The Editor,
Re. "Factory model is fading for B.C.'s public schools" (BC Views, The Tri-City News, Sept. 10).
If, indeed, as columnist Tom Fletcher assures us, the factory model is fading for B.C.'s public schools, it's a message that has not resonated with the independent schools of British Columbia.
A cursory glance at the websites of the first three schools I Googled - Meadowridge in Maple Ridge, St. George's in Vancouver and St. Michael's in Victoria - shows them to be unanimous in their commitment to developing a community of learners whose education is conducted in well-appointed, bricks-and mortar facilities by experts teaching to small classes. All of them emphasize wide-ranging opportunities for extra-curricular activities that involve students learning - and playing - together.
Leaving aside the fact that the fees exacted for enrolment are beyond the means of most of his readers, Mr. Fletcher might note that the private schools' educational philosophy and vision are largely interchangeable with those of his and my local public high school.
Once again, Mr. Fletcher's analysis of an issue is hampered by an ideological myopia; in this case, that public education in its current form is headed for extinction in the face of the "digital revolution," which will render schools as meeting places obsolete and teachers and their troublesome union irrelevant when our children are occupied in "self-directed learning."
From what I can gather from his description, this involves handing out digital textbooks. After that, it seems, students are on their own to make their own way, a prospect not likely to reassure the parents of even the most capable and self-reliant teenager.
Learning, like much of human activity, is social, the truth of which is understood by educators in both the private and public systems. The same reasons that lead us to invite relative strangers to our houses for book clubs and that make dinner-party-by-Skype a digital revolution nobody wants to join are understood by the vast majority of parents who, when asked, want their children to attend the neighbourhood schools that are integral to the fabric of their communities.
This, evidently, is what Mr. Fletcher would have us forego in pursuit of his tiresome denigration of public education and of the teachers and support staff whose work he plainly neither understands nor values.
Iain Fisher, Coquitlam
