LYTLE: Wouldn't you like your kids taught by somebody who had built something useful?

In the early 1990’s many of my friends found themselves bereft of a pay cheque and, at the time I thought, “What a treasure trove of talent for the education establishment! Many of these well-trained scientists would be willing to change careers and share their knowledge and expertise with high school students.”Well-trained scientists make cranky cab drivers but would be a major plus in the classroom. So, when it was my turn to consider a forced career change, I briefly considered becoming a teacher. I was under the misapprehension that with a master’s degree in engineering I would need a year of apprenticing in the classroom. Wrong. I needed to spend two years in an accredited teacher education program. I didn’t have the cash to invest that amount of time in that pursuit, so I dropped the idea.I was reminded of this by a recent thought-provoking article in the Western Standard by John Hilton-O’Brien. He reminded our premier that, in balancing the rights of parents against stakeholders, there are no legitimate stakeholders. I could not agree more and wish that I had the clarity of his thinking. In thinking about his argument, it struck me that maybe there is a two-fer to be had here.His argument is based on the notion there are educational ideologues who would presume to tell parents there is a new way of looking at human rights. Instead of parents representing their children’s rights against The State the brave new world would have The State representing children’s rights against their parents. So why not dilute the power of the ideologues by hiring a bunch of retired or near-to-retired industry scientists and professionals who just want to teach and not indoctrinate or fight over ancient rights? I worked my entire career with such people and have met exactly zero who are ideologues and would want to do more than teach kids why “I am square root of (1 + tan2 C)” is funny in a nerdy sort of way.Do teachers need an advanced degree to impart such knowledge? Most of the teachers who were blessed to stand before me in the halcyon years of the fifties and sixties had a six-month certificate from a Normal School and they did just fine. The basics were imparted and the disciplining of monsters such as me was handled responsibly without resort to schedule 2 narcotics such as Ritalin. No one wanted to destroy the social order of the previous millennia. So maybe the way to end the ideological battles in the public school system is to hire teachers who aren’t ideologues. And the place to get those teachers is from industry. That is my argument. But it is also the argument of the Fraser Institute that provided an interesting paper on the topic.[3]Michael Zwaagstra asks the rhetorical question about the eligibility of a Nobel prize winner in chemistry to teach in an Alberta public school classroom. That person would not be eligible to teach your kids chemistry unless and until they have a teaching certificate. And guess what you need to do to get a teaching certificate? Oh yeah… two years of indoctrination in the disciplines of the educational bureaucracy. According to Mr. Zwaagstra these two years are great places to learn about social justice training and woke propaganda which is vital to the necessary pedagogic skills of today’s complete educator. Think about that. Wouldn’t a skilled scientist be perfectly capable of inflaming the imagination and curiosity of your child while imparting the necessary information to pass the departmental exams without the two years of education training?“Oh but teaching is a sacred profession and such a person would not know the secret arts of John Dewey and other failed pedagogues.”Forgive the sarcasm but that is kind of the point, isn’t it? We don’t want ideologues in the classroom, but we do want skilled enthusiasts who happen to know their subject area. It seems a no brainer to me. Our Minister of Education, Mr. Nicolaides, has been given such a mandate by the premier and perhaps he would appreciate hearing from you. Maybe give him a call. (780 427-5010)