
00:14:59.140all of the social sociological and economic issues that go into that school i'm going to give you
00:15:04.980another example steve because you're not all about examples but maybe if i give you a few you can0.97
00:15:09.460understand what it is so when you're trying to solve problems and you're trying to bull crap
00:15:14.500your way through you stop using taglines like accountability and you start actually coming up
00:15:19.300with something there should be a school called sir robert borden so robert borden was a
00:15:25.460vocational technical school so kids went there and they and it was just amazing the school was
00:15:31.140fantastic it had a whole wing for um uh like auto mechanics a whole wing for electrical and
00:15:39.300carpentry a whole wing for um cooking and chef school and things like that whole wing for like
00:15:46.500hairdressing and makeup and all it was amazing it was really truly amazing the problem with sir
00:15:53.380Robert Borden. It was in a particular area that suffered from relatively significant
00:15:59.300economic disparities. So these kids coming to these schools didn't have money.
00:16:06.980It also suffered from a lot of internal and well, external gang problems within that area. So they
00:16:13.900had to put a lot of money into making sure it was safe and making sure the kids were safe when they
00:16:17.600were there and who was coming in and out of the school. And I'll give you an example because this
00:16:22.160People love to talk about equality and equity. This is a great example of this. When you fund schools, you say that you fund them equally based on student. But let me give you an example of why that doesn't work, and it's never worked, and it will never work. You just don't have the moral fortitude to say what needs to be said.
00:16:43.120So you know what, Steve? I'm going to say it for you. Sir Robert Borden would spend a significant portion of their budget not on books, not on new computers, not on things for the students, not on new, you know, different resources and things like that, technological necessities.
00:17:01.940They would spend the majority of their money on making sure the kids had bus tokens, bus tokens to get to and from school every single day.
00:17:13.340And I'm telling you, the attendance rate at that school was through the roof.
00:17:17.420And these kids all had problems, every single one of them.0.99
00:17:26.940Some of them had already had involvements with the law.
00:17:30.760There was a few girls that had obviously expressed the reality that they were at that point pregnant but still wanting to graduate school.
00:17:41.540There were people there that had to have full-time jobs so their family could still stay in the house they were in while they were trying to graduate high school and they didn't have money for anything else.
00:17:52.760And then you have a school like Forest Hill.
00:30:14.440By the way, the whole don't fail a kid is an economic strategy, not an intelligent one.
00:30:25.540And if we were being authentic and honest, different kids develop at different rates and maybe need more time in order to understand the foundations conceptually and intellectually of different subject areas.
00:30:36.300And if we were able to give them more time on that, rather than it only being a cut and dry, black and white, you're in grade five or you're in grade six and there's no in between, rather than offering a diversity of that, we what?
00:30:48.880We either shame them because they didn't get it right the first time or pretend that they got it and push them on so they can be forever weighed down by the lack of capacity because they never got that foundation and they're always trying to play catch up and you wonder why they're not being a success.
00:31:06.300i look at this list and i get frustrated obviously you guys haven't noticed any0.98
00:31:16.140frustration in my voice have you but i look at this stupid list and think0.94
00:31:20.220what ridiculous headers because i've sat here and taken a guess at a lot of things right0.98
00:31:25.860but isn't that what the ontario government's going to have us do take a guess at a lot of0.86
00:31:29.760things. They're going to use keywords like accountability and core foundational reading
00:31:37.180and blah, blah. That means nothing in real life that has no general application. You're not
00:31:43.580talking about a lower teacher to student ratio. You're not talking about more EAs in the classroom
00:31:50.380in order to make sure that the kids with different learning abilities are getting extra help so they
00:31:54.580can actually keep up, not fake keeping up. You're not talking about actually building
00:31:59.880different ways to engage and test and evaluate students that aren't just based on a standardized
00:32:06.880test that you can fill in a Scantron card and doesn't have an easy process in order to get
00:32:13.860you a number at the end and stick it on your forehead and call it a day. Because education
00:32:18.660isn't that. You're trying to simplify it. You're trying to make it seem as though if it were just
00:32:26.200the good old days, we would do it like this. Guys, the good old days, let me be real clear before I
00:32:32.820end this. The good old days, kids dropped out at 14 years old. The good old days, kids didn't go
00:32:40.440to university or college. They just got a job. The good old days, any kid with a different learning
00:32:46.500ability, with autism, with dyslexia, with any kind of processing disorder, would be deemed
00:32:54.640unintelligent, incapable, and be tossed aside. The good old days were garbage.1.00
00:33:02.680Absolutely. How many geniuses do you think we lost along the way, folks? How many? How many?0.95
00:33:09.500Because we didn't understand dyslexia. The good old days, if there was a kid that stepped out of
00:33:14.840line he or she was out period your home life we don't they didn't care abuse they didn't care
00:33:24.600the good old days there was abuse in the classroom what the hell is the good old days0.97
00:33:30.700what a crock of crap and and while we're talking about the good old days guess what we're not there0.98
00:33:35.760anymore we're in an era where kids can access any piece of information at any given moment0.99
00:33:41.540anywhere, anytime from the palm of their hand. And we think we can revert to the good old days
00:33:49.320when there were restricted movies and there was a curtain that separated the adult ones
00:33:56.080from the other movies and some of that curtain, we don't have a curtain anymore.
00:33:59.940Kids have access. And if you don't build an education system that acknowledges the incredibly
00:34:06.440complex, but amazing, powerful world we live in, you are dooming those kids to fall under the
00:34:12.960weight of it and never get educated through it. How dare you, sir? How dare you? I'm going to
00:34:21.160wait for this whole program to come out and I'm going to pick it apart line by line. We're going
00:34:26.120to see. And then I'm going to unfortunately watch it fail. And your 17% voting population is going
00:34:33.100what cheer you because you save more money because i guarantee your budget will come under
00:34:39.820and to end off i still invite you i will go and be any single place you want me to be to talk
00:34:50.300about this issue any place i will roll the camera without interruption i will not cut a single word
00:34:59.340if you have foundational knowledge that can trounce what i'm saying and you say yeah joanna
00:35:06.640but this boom boom boom boom and you back it up and you are on fire and you dude i hope i'm wrong
00:35:13.880i hope you got what it takes i hope you have some sort of beautiful mind moment where you've
00:35:20.960decided how you're going to fix the entire educational system it cost us less i hope for
00:35:27.140that. I hope I'm wrong. But if you're not, isn't it time that you were accountable, Steve?
00:35:37.600All right, guys. Thank you for hanging out with me this week. I will see you next Tuesday.
00:35:42.760Same bad time, same bad station. Dismissed.