Some city school boards have begun to set up “magnet” schools, which are high schools with a particular curriculum focus, sometimes in music, drama and the arts, sometimes in specific technologies such as computers and so on. Some parents, and indeed some teachers, want, not so much choice of program content, but choice in the way programs are taught. Some favor a traditional back-to-the-basics approach, with students sitting in rows, working on their own rather than in groups, perhaps wearing wrought iron fence uniforms, with greater emphasis on drill and lecture in teaching. Others prefer a more student-centred approach, with lots of flexibility, combined grade levels, experimentation with curriculum and other innovations. Where they have enough schools, as in large towns and cities, school boards are increasingly moving to provide this kind of variety.
Even where they are not, they are more and more allowing students (or their parents) to choose which school to attend; students are no longer limited to their local neighbourhood school. Some provincial governments have taken this one step further by allowing students to attend their choice of school, regardless of school-board boundaries. This is one reason it is now commonplace to see schools, and especially high schools, advertising their achievements on billboards. When students and parents can choose their school, schools are forced to compete for their favor. A drop in attendance can mean a loss of reputation, a drop in funding and a loss of jobs for teachers. To prevent this, schools are increasingly forced to market themselves.
This kind of choice and variety exists within the public school system. It is an attempt to allow for difference while insisting on a minimum level of commonality, especially in the content of the curriculum. Canadians schools have long valued schools for their contribution to a sense of national identity and citizenship. From their beginnings, public schools have argued that by allowing, even requiring, children of different religions, languages, races and ethnic groups to play and work together, they make a valuable contribution to Canadian society. In the public school children learn to appreciate what they have in common as Canadian citizens. Thus, a real question exists: How far can the schools go in catering to choice and difference before they find themselves contributing, not to tolerance and unity, but to difference and distrust? Canada has long prided itself on being a mosaic rather an American-style melting pot, a society in which every group can retain its own identity while also forming part of a larger whole. In a mosaic, however, the separate pieces combine to form a coherent design that has a pattern and a unity of its own. The whole is more than the pieces that make it up. The question that faces schools as they respond to the demands for more choice and variety is how far they can go without abandoning some sort of experience that all students share as they grow into adult citizens.
Tags: Auto, back to the basics, choice, city, content of the curriculum, curriculum focus, Draft, drama, drop, emphasis, identity, iron, kind, loss, magnet schools, music drama, neighbourhood school, program content, provincial governments, specific technologies, way, wrought iron fence
