iaink

$55 for a series of lessons that might save a kids life. If you can afford cable TV, you can afford lessons.


In fact, our local CRA offers free "Swim to survive" lessons for kids age 7 and up.
http://www.cfcommunitygateway.com/en...0Survive_e.asp

dbd33

My daughter taught swimming lessons through the last couple of years of high school and all through university, she worked for some private clubs but mainly for the city; the city lessons were free to the students. Use of the pools is free too so, here at least, any child has access to swimming lessons.

TrishP

Amazes me too - I've just had a university student with me on placement for 6 weeks and she wasn't even sure what a screwdriver looked like!!!! Very theoretical and great at research (McMaster U course is problem-based learning approach) but absolutely no common sense!!

Steve_P

Common sense is rapidly becoming an extremely rare commodity in today's world.

The cause who knows?

Perhaps it's parents doing everything for their kids and not allowing them to think for themselves.

hot wasabi peas

Wouldn't it depend on the glass?

TrishP

I definitely got that feeling with this individual, bit of a daddy's girl I think, has had everything done for her in the first 25 years of life, still living at home ... you get the picture! Only thing is I worry about the future of the profession as I work in a very practical problem-solving sort of therapy position.

suebed

With 5 months experience of Canadian schooling under our belts, my kids and I would all say their schools in Kent were better. My older 2 went to a great grammar school there and they find the work here unchallenging and boring. They have a semester system in high schools here so kids only take 8 subjects a year - they used to have 12/13 in England so they miss the variety and breadth. They don't miss the pressure of SATS, GCSEs etc.

Teachers aren't bound by a national curriculum in Canada so they can be more creative with their teaching if they choose to be but some of them just follow a text book and a plodding pace. (I've been volunteering in a high school so I've seen this first hand). The kids are generally polite and well behaved. My children can't get over how casually so many kids skip classes.

My younger child is in Grade 1. I can't see she's making any progress with anything yet. Everything is very low key and casual with no SATS levels etc to meet. The school she went to in the UK used to be really great with art & music but the resources in the school here seem very limited and the stuff she brings home from school goes straight in the bin whereas I still have amazing artwork she did last year hanging up.

The computers at schools here are ancient and there isn't as much emphasis on ICT. All my kids still have blackboards in their classrooms - no whiteboards never mind interactive ones. There seem to be more field trips here.

I'm in Ontario BTW.

AnyaT

LOL

Piff Poff

What happens if you can't afford cable then? Speaking from experience $50 (although it was pounds when I was struggling) can seem so impossible that it's would be just out of the question to even think of trying to raise that sort of money. I do like the idea of the swim to survive - not something I have seen advertised here in Red Deer, could be because I don't need that facility though I think swimming is important and should be taught in the 1st years of school - only because that is when kids are more vulnerable with the dangers of water. But this is only my views, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that think learning to ice skate is more important than swimming.

iaink

Then you get in the shallow end and do it yourself obviously. Jees, why expect a handout? This is part of north america after all, not the welfare state. The lack of swimming lessons is the least of your problems if you are short of income here.

If you cant afford to go to the pool, beg some time in a neighbours for free. In fact the YMCA here organises summer lessons in neighbourhood private pools. I dont know what the cost is though, as presuamably they need to cover liability insurance.


Skating lessons are far more expensive than swiming in my experience.

Biiiiink

Wasn't there a study recently that showed early swimming lessons gave parents a false sense of security with their kids around water, and did nothing to stop drowning vs kids who hadn't had lessons?

Not saying swimming's not important, just questioning how important it is in comparison with good adult supervision.

iaink

Probably. We are still paranoid enough to insist on life jackets in a real world non pool environment.

Gezza

I have noticed U.K. primary schools seem to have put a complete ban on the use of pre - 2000 writing in their reading practice. The only place you can find reading practice books from before 2000 in Oxfam. So what? - you say. Well, perhaps nothing, if it did not apply also to materials in bookshops and common access libraries. What I do notice in the "new reading" is the complete absence of any themes about family, love, national identity, heroism, sacrifice, kindness, charity, Christmas etc. etc. Anything good and edifying is clearly no suitable any more. All books that had ever been written to train our children into the so called Christian morality have either been removed or, like Mr. Man's series heavily modified.
Now serving only one purpose: reading written text.If only!.
I am somewhat alarmed by this since my daughter (8) who to a RC school (!) has recently started complaining about not being able to sleep. Nothing really. I then checked on what her school readings were about. I was quite astonished to find that practically all her reading practice books contained elements of witchcraft, stories of "toys possessed by devils"!, girls going to a forest to cast spells over a bonfire at night.!!
I can probably do nothing about what they keep at the school and can just imagine being told something like: "Thats what children demand these days" but have decided just the same to do my best to filter some if this at my door step. Thank you.

My advise to you is keep a look at what your children bring home to read.

And a question: Have you an opinion about what sort of books children get to read in BC or Canada schools in general?

Piff Poff

OKAYWhat my thing is, is I think that it should be a larger part of the school curriculum in England and North America, to ensure that ALL children have the advantage of learning to swim to a reasonable level. Not all parents will have the inclination to take their children swimming or to pay for swimming lessons so STOP with the sarcasm. I'm not saying people should get handouts for anything - I have always worked - even when I would have been better off on social, I also made sure my child could swim, we never had more cable service than that came free with the telephone, you have made me so cross I am shaking and I am not sure that I will ever post on here again.

dbd33

I know they're sensitive in Ontario. At about age 14, my middle daughter was asked to review "a book recently read". She presented a reasoned critique of American Psycho written in the manner of the book. She got an A but her parents were summoned for a stiff talking to.