Re: "Education still requires facts," Sept. 8.
Let me add my voice to the opinions expressed in this editorial. My first thought was, "Oh Lord, the Year 2000 self-esteem curriculum people are at it again." And perhaps they are, since so many of those consulted were educators.
For heaven's sake, they must think the existing curriculum was designed by Dickens' Mr. Gradgrind. In my 30 years teaching high school, I never overloaded my lessons with facts, and I know of no teachers who ever taught facts in isolation. But facts had to be there for students to express informed opinions.
For example, in a political lesson, for students to role-play the part of a country, they must know some facts about its history. If you teach that Timmins is a mining town, this leads to an entire discussion of the Canadian Shield and geological history. If you write blackboard notes on Vimy Ridge and include it on a test, it's because there's a larger picture there.
In the educational learning hierarchy, knowing facts is placed at the lowest level of a taxonomy. That's because they are used to ascend to the higher levels of learning. So to put on a debate, say, which is at the second highest learning level (synthesis), facts have to be incorporated into the other levels of the ladder.
If you minimize facts in curriculum, you are watering down education, and there's been more than enough of that done already.
Winston Jackson
Victoria
