Hey Education System, Stop Teaching my kids to WANT!

It has been a while since my last post and I realize that this blog should have some type of theme to it but it is my thoughts coming at you in the chaotic way they come at me. Enjoy.

This rant has been percolating for a number of years now so I apologize if it gets a bit heated.  I am really frustrated by the incentive programs for kids to participate in fundraising for their various activities.  I understand that all programs cost money to run and that the money has to come from somewhere.  I know that I have kids and I will most likely be buying more than my fair share of over priced chocolates and magazine subscriptions.  I know that signing them up for skating lessons gets me a big book of raffle tickets that I should "sell" to family and friends so they have a chance to win some great prize.  Just charge me the extra $40 on my registration fees and lets call it even, ok?  These are things that I accept by enrolling my kids in "outside of school" activities.  Which are, of course, optional.

Where I get my knickers in a knot is when my kids come home from our government funded mandatory education program (aka public school) all excited because they have a "chance to win" or earn something really cool.  They come home with this:

They are so excited because they can win an iPad, all they need to do is sell 100 magazine subscriptions. The company sponsoring this fundraising activity is QSP. I do not want to comment on who they are or what they do, as I assume they probably provide a great deal of funding to a variety of worthy causes.  However, throwing this flyer into the face of kindergarten or low elementary students is about the most ridiculous thing I can think of.  What do you believe that kid is thinking?  Wow I can get all these cool toys for free!  Great Deal! The fun doesn't stop there QSP also has a "Triple Play" opportunity.  

If you sell certain types of magazines then you will get a "chance to win" an iPad or an Xbox. What, REALLY! Explain to a young child what "chance to win" actually means.  Maybe I am an over protective parent, maybe I am naive, maybe I am over sensitive, or maybe this is the WORST WAY to encourage fundraising among young children.  Every day, all day, children observe the world around them, they take notes, they listen, they learn.  We are constantly in the position of teacher in everything that we do. What are we teaching?

It is nice to see that QSP includes some "Fundraising Safety Tips"

Do Not sell to strangers.
PARENTS: please always supervise your child's sales activities.
We suggest only sales to relative, friends, and co-workers, not door-to-door.

So let me get this fundraising marketing strategy right.

Step1: Get kids all hyped up on prizes.
Step2: Send them home
Step3: Parents exploit relatives & co-workers to buy things they would not normally buy
Step4: Give out colourful junk as prizes
Step5: Everybody wins ????

It is a good thing we don't have to pay sales associates, see we got this plan to get kids to do it for us.

Oh I forgot to tell you what the 3rd part of the triple play was - "Go to QSP.ca send 12 email to family & friends and earn a fun colour changing light-up pen" - THIS IS CALLED SPAM !!!  What are you teaching kids?  We work hard educating our children not to give out personal information like names and email address to websites and now you tell them to give out others' information to get a fricken PEN!

What frustrates me is the support of this by the education system.  The students had a big assembly talking about all the cool stuff they can win and how to get it.  Now I get to spend the next few weeks explaining to our kids that we are not buying magazines, we are not selling magazines and they will not be getting any prizes from this nice shiny flyer.  We even tried recycle these papers immediately when they got home. However, the allure and attractiveness of them caused them to be retrieved from the recycling box so they can look at them.

I understand that schools need money, but can we approach this in a more mature way and stop promising young children colourful prizes if they (read their parents) go out and peddle someone else's wares!

Here are examples of what I believe are more responsible fundraising activities that I would expect to see from schools:

1. Older students can help clean up community or private properties.  In the fall there is tremendous amounts of yard work that can be done.  You know what the incentive are?  Doing a good job, pride in workmanship, working as a team.
2. Younger students put on specific fundraising concerts for parents / grandparents.  Incentives for students are making people smile.  I can guarantee I would buy a $10 ticket to watch my child perform before I would buy a garbage magazine so they can get a key chain monkey.  

Explain to families that these things are done in place of other activities and I am sure you will find buy in. If others have ideas please put them in comments.  We have to get past these material incentives for children to encourage material spending on magazines that would never have been purchased otherwise.  The education system should be teaching children the skills they need to be successful and happy in the world. If teaching that materialism is the only way to fundraise for school activities then we have gone so far down the wrong path I am not sure the right one is even in sight.

I expect more from my education system!

A Taste of a Casino-LESS Woolwich

This evening my family and I attended "A Taste of Woolwich" at Breslau Mennonite Church.  It was a great evening celebrating all the local food and local food initiatives that come from the Township of Woolwich.  the event made me feel proud to be a member of this community.  All the people were very friendly and very proud of the products that they produced.

The evening started at 5:00pm, we arrived a little after 6:00pm where the kids had a chance to make Friendship bracelets with representatives from the 4-H club.  After that we attended a very informative seminar on getting your children, no matter what age, involved in food preparation.  Children need to be taught about where food comes from and to respect those that produce our food.  The speaker discussed activities that children could be involved in from the age of 3 all the way up to 12+ years old.  There is opportunity for learning about food as well as supporting ideas presented in school (two quarter cups equals on half cup).

Next we toured around the food vendors in the gymnasium.  The first vendor gave us samples of tortilla chips and talked about Bailey's Local Foods, which happens to be local food buying club that we are already members.  There were a variety of other vendors selling fresh meats, cheeses preserves and many other wonderful products all produced locally.

After we purchased a few things including a nice wedge of Dutch gouda cheese we went to a kids activity area where the kids made flower pots from used tin cans.  They decorated the cans and planted pansies in them.  They had a great time with the volunteers in the room who were extremely friendly and very helpful and patient I might add.  After they were done their flower pots they had a chance to look at an interesting map that explained how far certain fruits need to travel to get to our plate.  They talked about pineapples, kiwis, strawberries, oranges, grapes and bananas.  They learned that kiwi was the fruit that travelled the longest distance, all the way from New Zealand.

This event appealed to my wife and I because of the power and significant impact that food has on our lives. We need to continue to make decisions both in our own lives and in our governments decisions that support sustainable food development.  We have to take responsibility for our lives and the way we choose to live.  Continuing to push out urban sprawl and eliminating our farm land puts us at significant risk of severely inhibiting the thriving local food markets that exist in Woolwich.  Cities need farmers and farmers need cities.  Urban and rural need to work together for sustainability.  A lesson which I hope we don't learn too late.

The last point in that I would like to make is to my township's elected officials.  This event further emphasized the ridiculousness of your decision to move forward with a casino in Woolwich.  The idea is so extremely counter to the culture in which we live here in this township that I wonder what virtual reality you live in that you think we need or want a casino.  You have voted for something to be built in this area, something that does not fit and you will probably not even see a dime for it.  OLG doesn't want to be in Woolwich, they want to be in Kitchener or Waterloo and you now have provided them the leverage that they need.  Please don't be a pawn in a high stakes game that you shouldn't even be at the table for.  Go out into your township and celebrate the local food and the local culture don't bring in the glitz and glamour of a big city casino.  We have so much local glamour that your vision of Vegas in Woolwich is laughable. We are a widespread rural farm based township.  Please figure that out soon before you launch this region into a project that your constituents want nothing to do with.

The Difference between Holland and the Netherlands

Here is where I have to admit that, despite a solid Dutch heritage, I know very little about the Netherlands.  I am a second generation immigrant which means my parents were born in Canada but my grandparents were born in the Netherlands. Friends often ask me "What is the difference between Holland and the Netherlands?"  I have never really had a good answer for them until now because I didn't really know the answer myself. I would like to thank CGPGrey for a very informative video.  I know that I learn a lot.

I have always felt that we go about education in a very strange way where we have a teacher that stands in front of a bunch of students and talks to them.  After a certain period of time we take all of those students and then we ask them questions to see how much of the talking they have retained.  Based on the amount of retention we give them a score or grade.  The higher this retention the more "successful" the student is.

I like CGP Grey's videos as they approach education with visuals and other academic tools to try and improve retention. Being on youtube also allows you to watch the same thing over and over at your own pace.

He has a bunch more informative videos including How to Become Pope and The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England.