As a teacher, there is always a bitter sweetness about the end of June.
It is a welcome time of course. For a fleeting few weeks, my every waking hour (and many sleeping ones) will not be all encompassed by my teaching. The annual summer break afforded to teachers has always seemed,to me at least, a good investment in worker longevity. It is also, however, a time for some melancholy. Students we have watched grow up are, in many cases, moving on to bigger and hopefully better things.
This year has been particularly poignant in that it was the first year in what seems like forever that can even remotely be referred to as “normal”. That return to normalcy did not come without the return of some familiar educational controversies as well as some brand new ones. Here then, in no particular order, is my list of issues that defined the 2022-23 school year and that will bear watching when school resumes in September.
Privatization of Public Schools
The calls to expand the privatization of public schools have quieted here in Atlantic Canada since the collapse of The Atlantic Institute for Markets Studies (AIMS) a few years back. However, during the United Conservative Party’s leadership race in Alberta this fall, it was a key issue. The candidates for that position, (7 in total) all touted the benefits of school choice (there are none, by the way) and voucher systems (ditto) as a way forward for Alberta’s education system.
Then leadership hopeful Danielle Smith’s beef seemed to be that “parents are feeling like they’re not having their views and their values not reflected in the classroom,” in regards to the gas and oil industry. Her eventual victory has led to the Alberta government reaffirming their commitment to offering increased school choice.
Another decidedly Libertarian politician was also elected to office in the fall of 2022. Any question about Pierre Pollierve’s views on public education were clarified by his appearance at an event hosted by the Frontier Center for Public Policy (FCPP) in January. The FCPP has long been pushing for the privatization of public education, and it has scooped up at least one former AIMS executive after the aforementioned collapse. Watch for more op-eds from the likes of the FCPP and its sister ship, The Fraser Institute, lauding the benefits of a more privatized education system.
Chronic Staffing Shortages
The fall of 2022 saw the government finally at least pretend to have a look at the issue of staffing shortages in the education sector. The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Nova Scotia Legislature’s standing committee on human resources, but that discussion has resulted in little tangible action.
That seeming lack of action may have been due in part to newly minted Deputy Minister of Education Elwin Leroux’s summary of the issue as, well, a non-issue. Leroux’s assurance to the committee that “there is a teacher in every classroom” was challenged at the time by NSTU President, Ryan Lutes, particularly in regards to the issue of part time teachers and substitutes.
Teacher recruitment and retention will undoubtedly be an educational touchstone this coming year. If the Houston government wants to draw teachers to Nova Scotia, it will need to create conditions that make working here more attractive than working elsewhere. Considering the recent revelations about violence in our schools and the David vs Goliath stand made by education support staff in Halifax, the government will have some work to do on that front.
The Fight Over Flags
The stance of Florida Governor turned Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on 2SLGBTQIA+ issues and the passing of his “Don’t say gay” Bill seems to have been a clarion call for politicians and policy makers alike to question the appropriateness of non-traditional gender education. Despite overwhelming evidence showing education and gender affirming care can reduce the rates of self harm among teens, pushback against schools offering these services has been fierce.
Across Canada, the decision by several school boards to remove the Pride flag from school property has caused considerable consternation among youth health advocates. A recent decision by the New Brunswick government around gender education and some surprisingly uninformed comments from Premier Blaine Higgs about gender dysphoria being “trendy” has also raised alarm bells.
Here in Nova Scotia, there have also been some rather ugly incidents in regards to this issue, in particular the destruction of a pride flag at a high school just outside of Halifax, an incident which garnered national attention. That one hit a bit close to home for me, as my own child attends that school. My fatherly pride that they have spoken at the Nova Scotia legislature before their eighteenth birthday is somewhat tempered by the situation that caused them to be called upon to speak in the first place. As governments move further to the right of the political spectrum, issues around gender and the appropriateness of gender education will undoubtedly continue to divide.
ChatGPT
In November of 2022, the educational world was rocked by the sudden appearance on the scene of a new technology known as ChatGPT. Designed by Open AI, ChatGPT is an easy to use application that can create text with a few easy prompts. By typing in a question like “Can you write me a 500 word essay on Canada’s role in WWII” users receive an original essay in seconds, complete with citations.
Students copying essays off the internet is a practice as old as the internet itself, but ChatGPT differs in that the content it generates is not simply cut and paste. The technology creates text to read as if it was written by a human being. Teachers can not use tried and true methods to detect plagiarism, nor use search engines to trace down borrowed lines of text. Students can now generate writing pieces that, for all intents and purposes, sound exactly like they wrote it.
Since its launch, there have been numerous attempts by school boards to outlaw the technology in the classroom, with limited success. Perhaps not surprisingly, almost as soon as ChatGPT launched, someone developed a tool to detect its use. However, as more money gets poured into the development of artificial intelligence, the sophistication of these tools will increase. It could be that in the not too distant future, schools will need to revert back to students using pen and paper to ensure originality of thought.
Thus the books on the 2022-23 school year close with loose ends galore. There is an old adage about living in interesting times, and the education world seems destined to always be, if nothing else, interesting, at the very least.
If this year has been any indication, 2023-24 is set to be a doozy.
Have a safe and restful summer.
frostededucation
Another tumultuous educational year comes to an end.
As a teacher, there is always a bitter sweetness about the end of June.
It is a welcome time of course. For a fleeting few weeks, my every waking hour (and many sleeping ones) will not be all encompassed by my teaching. The annual summer break afforded to teachers has always seemed,to me at least, a good investment in worker longevity. It is also, however, a time for some melancholy. Students we have watched grow up are, in many cases, moving on to bigger and hopefully better things.
This year has been particularly poignant in that it was the first year in what seems like forever that can even remotely be referred to as “normal”. That return to normalcy did not come without the return of some familiar educational controversies as well as some brand new ones. Here then, in no particular order, is my list of issues that defined the 2022-23 school year and that will bear watching when school resumes in September.
Privatization of Public Schools
The calls to expand the privatization of public schools have quieted here in Atlantic Canada since the collapse of The Atlantic Institute for Markets Studies (AIMS) a few years back. However, during the United Conservative Party’s leadership race in Alberta this fall, it was a key issue. The candidates for that position, (7 in total) all touted the benefits of school choice (there are none, by the way) and voucher systems (ditto) as a way forward for Alberta’s education system.
Then leadership hopeful Danielle Smith’s beef seemed to be that “parents are feeling like they’re not having their views and their values not reflected in the classroom,” in regards to the gas and oil industry. Her eventual victory has led to the Alberta government reaffirming their commitment to offering increased school choice.
Another decidedly Libertarian politician was also elected to office in the fall of 2022. Any question about Pierre Pollierve’s views on public education were clarified by his appearance at an event hosted by the Frontier Center for Public Policy (FCPP) in January. The FCPP has long been pushing for the privatization of public education, and it has scooped up at least one former AIMS executive after the aforementioned collapse. Watch for more op-eds from the likes of the FCPP and its sister ship, The Fraser Institute, lauding the benefits of a more privatized education system.
Chronic Staffing Shortages
The fall of 2022 saw the government finally at least pretend to have a look at the issue of staffing shortages in the education sector. The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Nova Scotia Legislature’s standing committee on human resources, but that discussion has resulted in little tangible action.
That seeming lack of action may have been due in part to newly minted Deputy Minister of Education Elwin Leroux’s summary of the issue as, well, a non-issue. Leroux’s assurance to the committee that “there is a teacher in every classroom” was challenged at the time by NSTU President, Ryan Lutes, particularly in regards to the issue of part time teachers and substitutes.
Teacher recruitment and retention will undoubtedly be an educational touchstone this coming year. If the Houston government wants to draw teachers to Nova Scotia, it will need to create conditions that make working here more attractive than working elsewhere. Considering the recent revelations about violence in our schools and the David vs Goliath stand made by education support staff in Halifax, the government will have some work to do on that front.
The Fight Over Flags
The stance of Florida Governor turned Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on 2SLGBTQIA+ issues and the passing of his “Don’t say gay” Bill seems to have been a clarion call for politicians and policy makers alike to question the appropriateness of non-traditional gender education. Despite overwhelming evidence showing education and gender affirming care can reduce the rates of self harm among teens, pushback against schools offering these services has been fierce.
Across Canada, the decision by several school boards to remove the Pride flag from school property has caused considerable consternation among youth health advocates. A recent decision by the New Brunswick government around gender education and some surprisingly uninformed comments from Premier Blaine Higgs about gender dysphoria being “trendy” has also raised alarm bells.
Here in Nova Scotia, there have also been some rather ugly incidents in regards to this issue, in particular the destruction of a pride flag at a high school just outside of Halifax, an incident which garnered national attention. That one hit a bit close to home for me, as my own child attends that school. My fatherly pride that they have spoken at the Nova Scotia legislature before their eighteenth birthday is somewhat tempered by the situation that caused them to be called upon to speak in the first place. As governments move further to the right of the political spectrum, issues around gender and the appropriateness of gender education will undoubtedly continue to divide.
ChatGPT
In November of 2022, the educational world was rocked by the sudden appearance on the scene of a new technology known as ChatGPT. Designed by Open AI, ChatGPT is an easy to use application that can create text with a few easy prompts. By typing in a question like “Can you write me a 500 word essay on Canada’s role in WWII” users receive an original essay in seconds, complete with citations.
Students copying essays off the internet is a practice as old as the internet itself, but ChatGPT differs in that the content it generates is not simply cut and paste. The technology creates text to read as if it was written by a human being. Teachers can not use tried and true methods to detect plagiarism, nor use search engines to trace down borrowed lines of text. Students can now generate writing pieces that, for all intents and purposes, sound exactly like they wrote it.
Since its launch, there have been numerous attempts by school boards to outlaw the technology in the classroom, with limited success. Perhaps not surprisingly, almost as soon as ChatGPT launched, someone developed a tool to detect its use. However, as more money gets poured into the development of artificial intelligence, the sophistication of these tools will increase. It could be that in the not too distant future, schools will need to revert back to students using pen and paper to ensure originality of thought.
Thus the books on the 2022-23 school year close with loose ends galore. There is an old adage about living in interesting times, and the education world seems destined to always be, if nothing else, interesting, at the very least.
If this year has been any indication, 2023-24 is set to be a doozy.
Have a safe and restful summer.
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Filed under Education Policy, Educational Change, Educational commentary, Nova Scotia Education Policy, Public education, Teacher shortage
Tagged as ChatGPT and schools, educational change, Nova Scotia Education Policy, Pride flags in schools, public education, Teacher shortage