New Era in Education

Introduction:

Stunning and unforgettable. Ubiquitous and inexhaustible. A force in education. Tall and imposing. Awe-inspiring. Action packed. Undaunted. That is Linda Palazzi.

Several years ago we were searching for a new principal for a well known girls school in Winnipeg, Manitoba. One of the most prominent members of the Canadian Association of Independent Schools at that time is our guest speaker today. So, as one normally does in the search world, in order to do my sourcing, I called Lynda and asked her if she had any star performers that she knew of that I might approach for that job. She was kind enough to suggest that she would give it some thought and she told me that she was going to be speaking later that month to a very large group of Ontario principals and that she would be quite happy to make an announcement of the opening at that time on the condition that I contribute a sum of money to her building campaign at the school at which she was currently the principal, St. Mildred’s Lightbourn. I don’t know what it was about her over the phone but I can remember agreeing to her terms rather quickly which says something about her persuasiveness and sales ability. A couple of years later we received a call from her chairman of the board indicating that she had been promoted to be superintendent of the Peel Board of Education, which was quite an extraordinary jump at that that time, and would we therefore look for her successor at St. Mildred’s. So off we went to Oakville and we started to talk to the various constituencies of that school. It will go down in memory as perhaps one of the most wonderful experiences of all time because the school was originally owned by the sisters of the church and they had some very strong views as to the future direction of that school and they had some very flattering words to say about Lynda Palazzi. Imagine what it would be like for me because the meetings began at 8:30 a.m. and I thought they would end rather quickly once we talked to one or two sisters. But they kept bringing more and more sisters in who wanted to talk to me and they kept feeding me coffee. By about 11:301 was in desperate shape and I didn’t know quite how I was going to not only ask for a physiological break but find the proper place to go. After putting up with the discomfort for just as long as I could I finally looked at my watch and said to one of the sisters that I had a brief appointment around the town and it wouldn’t take me very long and that I would return if they wanted me to do so to hear more about the wonderful Lynda Palazzi. So I got in the car and rushed over to Tim Horton Donuts, asked if I could use their facilities and returned immediately to the sisters of the church. They had indeed a lot more to say about Lynda Palazzi and so about 3:30 in the afternoon I made the same excuse and rushed back to Tim Horton Donuts, asked if I could use their facilities and then returned quickly to the sisters of the church. Finally we were finished at 5:30 and I rushed over to Tim Horton Donuts, asked if I could use the facilities and they said, "Yes, Sir," but they would certainly appreciate it it I bought some donuts. I quickly bought a dozen donuts and used the facilities. So the point of this whole story is that when one talks about Lynda Palazzi there is a great deal to say. But you had better not drink coffee or tea when you’re doing it in a convent. Later that month we did indeed sit down to discuss the direction of the school with Lynda and it was pretty evident why everybody thought so highly of this dynamic lady. She grabbed me by my lapels, lifted me out of my chair, shook me a couple of times and said: "Do you not realize that education is where it’s at?"

Mrs. Palazzi became the superintendent of schools for the Peel Board in August 1987 responsible for all areas of administration and management of 17 schools, 10,000 students with a staff of 347 plus a field office of 57 resource and support staff. One year later she was made the superintendent of programs for that same board – the largest public board in Canada – and she is responsible for advising that board and administering all curricula and curriculum policies as prescribed by the Ministry of Education and the board. There are 90,000 students in that board. She has her MA. from Georgetown University in Washington and her B.A. from the College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York. She has the certificate for Supervisory Officers in the Province of Ontario and she is one of the most sought-after lecturers and public speakers in her field, having travelled throughout Canada, the United States, as well as other parts of the Globe. We are very lucky to have her with us. She has two children – Andrew, 19, and Stephanie, 17, and she finds time to keep fit and has a lot of hobbies which include travelling, interior design and reading.

Henry Adams in his book, The Education of Henry Adams, said: "A teacher affects eternity. He or she can never tell where his or her influences stop."

Lynda Palazzi:

I am honoured to be able to share my thoughts with the prestigious Empire Club about a topic so critical to Canada’s long-term future.

The status of education today deserves the same passionate dialogue that we devoted to free trade. It deserves the same excitement you feel over news of still another massive take-over. It deserves the kind of press that held the whole world riveted over the fate of three whales last summer. It deserves the attention of our politicians, our entrepreneurs, our most creative deal-makers. It must come into its own, not merely as an after-thought or a scapegoat for other problems, but as the pivotal centre around which our long-term health and prosperity hinges.

There are two major agendas to consider when discussing education: the political or perhaps more accurately the societal; and the educational. Since the relationship between education and society has always been a subject of controversy, let me begin with the political agenda. It is particularly important to highlight the paradox of education today.

In a world where the rate of change is accelerating almost beyond our control, education’s power to impact directly upon the future health of business, labour and the marketplace is intensifying. Education is the key to survival in an increasingly intense and competitive world economy where technical innovation is invading industry, the professions, even our private lives. One of the biggest impediments to our future economic health is the mismatch between the kinds of jobs the economy is creating and the qualifications of those available to fill them.

Because of change and decline in two of our other traditionally stabilizing structures – the family and the church – society is forced to lean more heavily on the schools. We are expected to transmit not only knowledge, but job training, values, social skills, etc. As a result, the system is rapidly being overloaded with demands that are no longer simple to fulfil. There is little for which we are not accountable. We teach sexual equity, multiculturalism, drug and sex education, physical health and fitness, computer literacy, music, drama, media studies, and social responsibility. We mustn’t forget those good all-time favourites – reading, writing and arithmetic. Yet, look at us. Take a good look at us. At a time when massive changes have occurred in business, in the family, in the very fabric of our multicultural, multiracial exploding society, what real changes have taken place in the schools? We have tinkered and toyed, bandaged and added, but basically we are asking schools, designed to meet the needs of a 19th-Century agrarian/ industrial society, to cope with today’s far more complex, economically challenging and socially explosive demands.

Hardly a fair expectation for education. It is an unsung triumph that we do so very well.

I think there is a huge and somewhat dangerous gap between what we are actually doing in our schools and what many of you expect us to do. I believe the timing is ripe to consider a new era in education. We can’t afford to let this opportunity slip by with cosmetic changes rich in rhetoric but poor in reform. Just as commerce has revolutionized accounting practices and inventory control with the latest computerized equipment; just as medicine has discovered amazing advances in diagnoses and treatment; just as communications have become almost instantaneous with the fax machine and the cellular phone; just as 93 per cent of Ontario families no longer fit the traditional mold; so too we must now consider updating and refining our school system. We must consider how it can meet today’s realities more effectively, as well as provide the flexibility to adapt and respond to future changes. And I am not talking merely of changes to the curriculum. I am talking about basic structures.

Let me tell you why I believe we are at a significant transition point. The Americans are now seeing the havoc caused by an educational system struggling under social and economic changes for which it was totally unprepared and poorly equipped. Put simply, American workers are not keeping pace with the demands of today’s jobs. And, according to a new study produced jointly by the departments of labour, commerce and education, the gap is widening. More and more workers are entering the job market with serious educational deficiencies, and many never catch up. Overall, the skills gap costs the business community an estimated $25 billion to $30 billion annually in low productivity, workplace accidents, absenteeism, poor product quality and lost managerial and supervisory time.

As a result, more and more American businesses recognize that their future health depends quite simply upon the future health of the schools – not to be charitable, not to promote good corporate public relations or citizenship, but quite simply to survive. Some interesting demonstrations of this American concern include:

A two-day summit convened in September 88 by Fortune Magazine: more than 100 leaders from business, industry, government and education discussed specific ways business could help the schools, and thereby benefit themselves.

The October 88 annual conference of the Business Council: CEO’s of the 100 largest U.S. companies decided that education and its new baby sister, day-care, was a key issue. Devising ways to improve education was seen as one of their chief challenges in the 90s.

The direct financial investment by U.S. business into elementary and secondary school education and expanded support of early education are now encouraged by many companies. The amounts are still significantly less than corporate donations to colleges and universities – only $200 million last year. But what is significant is that a growing share of university dollars are earmarked for teacher training and projects to improve education from kindergarten on.

Companies such as Polaroid and Exxon, alarmed at the growing shortage of mathematics, science and technology teachers, and the frightening implications of such shortages, are directly recruiting and training such teachers.

In Chicago, 16 of America’s biggest corporations, including Sears Roebuck, United Airlines and Baxter International, have joined forces to open their own private school to serve as a catalyst for national educational change.

A recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey showed that 79 per cent of local chambers have education committees and 62 per cent are targeting community-based initiatives with funds and other support.

Individual company efforts, many of them quite dramatic, to bolster schools in communities throughout the United States are an increasing phenomenon. But what is being done in Canada?

In Ontario, recognition is growing that our current educational system is neither structured nor resourced to meet present-day social and economic realities, much less adapt to even more complex future challenges. With technological advances speeding up and the size of the qualified labour force shrinking, we have – together – a major educational, training issue. I don’t need to remind you of the problems our schools face. They make front page news on a regular basis.

So it is time to consider a new era in education. If we settle for only cosmetic changes, superficial remedies, or more of the same costly bandages, the economic and social price will be incalculable. As difficult as it may be to psychologically, politically and economically question the very structure of one of society’s most sacred cows – the school system – it is essential if we want to avoid what I will call the price of ignorance.

In an era of exploding technological and social innovation, the person who fails to adapt to change, fails to advance. The shift from manufacturing and resource industries to service and high-tech industries dominates the market-place. Both our productivity and our ability to compete globally will be even more closely linked to flexibility, analytical skills and problem-solving abilities. Future jobs will require far more sophisticated training. But that’s only one side of the coin. The other – and vastly more frightening side – is the social price. If you think education is expensive (Ontario spends $4,851 a year to send a child to school) consider the price of ignorance – low income, unemployment, social tension, poor productivity, welfare, crime, growing numbers of urban poor, etc. The cycle of ignorance, poverty, and crime seems likely to increase and become impossible to resolve, as future skills and jobs become even more complex.

Education is an investment and in an information age, educated people become our most valuable resource. Education is also big business. For example, the Peel Board, the largest public board in Canada, is responsible for overseeing a half billion dollar budget. It is the largest employer in the rapidly growing city of Mississauga. Therefore, in much the same way that you have adapted and reorganized your businesses to meet current global market conditions, we must re-think the way we run our business to meet current Ontario social and economic conditions. If we don’t, we run the risk of the schools increasingly serving only a portion of our society, leaving countless thousands out of the economic mainstream.

What can we do? As Louis Gerstner, President of American Express, points out: "It’s time we adopt that famous Noah Principle. No more prizes for predicting rain. Prizes only for building arks."

We need to marshall our collective wisdoms and resources to start building that ark. Let us be more creative!

In the world that invented junk bonds and leveraged buyouts, in a world that rewards the marvellous technique of acquiring a company by borrowing on its assets with enormous legal and investment banking fees, surely we can be more creative in the way we structure and finance our educational system. A simplistic approach, no doubt. However, education deserves this kind of creativity, this kind of profile to help it deal effectively with present-day realities. It’s not just next year’s bottom line at stake here – it’s our children and our future.

How many of your businesses, for example, serve clients from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.? How many of you consider it economic sense to close multi-million dollar plants one-quarter of the year? I ask you: Can computer chips be made with drop forges? Could America’s credit markets trade four billion shares a week by exchanging slips of paper? Could you communicate as quickly and as effectively without your fax machines and cellular phones? Can schools do much better within existing structures and resources? Why are we currently facing a teacher shortage of crisis proportions, particularly in those crucial areas of math, science, technology? What are the implications of these shortages? What do these shortages say about our long-range planning? What do they imply about the stature of education as an exciting career option?

It is time we reinvent education the way Iacocca reinvented Chrysler. Let me quickly add that I recognize that educating a’ child is quite different from building and marketing a car. Wrong decisions in the office or the plant have far less impact’ than the damage done to children from wrong decisions in the classroom.

Another powerful factor that inhibits educational reform is psychological. We are all in a sense experts about education. -‘ We have "survived" and triumphed over years of formal education, plus sessions of retraining and professional upgrading. Few of us have achieved this without forming some pretty strong opinions about education along the way.

Many of us are uncomfortable with the idea of tampering with something so inextricably linked with our own experience. We also fear experimentation when our own children have so much at stake.

However, regardless of your own unique perception of "that place called school;" no matter what glowing sentiments may linger from memories of your favourite teacher, or your child’s Christmas concert or commencement, it is critical that you at least recognize and consider the implications of the following facts. With this background, it may be easier to understand what I believe must happen if education is to parallel and support Ontario and Canadian society – as it really is and not as it was 10 or 20 or even 50 years ago. There is a little to be gained by looking back instead of forward. As Marshall McLuhan warned: "We drive into the future by looking back into the rear-view mirror."

Our schools are not designed, equipped or resourced to deal with the following 1989 facts of Ontario life:

Only seven per cent of Ontario families now fit the traditional family model. The resulting phenomena of the working mother, the single-parent family, the diversity of family and living styles, the increased mobility – all these social changes have put extraordinary pressure upon teachers, administrators, Boards and curriculum. Schools are now expected to deal with areas far removed from traditional literacy and numeracy. Family issues have been flung to the centre of our political and educational arena.

The first report of the Premier’s Select Committee on Education concluded in December 1988 that our goals of education must be expanded. Equal opportunity, as well as equality of outcome for all children, must be assured. The select committee stressed that schools must "work towards eliminating the systemic barriers that prevent equality of outcome for children from many disadvantaged groups:’

The powerful influence of the communications and entertainment media. Society is greatly influenced and shaped by various types of mass media. Television, for example, broadcasts programs specifically for audiences who they presume are distractible. Attention spans are shorter. Consider commercials. Originally, they were a minute. Then they were divided into 30-second bits. Currently, some ads are down to 15 seconds. We have had 20 years of children raised on Sesame Street. An entire generation has been conditioned to learn in short, easily digested capsules of information. This has had a profound impact on our classrooms. Few teachers can provide a classroom experience comparable to a TV sitcom. Nor can students change teachers or subjects with the flick of the remote control.

Day-care is a fact of life with some very startling consequences. These consequences will increasingly impact on the success of our schools. Consider: If most mothers are working (and in Ontario, 67 per cent of those with children under five are working) then their children must be cared for. The quality of the care directly impacts upon the child’s readiness to learn.

We may be risking a large proportion of this generation of young children, those entering schools from inadequate or impoverished backgrounds compounded by the lack of suitable day-care. These children are at a severe disadvantage even before they start school. These high-risk children are another example of the "viciouscircle syndrome".

It makes sense that a secure and stimulating child-care program available to all children, regardless of their economic background, would have a beneficial effect on every child’s ability to learn and benefit from school. No matter what your own philosophy or experience about family life or child care may be, it is imperative that we collectively recognize that even with the best of intentions, today’s family by itself cannot always respond to the increasingly complex demands of society. We must be careful that our publicly financed school system does not produce two classes of citizens: those who come from backgrounds which allow them to profit from our educational system and advance to the post-secondary training required by future jobs, and those who are at risk before they even begin – doomed to low pay, low satisfaction jobs or constant unemployment.

A very diverse population now comes to school and stays longer than ever before in our history. An average classroom in 1989 bears little resemblance to what you and I might remember. In a class of 25, you may have one child who is "physically challenged", (the current term for the disabled), three who speak no English, four or five who come from vastly different cultures, and several who have been formally declared "exceptional" – gifted or learning disabled – and thus require specialized programming and support. Such a classroom requires a very comprehensive curriculum for one teacher to deliver. The paper work required of the Ontario teacher and administrator in 1989 would do credit to your legal and accounting departments and we don’t have the benefit of state-of-the-art technical support.

What can we do to address these needs and to make our schools more effective for the diverse populations that they now serve? How can we save employers from the frustration and expense of having to train and retrain their work force? How can we make "that place called school" a far more meaningful experience to those thousands of young people who are currently opting out before graduation? How can we help ensure that the "life-long learning" required for our future well-being becomes a positive rallying point for structural reform?

I believe we start the same way you set about building a world-class company. You don’t do it on out-moded organizational structures. After all, few of our students are really needed in harvest months to bring in the crops today. So we must start by reorganizing – a few schools at a time. To help our schools reflect the social and economic characteristics of the communities they serve, they should operate year-round. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they should incorporate within their programs day-care centres, senior citizen drop-in centres, adult re-education programs, ongoing co-operative partnerships with local businesses, liaisons with unions and industry to ensure they are providing current technology and training skills, opportunities for job-shadowing, apprenticeships, and work experience. Schools should allow teachers, parents and students the option of a full school year divided into threemonth modules. Teachers and administrators wishing to work all four modules would be paid accordingly, thereby having the opportunity to earn wages comparable to those levels paid by private industry. Parents could opt for their children to take two, three or all four of the modules depending upon the student’s needs, interests and abilities. Ongoing work, without conflicting with school hours, could be more readily arranged if the school year and hours were more compatible with local businesses. Learning now and in the future will have to become a life-long process. As technology creates more jobs for people who think for themselves and eliminates jobs that are merely repetitive, people will have to go on learning throughout their working lives. Why not make our schools ongoing centres of learning for the entire community?

Interestingly enough, our current legislation governing secondary education in this province provides this flexibility right now. This kind of approach – if done with the partnership of education and business – will result in far more productive relationships and help reduce the long-term cost of industrial retraining. By assisting schools to provide up-todate training and equipment, industry could help breach that huge gap currently existing between school and work and assist young people in making the transition less difficult.

David Kearns, CEO of Xerox, agrees this approach is critical. Even without the high cost of remedial training, he believes that industry’s training bill will keep growing since we are entering an era of life-long learning merging work and education. Most jobs will be restructured at least once every seven years and by 1990, next year, three out of four jobs will require some education or technical training beyond high school. Currently three out of four major U.S. corporations are already providing basic training. The billions of training dollars spent by corporations yearly could, if we establish partnerships, be shared. We could work together towards mutual goals rather than isolated objectives. A year-round school organization would also provide fresh opportunities and incentives to the new breed of teachers we need to attract to the profession – particularly in those areas of math, science, technology and communication skills which are so intertwined with our future development. We could provide the option of teaching a full year at competitive yearly wages or part thereof, with time to work in business or industry, or run complementary businesses. Skills that would support and enrich teaching specialties could be constantly updated. Such "state-of-the-art" teachers would motivate students far more effectively.

A school with on-site day-care and senior citizen facilities, and an ongoing commitment to adult education and retraining programs could remain open 12 hours or more daily. Such a facility becomes truly the focus of the community. More adults would be on-site to provide supervision, nurturing and mentoring of young people. This mixing of generations is rapidly becoming a dire need in our fast-paced society where both the young and the old are increasingly isolated. Why not provide opportunities for such groups to work together productively in a learning environment?

Why shouldn’t schools be ready to receive children as early as 7 a.m. and keep them until late evening if this will not only ease the burden on working parents, but provide a protective, nurturing one-stop environment? Would it also not lessen parental anxiety, thereby improving employee productivity and reducing absenteeism? It is clear to me that we have the knowledge and ability to do this. We do not yet have the organizational structure simply because we haven’t reached consensus on the present need and long-term benefits of such innovations. Our debate over the changing role of the schools in our future society requires some fundamental attitude changes, not just financial placebos.

Let us now consider the educational agenda.

The nature of teaching too is changing. This is happening in Boards such as my own where the results of years of extensive research into the nature of teaching and learning are taking root. We recognize that children are far more than empty vessels waiting to be filled with facts and figures. It is becoming increasingly clear that when the child is an active participant in his or her own learning, that learning becomes a positive enabling process with results far beyond the mere regurgitation of facts that rarely last. Outstanding teachers always knew this intuitively and provided children with structured, focused experiences that drew out their innate ability to think and problem-solve, compute and make decisions. Years of research now confirm what can be achieved with these techniques.

However, the transition from research to implementation and from implementation to accountability is one of our major educational challenges. We have to do for teachers what we are trying to do for students: instil the idea that learning is a life-long, evolutionary process that builds upon the individual’s own experiences. The goal in Boards such as Peel is to find more effective ways to translate this knowledge into the classroom in low-risk, high-support ways. Peer coaching, or mentoring, is one method being used in Peel. The teacher, or the administrator, in a non-threatening way, builds new experiences onto past knowledge by observing and working with two or three others in a coaching or mentoring model.

Our educational goal must be to work together to help children become masters of their environment. Children who can be creative problem solvers, responding and interacting in positive ways with others, become autonomous life-long learners, able not only to cope with change, but to shape new life experiences. The others risk becoming victims, unable to relate, grow or change, unable to make decisions, isolated and even alienated from the changing environment.

Educators also must recognize the need to bridge the gap between public fears about our apparent lack of accountability and the type of accountability necessary to achieve the independent problem-solvers that our accelerated change and diversity demand. This kind of accountability is beginning to surface now. Provincial testing of reading and math at the Grade 6 level is now being developed for late spring of 89. And I can promise you that in Peel, statements of expected outcomes will be increasingly built into all future curriculum documents and support materials. As in any large business venture successes must be evident to justify expenses. We have several reasons for ensuring this happens. Like you, we want to see the dividends from our investments – dividends in terms of improved student outcomes, higher retention rates among those students who do not see school as valuable and a greater empowerment of teachers as well as students. More emphasis on cross-curricula themes and strategies will demonstrate to students of all ages that education is an integrated whole, not isolated areas artificially compartmentalized into various subject boxes. We have to work at creating teachers of children, rather than teachers of isolated content which has little relevance in a world where our knowledge base doubles every two years.

The processes of learning, the common elements that are integrated among all subject areas, problem-solving, skills that cut across all of life’s challenges, these are the elements we want to evaluate. These are the elements you should be expecting us to be able to account for if we are truly educating for the future rather than for an outdated past.

Join us in these goals. Collaborate with us! Don’t merely confuse what you remember about school and what is easily understood and measured, with the real challenges.

Continue to challenge us. Yes, continue to criticize us. But do it constructively. Do it within the structure of growing societal complexities. Do it with the recognition that the universal pace of change is accelerating beyond our control. Experience gained by study and work no longer lasts a life time. Indeed, it now risks being outdated in less than a generation. In industry today, new materials, new processes, new products may easily invalidate a wealth of technological experience in no time at all. So don’t tell us merely that children cannot spell and then go away. Be prepared to talk to us and with us – not just about us