Achieving Excellence
- hodginsjustin
- Nov 3, 2017
- 3 min read
For this week's post, we were asked to look over the Ontario Ministry of Education's (OME) Achieving Excellence policy document and define why specifically it matters to us as beginning teachers. To me, I have found that Achieving Excellence is an exceptional document that lets me set my goals to reachable standards while ensuring that the goals themselves are aimed to better the educational climate. For those who may not have read the document, I'll spend the next bit going over the gist of the document and why I find the stressed importance in these areas useful.
(Side note to the readers who haven't had the chance to flip through the document yet - it's accessible at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/excellent.html. Feel free to follow along!)
At the beginning of the document, it is briefly stated why the document came into existence; it is becoming more and more pertinent to set the frameworks for a better educational system in a time where positive growth is abundant, and the generational needs are being shifted. Thus, the frameworks identify four areas that Ontario teachers need to focus on: Achieving Excellence, Ensuring Equity, Promoting Well-Being, and Enhancing Public Confidence. Under the Achieving Excellence category, the document discusses how students need to be prepared towards being twenty-first century citizens, allowing them to individually and independently reach their own potential. I find this section to be incredibly important, as it provides new teachers such as myself a standard to set such that we can build our lessons and organize our classroom towards achieving this goal. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, learning should never stop once a student leaves a classroom, and one of my main goals in teaching is to have my students learn independently. Secondly, Ensuring Equity formally recognizes the diversity that Canada prides itself on and discusses strategies that can and will be implemented to ensure that no student is left at a disadvantage because of their education. Thus, the policy document allows for teachers to refer to and (ideally) access the proper resources to meet the needs of their students, which alleviates the burdens that a beginning teacher (such as myself) may have. As I do not live the lived experiences of different people, it is reassuring to know that the OME is on my side. Third, the emphasis placed on the promotion of student and teacher well-being is an admirable one. No longer should schools serve as disciplinary zones designed to remove any sense of individuality. In my belief, school should be a sandbox where one can grow a positive sense of self and develop social skills so that they can navigate the world with ease. Thus, Achieving Excellence cements this belief by laying out the steps that both the school and the OME can take to take care of mental and physical health, allow students to learn in the ways that best suits them, and ultimately provide safe spaces for youths. Finally, a career is long and difficult when one is faced with constant opposition. Thus, Enhancing Public Confidence seeks to provide a framework wherein the public can safely interact with the publicly-funded educational system, such that all educational partners can work in harmony. Additionally, innovation in the classroom will suffer less and less resistance over time, letting teachers who are beginning to develop their pedagogy to take on new initiatives towards a better learning environment. Achieving Excellence acts as a promise to both student and teachers that the fundamentals to achieve this task are set into place.
To sum, Achieving Excellence matters to me as a beginning teacher because it acts as a promise towards an even better educational system, ripe with opportunities to move forward. I can use the document to centre my practice and refer to it when I feel that there may be areas of improvement. On the Ministry’s end, Achieving Excellence acts as a form of communication for educators and the public that our educational system will not stagnate in an ever-changing time.
Questions
What are some ways that educators can keep track of the progress we have made towards these goals (in a succinct way?)
How can a teacher refer to this document when discussing new strategies with parents and the public without miring them in pedagogical jargon?
Where can the public access the allocation of resources by the OME, so that we can independently assess our systems’ priorities?
