Canada Calling
by Paul Miller
The Demos delegation to Canada reached Ottwa on Friday for a day trip to the administrative centre of this vast country. Most of our meetings were cancelled as a fair proportion of government employees had been sent home for the week to avoid a repeat of the blackouts. But we did have a great discussion with a couple of officials from the Justice Ministry who were very interested in what they could learn from the model of Networked Learning Communities.
We also ran into an anti-same sex marriage demonstration. Not all Canadians are quite as tolerant or passive as the stereotype suggests.
Paul Paul
But what was striking about this demo was that it had been convened by (and was largely composed of) members of Canada's Korean community. Canada has embraced radical diversity across a number of fronts: this just seemed to be a striking image of the growing political challenge of managing it.
Alistair Davidson
Perhaps a look at the link below will restore your faith in the open mindedness and progressiveness of Canadians. You will also find a world-wide ?networked learning community?, consisting of ten sixth form colleges, one located in Vancouver, with a goal of furthering international understanding, and educating world citizens. Although the goals of this network may seem a little idealistic, it is surely better than that of the NCSL scheme ? ?raising standards in schools? ? would any education strategy be doing otherwise?
http://www.pearsoncollege.ca/
http://www.uwc.org/