Saturday, November 09, 2002

Time for another school-related rant: I am doing my BA(H) in English Studies, but I am also in a program called OTT (Orientation to Teaching). OTT is unique to my university; in essence, if I take three specific courses and maintain a 70% average on my undergraduate degree, I am guaranteed to be accepted into the Faculty of Education at Nipissing for the year following my graduation. I've taken two of the three courses already (the non credit practicum course and Developmental Psychology for Educators) and am currently enrolled in Sociology of Education.

I. HATE. IT.

More than I've ever hated anything before. More than I hated the grade eleven co-op class I took when I was in grade thirteen. More than I hated Psych last year, and it was at 8:30 a.m. twice a week, so I had a pretty healthy amount of hate for it. Sociology makes me want to poke out my eyeballs. Not because it makes me suicidal, or depressed, but because poking out my eyeballs would be something different, a change of pace, something to prove that I am still, in fact, alive. I don't think that it is even sociology in general that I hate, but sociology of Education in specific: the class often seems to be little more than a forum for my professor to spew anti-government rhetoric aimed at ensuring that the next generation of educators has the proper amount of disrespect for the provincial government that structures education. More than that, much of this is very specifically targeted towards Mike Harris' Conservative government, which has been in power in Ontario since 1995.* Now, I am not a fan of the Tories persay--my mom's a nurse, and they butchered health care; I'm also a product of the education system, which has certainly felt the pinch of the "Common Sense Revolution"--but I'm smart enough to know that a university class is not the place to air one's views about the current political system. The class is called Sociology of Education, not Problems I Have With the Tories and How They've FUBARed Education In Ontario. In essence, I've paid $800+ to be bombarded by anti-Tory, pro-union rhetoric for a year.

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