01.21.2005 || 12h31

kids, schools, and same-sex marriages

You know, we tend to miss the details when we live through the changes going on around us. I guess I'm thinking about the school I went to from Grade 3 to Sec III. It was a bilingual school, which was made possible by the fact that Qu�bec's school boards were divided along confessional lines. Catholic schools were mostly French speaking, Protestant ones were English. When they amended the Constitution to allow Qu�bec's schools to be reassigned to linguistic boards, I knew it would start eliminating English schools, and that's what's happened. Another six English schools were on the chopping block last week, though two got a last-minute reprieve.
You see, there's this law in Qu�bec says that if you didn't go to an English school as a kid, then your kids have to go to a French one. Period. No discussion.

Except.

Vision Schools have popped up all over the province, in predominantly (or totally) Francophone areas. 1/3 more class time a week in a predominantly English class environment -- as in, all classes are run in English, save for 3 hours a day of French and Spanish. The way they get away with this is simple: no government money. Private schools are exempt from the law because they're not government run.

The idea is that, for a slightly breathtaking $5000 per year, you can give your child the trilingual education that makes them active members of North America while keeping their French-Canadian identity and culture.

The fact is that in this world, speaking one language means that you're the bitch. Everyone else will have something over you because in the dawning minutes of the 21st century, multilingualism is power; pure and simple. This is a sea change in the philosophies of French Qu�bec, and there's no wonder the government doesn't offer this service -- what with them still being all about protecting the language and alladat pap.

But where the Vision School philosophy excites me is that I truly believe that your kids should go to school in the language you don't speak at home. We absolutely *have* to promote bi-lingualism -- at the very least -- in our kids.

I don't even know why I'm thinking about this. I mean, I don't have any actual plans to have kids.

In other news, it seems that the Prime Minister and the head of the Opposition are at loggerheads again. In what is to me a shocking development, the PM says he's perfectly willing to go to an election in defence of same-sex marriages. Harper said that the Liberals' support for gay weddings can easily morph into support for polygamy. PM Martin, of course, said that was ridiculous. But man, this would be so much easier if the damned Libs weren't ruling from a minority government. The question of a possible election wouldn't even come up...

Gods, I hope this issue doesn't dissolve the government. If that happens, I get the feeling it'll be the Conservatives next, and the new Conservative Party's Goldwater Republicanism based neo-con philosophy is way more terrifying than the Original party's Disraeli-esque conservatism. At least the old PCs were about upholding the public good; the new party's all about individual freedoms and public good be damned. That's what the damnable Calgary School (which incidentally is made up mainly of expat Americans) does to Canadian politics.



||Gods save the Queen,
||cf

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older shite

One last little note... - 09.21.2006

de-stressing, biking and terrorism - 06.06.2006

Mildly stressed... - 05.29.2006

More crime stupidity - 05.28.2006

Scary stuff - 05.25.2006

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