Ideology Trumps Excellence: The Canadian Government Silences Katimavik

SUMMARY
Katimavik, the leading program for youth volunteers in Canada, is being discontinued by its Conservative government. The educational and social value of such programs is discussed and a call for help is made.

Katimavik and Citizenship

Sometimes, as educators, we are at pains to articulate the civic value of what we do. Almost every institutional "mission statement" I have ever researched or helped create included a reference to inculcating civic responsibility or citizenship in students.

In Canada this has often been a major plank of government policy, so it would at first appear incomprehensible that our current Conservative government has suddenly ended funding to Katimavik, this country's leading program for youth volunteers.

However, this was originally a Liberal initiative begun 35 years ago by the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The Conservatives tried once to kill the program. For them, such social action interferes with the market place. Once again, ideology threatens to trump excellence.

All the students originally accepted for this July's cohort, and who may have suspended their university acceptance because of it, have now been told that Katimavik is finished. The communities who counted on the volunteers will be out in the cold.

Katimavik's Mission and Our Schools
In diverse settings, from native communities to the urban poor, the program bred bold leaders, change agents, and inquiring minds. Read Katimavik's mission and objectives and consider how they should be part of every school district's purpose:

Our mission

• Engage youth in volunteer service and foster sustainable communities through challenging national youth learning programs.

Our objectives

• To positively impact youth through Katimavik’s competency-based program that focuses on personal, social and professional development.

• To positively impact communities through Katimavik’s program of volunteer service.

• To positively impact Canada by exposing Canadian youth to the regional and cultural diversity of the country and its two official languages through Katimavik’s program model.

As a teacher, I had several students over the years who served with Katimavik. They would leave as callow youths, only to return as engaged and mature leaders. The program was tough, challenging, and far from home. But these young adults made a major difference and that's the point: Katimavik not only benefitted the youth participating but also Canadians in need throughout the country. As the program's officials state:

For the past 35 years, Katimavik has helped shape a civically responsible Canada by harnessing the power of our young volunteers to help those in need in communities across Canada. In that time, over 30, 000 Canadian youth have made a difference in communities from coast-to-coast-to-coast. They participated in our program gaining valuable work, life and leadership skills all the while fostering community development and civic engagement. Their parents had peace of mind knowing that their sons and daughters were participating in a structured, time-tested program, while they navigated the transition from emerging adulthood to adulthood.

We Can Help
As teachers and parents, we need to support our children as life-long learners and good citizens. If you agree and would like to help save Katimavik, go to the website and find the advocacy kit. Contact your local Canadian Member of Parliament with your protest. If you reside in another country, register your dismay and share your country's version of Katimavik with the Minister of Canadian Heritage James Moore.

Education is for life. Developing a strong civic conscience early in life should be one of a country's priorities. When a country's youth is denied a recognized opportunity to contribute to those in need, all citizens should be concerned.

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Learning Commons Episode 7: Going to the Wall with Daily Inquiry

SUMMARY: School libraries need to encourage a continuous climate of inquiry. Ways to create dynamic spaces for inquiry are explored. Practical and creative suggestions to promote the inquiry process are offered, with a caveat.


The Basic Idea

Three weeks ago on this blog, my daughter Alice wrote of her experience at Waterloo University, where high school students collaborated on mathematical questions and problems, using gathering places with walls and boards to record their ongoing inquiry. Common in university settings, the idea could have innovative application in 21st century schools.

Template for Inquiry Wall 1

In particular, teacher-librarians could harness this idea in our elementary and secondary school libraries by creating special areas for ad hoc inquiry. Here students could work together over a day, a week, a month etc. on a question we pose to them or better still they pose to each other. This is often formerly done with a captive class. However, the idea here is to establish a place that encourages a continuous climate of spontaneous inquiry to develop self-motivated, reflective habits of mind. In other words, when students decide they have a question, they go to this area to collaboratively inquire about it.

Such areas begin the transformation towards the whole library as a learning commons.

Creating the Space

How do you start? Wherever you can within your library, create a learning commons/inquiry space that balances private work and public access. Sign it well. Make it inviting, beautiful, and functional, with a relaxed atmosphere to encourage social networking.

Centre it around blackboards, bulletin boards, flip charts, or white boards. Arrange chairs and other furniture to establish the space. You can create a virtual space, of course, on a school network through chat, wiki etc. but the visual display of simultaneous information sharing is optimum here. It captures the palpable excitement of real-time learning.

Template for Inquiry Wall 2

There are myriad ways to set up the writing and recording surfaces, depending on the question and grade level. Be sure to provide paper, stickies, coloured pens, and even cameras to record stages of thinking and sharing.

The recording of ideas, research data, conclusions, etc. can be done simply or you can get fancy. For instance, you could begin with an open-ended template (Slide 1). You could experiment with stickies -- even using different colours for questions, data, conclusions etc (Slide 2).

See if you can work towards implementing your library's inquiry model. Slide 3 is based on work done by the Ontario Library Association. (see my March blogs for details). Get staff and students involved in the enterprise by making their own templates for different situations.

Insist on rules that both preserve and respect everyone's contribution. Nearby, display some words of guidance or witty quotations about what makes for good conversation and problem solving. Set appropriate limits regarding language and graphics to focus on learning and meaningful talk.

Template for Inquiry Wall 3

Promoting the Idea

Whenever students, individually or as a class, come into the library, invite them to visit the inquiry/commons area and engage in the process. Make announcements each day/week etc. on the sound system, newsletters, or teacher notes about the question currently being posed, collaborations noted, and progress being made.

Celebrate answers and solutions reached with the whole school and follow up the inquiry with real action where appropriate. Inquiry counts!

Hold inquiry marathons for particular groups, timed for energy and fun. Perhaps invite an audience.

Organize part of a class visit around the inquiry area to get a larger project going. Whenever a small group asks a "library" question, take them over to the inquiry area and work through it on paper, modelling the process of inquiry for them.

Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate

Work with subject teachers, school club members, administrative teams, and parents to generate interesting and authentic questions for each inquiry. Share the process and your particular applications of it with local school librarians, administrators, and board personnel.

Write me a comment on this blog or better still tell us all about it on our library network at http://lcommons.org/. For more details and context about this network, please go to my blog post here.

Caveat

Inquiry is at the heart of the idea of the library as a learning commons. The heart pumps -- continually, loudly, and dynamically. Be prepared for active learning and enjoy new life in your collaborative learning space!

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Activity-Based Strategies

Many teachers are committed to experiential learning as the most effective way to engage students. Such learning has a long and noble tradition, from Buddha to Comenius, from Rousseau to Dewey. Recently, some educators are concentrating on technology as the ultimate experiential model, arguing that it provides game-changing opportunities for hands-on learning. Others fear that emphasis on digital learning is all too often "out-of-the-body." I will address ICT-based learning strategies in a later blog; however, in the meantime, let us not forget more traditional approaches that raise the bar – and often the noise level – in our classrooms and school libraries!

Today’s blog adds some of my favorite traditional “activity-based” teaching, learning, or instructional strategies to the evolving list on Page 1. One could debate (an activity-based strategy!) that properly conducted, all strategies – from ICT-based to arts-based – are experiential, especially if there is demonstrable change that is actually experienced by the learner. Again, let the debate continue as long as we help our students strongly answer the question they still get at home: “What did you do in school today.”

Notice that Page 1’s header now identifies other categories of strategies that I will add and discuss in the coming weeks.

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