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The real value of education
In his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College, Ohio, David Foster Wallace stated, “It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: ‘This is water. This is water.’ It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now. I wish you way more than luck.” Wallace was an award-winning American novelist, short story writer, essayist and professor at Pomona College, California.
Ontario to double cost of a teaching degree
Ontario’s Education Minister Liz Sandals announced June 5 that the provincial government will cut in half (from 9,000 to 4,500) the number of students admitted to that province’s teachers’ college and will extend the time to obtain a teaching degree from two to four semesters by 2015. The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario isn’t impressed, arguing that “Increasing the required time for a teaching degree from one year to two will double the cost for students wishing to become teachers in Ontario.” Alastair Woods, federation chair, said the cost of pursuing a BEd at the University of Toronto would increase from $7,805 to $15,610; the increase does not account for tuition fee increases scheduled to occur between 2013 and 2015.
