I just wrapped up my last test for the term at Langara, which I had to do in a hurry to get to the airport in time for my flight to Baltimore. I am now finished with all my assignments and all my tests. This gives me time to reflect on the experience, as I wait for my flight to Baltimore (where I’ll catch up on my work!).
Truthfully, the term has not always been easy. The transition to repeating year one of college has been tough at times. When the material is introductory, the structures are molded and firm, the answers usually convergent, the lectures often long, and most of the texts not worth the $1-a-page paper they were printed on, the first year of vocational training is likely a little tough for everyone. I am thankful that it was less tough for me, since at least I had already been through it a couple of times before. But it was tough nonetheless.
Langara is not a bad college, and many parts of Langara’s programs are excellent – including many parts of the ECE program. The class sizes are small. All of the teachers (in ECE) are caring and attentive. The library is outstanding. The culture of students is supportive, curious, engaged, fun and wanting to learn. And the Langara ECE program is one of the best examples of a publicly funded early educator and care provider training program that I have seen.
But it is, at its heart, a vocational training program, and that has made the experience a little disappointing for me. I am interested in accessible scholarship – thinking deeply and creating knowledge as a member of a community of learners. Being trained to correctly fill out forms using templates, learning to memorize terms and correct answers, being graded on quantity of parroted responses, these are not my favourite activities.
The program also reflects some values about the status of ECEs, young people and recent immigrants to Canada. For one thing, much of our time is not valued. At the beginning of the program we spent a lot of time standing in lines, a total waste of our time. We are also sometimes asked to do pointless exercises, reflecting almost no standards of excellence. I wrote over 120 typed pages in the final month of the quarter, almost all of which were narrowly defined template cut-and-paste activities. We sit most of the day and are passive for long blocks of time. There are discussions, but the range of what is discussed is incredibly narrow. We sit in class, do lots of busy work, parrot answers back, and learn how to follow procedures correctly. I wonder: Is this is the best screening and training system for cultural workers charged with caring for young children?
There are many pluses to the program as well. Like I said, the teachers are attentive and are also hard working, dedicated to the field and effective at teaching the material they cover. Some of the instructors are world-class, introducing students to complex ideas and interesting theories. The faculty stood up for students, defending the rights of a group of students who faced extreme difficulty in one class outside of the ECE program. And the practicum program is very supportive, very well structured and was for me a highlight of the program so far. These are the reasons why I rank the program as one of the best, even though there is still much I would want to change, from the perspective of a student.
The very best part of the program has been the cohort. “Wow!” is the one word to describe my response to the people I have come in touch with through this program. The diversity in ages, cultures, past experiences, interests, talents and personalities is simply amazing. The cohort functions as community, and many students are working together to create more curious, more scholarly, and more challenging learning spaces. This speaks to the faculty and overall program, who not only selected the cohort, but have allowed and help foster the formation of this learning community.
