(0:00 - 1:07) There is no question that our educational system is in serious trouble. And while many of you are aware of the woke ideologies pervading our university campuses, the problems are starting much earlier than that. In our public school systems across Canada, and also in our separate systems in the provinces of Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan, teachers are not allowed maintain discipline in their classrooms, not allowed to fail students even if they do no work whatsoever, and lack the proper resources to teach effectively.   In addition, children with behavioural problems or learning disabilities who used to have their own classrooms are now integrated into regular classrooms, forcing teachers to lower teaching standards and thus robbing most of our kids of the opportunity to be challenged, to not only learn, but to learn how to think. But it gets worse. Our schools have become indoctrination centres for woke ideology.   (1:08 - 1:30) For DEI, critical race theory and the trans agenda, and debate on or rendering objections to these ideologies is now politically incorrect. Teachers lose their jobs for objecting, and students in our country have even been expelled for questioning those agendas. The news, however, is not all bad.   (1:31 - 3:27) In response to the degradation of education in Canada, many conservatives are now running for school board trustee. And when our boards consist of a majority of those people, we can expect our educational system to improve. One of these conservatives is Dr. Joanny Liu, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Dr. Joanny was born and grew up in Canada.   She is as Canadian as I am, but also has the advantage of having been raised by immigrant parents, so she understands the challenges they faced. She spent over 20 years working as an engineer in the Alberta oil patch, and then another two decades as a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. She's also been very active in recent years in the fight for our charter rights and freedoms.   Since this spring, Dr. Joanny has been knocking on doors in Calgary as part of her campaign running for public school trustee in Wards 3 and 4. She estimates she has now spoken to over 1,000 people. She joined me in the studio recently to share with us what she's hearing from constituents and parents and to reveal that the vast majority of people she speaks with are not just extremely concerned with the state of our educational system, but believe that it is fundamentally broken and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.   Dr. Joanny, thanks so much for taking your time today for this interview. I'm very happy to be here. And you're in the midst of attempting a very good career change.   We've got an election coming up here in Calgary. You're running for public school board trustee. You've been out talking to people, and I'm very interested in what they've been saying about their concerns about our educational system.   (3:28 - 4:15) My goodness, I've talked to probably about 1,000 people by now, and the stories that I've been hearing have been horrifying. And it's not even just about what's happening with their kids. It's also what's happening to teachers, what's happening in the classroom.   And it's very disturbing. But I was especially astounded because, you know, I figured that our education system was failing us, but I had no idea about just how bad it is. And just how bad it is, is that many of our kids are actually graduating without being able to read, write, and do basic math.   (4:15 - 5:04) Yes. And this is something I know about. As you're aware, I've been married to a teacher for 28 years in the Catholic system.   And a big part of the problem is they're not allowed to anymore. So basically you've got, you have kids who are literally doing nothing and getting a passing grade. Yes.   I mean, that's true. A big part of the problem is the teaching methodology that's being used. So the word for that is pedagogy.   And they've been using these experimental methods, such as whole word reading and common core math. So that's what it's called. Because even some of my volunteers are young enough to know what methodologies have been used.   (5:05 - 7:17) And so with common core math, for example, it's come up with very complicated ways of doing things, of doing basic math that make absolutely no sense to parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, you know, people like myself who were educated a certain way that actually worked. So, so the kids are finding it very difficult and so are the parents. So if the kids and the parents are both finding it difficult, then why do we continue with this methodology? And it's the same thing with reading.   Because I didn't really understand what it was until I was speaking with parents and grandparents whose children are struggling with reading. And, and as a result, the kids don't like reading. And it's the same thing for math, because it's so difficult.   But I guess one grandparent described it to me as the kids get a list of words that they have to memorize. It may not be that simple. I don't know for sure, because I don't have any kids in the system right now.   However, there is some, it's something that contradicts, uh, contradicting that because they feel that memorizing is, is a bad thing or it's not worth doing. And yet, I mean, if they're really giving... The kids do or the teachers do? Uh, what do you mean? Well, when they say that they don't feel like there's any point in memorizing, that's a bad thing. Well, this has been a philosophy or a way of thinking for the last, I'd say, at least 20 years.   People have discounted memorization because they say it's not thinking. But, but what is learning all about really? I mean, you do have to remember some things, uh, multiplication tables, for example. We used to memorize them, but you also knew what it meant.   (7:17 - 7:45) You know, two times two means two groups of two things. So you have four. So memorizing your, your basic math, two plus one is equal to three, you know, this sort of thing means that you can just know these things right off the bat.   You don't even have to think about it. Okay. And that's okay that you don't always have to think about these things.   (7:45 - 9:56) I have friends who've told me that their kids, um, started before they started school. So they're, you know, five or six years old and they're already really good at math. And then when they get into school, they actually regress.   They regress. I had one, uh, family who told me that their, her grandchild was really good at fractions and, and when she was talking to her grandchild later on, all of a sudden, like, no, grandma, that's not the way we do it. And all of a sudden, he doesn't know how to do fractions because that's the way they're teaching it.   I mean, it's so ridiculous. I'm not even sure teachers are comfortable with this because I think teachers really want to see their students succeed. And if their students aren't succeeding, I can't think of them feeling good about themselves.   If, if a child is actually not, uh, able to, uh, succeed in all the tests that they give, how can they possibly feel good if the kid is failing all the way through and then passing them into the next grade? Whenever I meet somebody at the door who, who has very, very young children, so babies and that sort of thing, I warn them. I tell them that, do you realize that Alberta has a no-fail policy? And, and they may say yes, they may say no. And I tell them, make sure that in kindergarten and grade one, that your child is getting the basics because by the end of grade one, they're going to pass them on to grade two and so on and so on and so on.   They're never going to catch up. They're never ever going to catch up. Yes.   (9:57 - 10:13) And that's why we end up with kids who can't read, write and do basic math when they graduate. Now, I've actually spoken to some of these young people and they know they've been short-changed, but too late. Yes.   (10:13 - 11:04) Now, for a lot of parents, they're spending the extra money going to Kumon, getting tutoring because they're aware of what's happening, but they're very, very disappointed. They're disappointed with the lack of discipline, the lack of work ethic. And I hear this from Canadians as well as nationalized Canadians, you know, immigrants.   Immigrants especially are very disappointed because in my parents' time, and I'm talking about the late 1950s, I mean, they came to Canada for a better education, a better future for their kids. And now people are saying that this isn't happening. This is not what they expected.   (11:05 - 12:21) Before we move on to the immigrants, and I do want to talk about that, there's a couple of things you said in the last few minutes that I want to dig deeper into. The first one is, yes, this lack of emphasis on memorization. You know, you and I probably went to school around about the same time and we were expected to memorize things.   And while I would agree as somebody who has spent some time myself studying memory techniques, that rote memorization is a terrible way to memorize things. It's absolutely the worst way to do it. There are many other ways to do it.   And one of the reasons why I focused on doing this and teaching myself how to memorize things much more easily is because we need that information, that data in our heads in order to make sense of something new that comes at us. If we have no foundation, no foundation of knowledge or data to work with, and we get hit with something new, we have no foundation in which to judge the validity or the veracity of it, to think critically about it in any way. And so I think that's a major problem that we've got these kids.   And I saw my kids go through it too. You know, our youngest finished high school would have been about five years ago now. And yeah, I watched my kids go through an educational system that wasn't asking them really to memorize anything.   (12:21 - 12:43) Yeah, yeah. And so you start trying to have a critical discussion with your children about something that's happening in society and they don't have any facts to work with. That's right.   That's right. I mean, memory is very important because you mentioned critical thinking. I mean, at the door, people have talked about critical thinking.   (12:45 - 13:16) However, what really is critical thinking? You do need to have facts. You do need to be able to weigh pros and cons because you have these facts. How can you make a good decision if you don't remember anything? I would say that critical thinking, it absolutely requires you have a certain amount of knowledge because that is the standard by which you can look at something new and ask yourself, does this make sense within the context of what I know? Yeah.   (13:16 - 14:05) You don't know anything. You're kind of out of luck. Yeah.   Yeah. So it's, it's ironic. And like I said, I'm not, I'm not really sure teachers are that happy if they really think that they're being successful in guiding students to actually know something.   And my gosh. Yeah. I think I can, I can shed some light on that having been married to a teacher for 28 years and one who has been extremely concerned.   As you know, my own wife is running for Catholic board trustee. And she's, there's a spectrum. There are teachers like her who are doing their best to actually give the kids an education who understand that you need to learn something, actually come away from here with some knowledge and you need to learn how to ask questions.   (14:05 - 14:21) And then you do have on the other end of the spectrum, teachers who are completely fine with woke ideology, with the no fail policy, with la la la, you know, I just fill in my time in the classroom and I pat the children on the head and say, good boy, good girl for being here. You know, here's your gold star for participation. Yeah.   (14:21 - 15:04) And they're fine with that. Yeah. And they're fine with that.   I know it's really odd. The thing about memorizing, however it may be, is that it's a work ethic. You know, it does build your brain.   It's, but it does teach a child work ethic, not to give up, you know, persistence, to keep going at it. So from a personality point of view, from a maturity point of view, I mean, school is about work. It's not play.   It's funny because some people have told me, yeah, it's just daycare. It's just babysitting. Well, it is the way it is now.   (15:04 - 16:27) Yeah. It's supposed to be teaching them a work ethic so they can participate in the workforce. Exactly.   So just this past week, I was talking to a parent. She's got five kids and her young daughter has just been passed over for a promotion because she doesn't have enough math. She's a very young person.   She's still in her twenties. So what's her future going to be like? You know, what is her future going to be like? Because she lacks these skills and it's not without trying. She's gone to other people to learn, but they seem to be teaching the same methodology.   So yeah, it's very frustrating, but the people are going to Kumon and getting tutoring. They're learning the way we used to be taught. So shouldn't our education dollars be about teaching with the right methods and making sure that our kids do get a good education that they deserve? I believe that the social experiment is over because we do have time-tested, research-backed methods that have worked for hundreds, if not thousands of years.   (16:29 - 18:40) And I've been recently asking myself, is education industry the only one that throws the baby out with the bathwater? Yes. And that brings us back to the issue of the self-esteem. And this is something I've always had a problem with.   When I first got married to my wife, who was a teacher at the time, and she came home and told me, she's not allowed to fail the children. And that was the case 28 years ago that she wasn't allowed to give them an F. Now back then they were at least required to fill in the assignment to do something. Now it's reached the point where they can literally do nothing and they still get a passing grade.   But what really bothered me about that was, the idea behind it was that we had to protect little Johnny's self-esteem by not allowing him to fail. But that's not where self-esteem comes from. One of the lessons I taught my own children is where do we get self-confidence? And where it comes from is setting goals for ourselves and achieving them.   Now there's a trick to it, and this is something I taught my kids. You can't set the bar too high because then you're certain to fail and you will lose self-esteem. But neither can you set the bar too low to something you know you can do, because you will gain no self-esteem from doing that.   And where our bar is right now in our schools is down there. You can't go any lower. So how in the world is this going to help them build any self-esteem when they are required to do nothing? Yeah.   Well, you know, I've also had opportunity to talk to employers and co-workers of these young people at the door. And, you know, at first they're a bit hesitant to say anything because they're really not sure why they've observed certain things. But they do see that they're young hires.   They can't spell. They don't know how to do grammar or punctuation properly. Supposedly they've been told that, well, you can rely on the word processor to come up with the correct spelling and all that.   (18:41 - 19:33) But they also notice that they're using the wrong words, right? And that's because if you don't know, because you're always going to get in the English language because it's so complicated and it comes from many different languages as its root, there's often a lot of words that sound the same but are spelled differently, right? And so if you don't know the difference, then you're going to pick the wrong word every now and then or all the time because you think that's the right word. I had an interesting conversation with an accountant who is a supervisor of several young people. And she noticed that, yeah, writing emails was really bad.   (19:33 - 20:01) So she tried to teach them. She tried to help them, except that she had to give up because they didn't care. They couldn't learn.   And I suspect the reason why they didn't care is because they don't bother reading emails themselves. They just didn't see the point in it. And this is something that very seldom in interviews do I run into something that hits me on a gut level, but that does.   I'm a journalist. I'm a writer. Words convey meaning.   (20:01 - 24:29) If we do not use the right words, we convey the wrong meaning. And that conveyance of meaning, that is the foundation of education. And if you have no education, sorry, not education, of communication.   So if you can't communicate with other people, your society is going to fall apart because that's the only way we can cooperate is if we communicate our ideas with each other. And we are losing that because our kids are being taught, well, it doesn't really matter what word you use, just whatever, because nobody's going to pay any attention to it anyway. But, you know, we still have written contracts.   You know, woe is the day when somebody can't write contracts properly or can't read them properly, how much trouble they would get into. So into the business world, this is one of the things I talk about. I mean, this is why literacy matters.   This is why numeracy matters. I mean, ah, it just boggles the mind why education doesn't think about these things. I mean, and self-esteem, self-esteem comes from working at something, doing your best, achieving it.   And sometimes you won't achieve it, but you know, you've put all your heart and soul into something and you probably learned something from the experience. I mean, that is life. That's life.   And you make a very good point about we still have contracts. I've watched very little television in my life and perhaps I why certain scenes still are in my head because they were very impactful. I have no idea what show I was watching.   This had to be 10, 12 years ago. And the scene was, there was this kid in high school who had just been drafted by the NBA. And his gym teacher comes to him with a clipboard and sticks this paper in front of him and says, you're to sign this.   So this kid scribbled on it and the teacher goes, thank you. Thank you so much. You've just signed over to me every dime you will make as an NBA player.   Now, of course, the teacher was making a point, but you know, it's an extreme example, but we do sign contracts. You buy a house, you just signed a contract. We do this kind of thing in our society all the time and you can't read it.   You're going to become a victim. Yeah, exactly. So I'm really very concerned about these kids.   I'm really concerned about what their future looks like and they're concerned too. They feel duped. They feel failed by the system.   And of course, this is all about creating victimhood too. It doesn't raise your self-esteem when you feel like a victim, like you've missed out. Now, of course, not everything is doom and gloom.   Some parents are perfectly happy. And I suspect, well, and they've told me, yeah, I moved my kid to private. My kid's in charter.   I'm home or I'm homeschooling. So they found other solutions. So as much as people want to keep kids in the public school system, we're very fortunate to have choices in this province because parents would be at wit's end if they didn't.   So it's good that Kumon centers are also around. And I'm not just saying that to advertise for them, but it's because they definitely serve a purpose. I mean, it served a purpose for me, for my own youngest child who was struggling with math and we were quite surprised.   He was already in junior high and I had a friend who had a Kumon center, but I had to beg her to let him come and do work because he was already too old. They, you know, she said, this is for elementary kids. So back in time and I begged her and she allowed him in.   That probably didn't do much for my own son's self-esteem. However, he did really well when he got to high school with math 10. So that was a godsend.   Okay. But yes, I mean, I'm a former professional engineer. I went back to school in 2003 to study Chinese medicine.   (24:30 - 26:30) That was about three and a half years. And when I went back to school, I wasn't sure if I would be able to study the way I used to and things like that. I mean, there are some very simple rules for learning for how to study effectively.   But I was able to do it. I was able to learn and question because I am a questioning person. But, you know, to see my own son struggling the way he was, it was just unacceptable.   And I had no idea at that time what was going on. And I did not want to think that he was a dummy. Now, the interesting thing is that at the door, people are telling me that kids are stupid today, that kids are dummies.   And I'm saying, no, it's not because they're stupid or dummies. It's our educational system that has failed them. I've had one parent tell me, well, several.   My 18-year-old doesn't know what I knew when I was 18 years old. I mean, people do compare. They do know that there is a difference, and it's a huge difference.   So we can't continue on with the status quo. Are you hearing from any parents who, and I'm going to ask this question in a very specific manner, whose children are in the public system, have kids in it right now, who you get the impression are actually paying attention to their kids and who are perfectly happy with the system as it is? I would say, if I can say so, in CBE, there's such a thing as TLC, so traditional learning centers. So I guess that means that they're using traditional ways of teaching.   (26:31 - 26:50) And, and I'm saying, well, why can't this be right across the board? Why are we fiddling around with this other stuff? It doesn't make any sense to me. So parents seem to be very happy with the TLC. But only the parents who have their kids in that, basically what they mean by traditional learning, I mean, is probably the way you and I were taught.   (26:50 - 26:57) Yeah, yeah. Right. So, and I actually had a friend who was in one of these, who taught in one of these schools too.   (26:57 - 27:12) And I think it's very strange that we're not doing this everywhere because that's where the successful methods are. I mean, the metrics, they should be looking at metrics, right? Yes. But I don't think anybody is.   (27:12 - 27:21) Well, that's been thrown out the window too, along with you can't fail them. Yeah. Because they don't want standardized testing that would show that there are some kids that basically haven't learned anything.   (27:21 - 27:51) Yeah, yeah. Now I wanted to, I have some theories about all of that, but first, earlier you had started talking about speaking to immigrants. I think this is very interesting because when you and I were young, you know, I knew immigrants who had come to Canada in some cases specifically so they could send their children to a Canadian school because they would get a better education there than they would back home.   Now, from the few people I've spoken to, it's the other way around. Yes. They come here and they're like, they're not teaching my kids anything.   (27:51 - 29:27) Yeah. Is this what you're hearing? Yeah. I mean, my parents were immigrants and they definitely came here for a better life and a better education for us kids.   And we were all born here in Canada. Now, I really want to point out that my parents didn't speak English very well. There was absolutely no question that public education would provide everything for us.   I mean, I never thought that there would be a problem. I certainly tried to enrich my children's experience, but I never thought that there would ever be a problem. So with us, our experience as children, since my parents couldn't help us and they certainly couldn't afford to hire a tutor, even if they wanted to, we, all three of us went to university, you know, because we had a really good basic public education.   And that's what we should have. And it doesn't matter what profession or vocation a child is going to choose, whether it's trade sort of professions, they still need a good basic education in reading, writing, and basic math. Can you imagine someone in construction who can't do fractions? Well, as a matter of fact, my daughter is a project coordinator for a major construction company.   (29:27 - 30:41) Yes. And to be able to do that job well, she needs to, first of all, be able to communicate extremely clearly. Now, fortunately she's always been very good with language.   And she has to be able, of course, to do math very well, which is something she worked very hard at in school so that she can do that math. Yeah. You're absolutely right.   Without those skills, there would be no way she would have the job she does. Yeah. And she will be promoted because she's a hard worker and she knows her stuff because once you have a good basic education, you can learn, you know how to learn.   Today, our kids do not know how to learn. That is a wonderful point. You're absolutely right.   Because that's the other thing our educational system is supposed to be teaching them is how to learn so they can continue this for the rest of their lives. You have been a lifelong learner. I've been a lifelong learner, even though I didn't, you know, I spent a little bit of time in college, but I mostly am self-taught, but it doesn't matter.   The point is whether you do it in a school or whether you do it on your own, the skills involved in learning are the same and it's really not rocket science. No, it's not. It's not that hard.   And yet we've got this whole generation of kids who haven't got a clue. And this brings me to another concern that I'm certain you have heard about. Right.   (30:41 - 31:36)

1. Oh yes. Yes, I have heard about AI.

  Kids using it to write exams, write essays and yeah, the concern is what are they learning? Again, we're going back to the question or the word learning. They're not. They're just repeating whatever is verbatim that they get.   And AI, we really need to be careful about AI because it's biased. It's so a person who's critically thinking should be doing research and looking at all sides of an issue in order to make a decision about what he agrees with and what he disagrees with, what side he's on, if that's the way it's going to be and what side he disagrees with. So that's what critical thinking is about.   (31:38 - 33:16) And I want to, I want to throw my oar in the water on that one too, because I actually use AI a lot and there are certain things for which it's fantastic. It is, if you use it right, it's a magnificent research tool. You can speed up your research like you would not believe.   But as you say, number one, don't trust it. It's just a computer program. And all it knows is what's it's reading out there on the internet.   And that may not be correct. And if you're using a good tool, I prefer Grok, which is Elon Musk's tool. If you ask it that, it will not only give you a summary of what it found, it will give you links to where it found it.   Okay, follow the links, read them yourself. Does this make sense? Did it interpret this information correctly? Did it perhaps miss something that's important? But this gets back to, one of the things that even when I was young, I don't think they were teaching kids very well now, is how to ask the right question. And this has become, in my opinion, critically important now that we have AI, because even with something like Grok, I can go to Grok and I can say, give me all the scientific arguments for manmade global warming.   And it will happily run off and do that. It will give me a long list. But then I can say, assume that manmade global warming is a false narrative.   Now give me all the scientific arguments against it. And it will do that because Grok, unlike many of them, is not programmed to censor, not actively. Sometimes it does, because it's only reading what's out there.   And you just told it, well, go and get me this information. You never thought to tell it, well, maybe assume that's not correct. And so AI is here to stay.   We can't get rid of it. We can't put that genie back in the bottle. So we should be teaching kids how to ask the question right.   (33:17 - 36:06) Yeah, questions are very important for sure. And it is an art in finding the right questions. And I found over many decades that you can't really ask a good question unless you really know something about the topic.   I mean, an intelligent question. But that's another aspect of critical thinking that we're losing. When I sit down with something like Grok and I have it spit out an answer, the same process happens in my head as I happen when I'm doing an interview, where my guest will say a certain thing and that will trigger a, well, wait a minute though, I'm missing something.   I need more information. But our kids don't do that. They get something spit out at them and they just accept that and it doesn't trigger any new questions, which it should.   Yeah. Which then really points out to, they don't have any facts. They don't know anything.   So one of these immigrants that I met at the door told me a poorly educated population is easy to manipulate. Yes. So I hear some very interesting things at the door and people are very aware of what's going on and they've made their choices to either leave their kid in the public school, but they go and spend their own hard-earned money and to make sure their kids are actually deserved to pass and go on to the next grade or they're completely taking them out altogether.   A couple of parents have told me that, so while some parents are telling me kids aren't getting any homework, there's no work ethic, or if they are getting homework, that there's no deadline. So there's no urgency, but still no work ethic. And they're also saying that they have no idea what's going on in the classroom.   They don't know what's being taught because the kids aren't bringing anything home. Well, it's worse than that though. These days in some of our schools, at least, and my wife was told me about this, the parents, if they want to come into the classroom, they have to request that well in advance.   You can't just come in and observe your kid in their classroom, like a parent could have when I was young. No, no, no. You have to contact the school and talk to the principal and have, you know, I don't know what they have to go through now, but it's.   (36:06 - 40:04) You have to have police checks. I don't know, but it's certainly not a simple thing and it should be. That is their kid's classroom.   Their tax dollars are paying for it. They should have every right to go in there and yes, sit quietly in the back, don't interrupt the class, but sit there and observe what their child is being taught and how they're being taught, but they can't. Yeah.   Interesting. Everything's a big secret. On the other hand, I've had parents tell me there's too much homework.   Now by that, they are saying I have to teach my child how to do something. That's why it's too much homework for them because they're finding they have to be the teacher after school and they're working full-time. I, yeah, just one couple, one woman told me, yeah, we're both full-time workers.   We have full-time jobs and we have to teach our kids at night. Yes. I'm sorry.   My answer to that would be you're a parent. You signed up for that when you had children. You know, I fully expected when my kids went to school that I would spend a certain amount of time with them, helping them with their homework, helping them, not doing it for them, of course, but helping them to understand what they were being expected to do.   And I did, and my wife did. That was just one of the things we signed up for as parents. Well, I think they've had to go much further.   They had to teach their kids. Yeah. And I guess that comes back to what you said at the very beginning of the interview with, say, this, this math program where the whole words thing with the parents don't understand it.   So how can they possibly help their kid? Well, I mean, no, they're going back to the way we were taught. So, you know, the phonics, the sounding out. And with the English language, I mean, I've been admonished by so-called experts, right? And no, no, you know, the English language is so hard.   And so, and I said, yeah, but because the English language is a conglomeration of so many different languages, this is the reason why, yes, you got to use phonics for some of it, but you also need memorization because we have many words that sound alike, but are spelt differently and practice, practice, practice in order to tell the difference, you know? So because then, yes, you have memorized something, you remember it, you don't have to think about it, you know, that's the right word for this particular instance. That's how we learned. And we were successful at it for the most part.   Not everybody was, but most of us were able to do it. So if the majority can learn this way, and why not do it? And yes, there are other ways of teaching kids who don't go with the majority, and that's okay too. So that's why you have your education assistants, for instance, you know, in class.   And yeah, it was, and by talking about education assistants, we should have at least one in every classroom. Parents whose kids have been coded, they were promised, you know, there'll be extra money for you because we're going to have an assistant, but they were telling me, so where is this person? They don't see anything, so where's the money going? Because it's not helping their kid. So I have learned so much from the exercise of door knocking ever since May the 6th.   So talk to at least a thousand people now. Yes. Yes.   (40:04 - 40:31) And you raise a very good point about those assistants. And this is another thing that I've heard about through my wife. When you and I were young, and there's always been kids who are behavior problems or who have learning disabilities.   When we were young, those kids were put in their own class. And this is done for two reasons, both very good ones. One, because they would typically be closer to the same level and the teacher could then teach the entire class at their level, not leaving those kids behind completely lost.   (40:31 - 40:46) Right. But also for the benefit of the kids who did not have learning disabilities, because the teacher is forced to teach to the lowest common denominator in the class. And this is a big part of the reason why our kids are not getting an education, because now those kids are mixed in.   (40:46 - 40:55) Yes. They're in with the other classes. They're causing disruptions.   They've got behavior problems. They've got learning disabilities. And the teacher is expected to teach them.   (40:56 - 41:51) Well, the only way she can do that, or he can do that is to teach to that lowest common denominator, which means all these other kids who have the ability to learn much faster, learn much more, are not learning. Yeah. The brightest kids are bored.   The kids in the middle aren't learning either. And the kids who are causing the disruption are taking up everybody's attention and energy. And it's really hard for the teacher.   And even if there is an education assistant in there, because I've heard of very chaotic and very dangerous scenarios that are happening in class. One of the worst ones was finding out that a young woman miscarried because she was hit or kicked so hard by a grade three student. Tragedy.   (41:51 - 41:54) Yes. It happens. It happens.   (41:54 - 42:23) My wife, now, of course, she was well past her pregnancy years when this happened. This happened a few years ago. And there was, my wife is, you know, Val, she's a tiny woman, she's five foot two.   And this kid in grade six who was taller than her punched her in the arm so hard it bruised her. He did this right in front of the vice principal and nothing was done to that child. Yeah.   Yeah. Nothing. There was no discipline whatsoever.   (42:23 - 43:58) Like why? Why does this have to be like this? Well, because they're, I would say it's because they've become so afraid for their jobs. But if they try to hold a child accountable or discipline a child, it's going to come back on them and they're going to get fired. No, it's just not right.   It's not right. I mean, there should be, we should know the difference between right and wrong. And it's not like if the child is disciplined, we're not even talking about the strap these days.   I mean, that's what it was like when we were growing up, right? Yeah. But now it's completely swung to the other side. We can be right in the center.   I mean, discipline, teaching a child what's right and what's wrong. There's nothing wrong with that. And we cannot reward somebody's bad and ultimately dangerous behavior.   It's unacceptable. So that leads me to what I think is in my mind, one of the most important questions I have for you today, Dr. Joanny. And it's an extension.   I think it started years ago when we started moving kids all into the same classrooms, we started having special classes. And the way I've expressed this is there's this fallacious thinking that goes to the minds of people who are in charge of our educational system, where there's a statement that all children have a right to, an equal right to an education. And that statement gets contracted to all children are equal.   (43:59 - 45:42) Well, no, they're not. They're clearly not. And that I think is a big part of what has led us today to the woke ideology that's going on in our schools, where it's not just all children are equal.   The ones who are clearly the minority, they should get special privileges. So the question is, when you're talking to people, are you getting comments from them about this woke ideology that's in our schools now? Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, specifically, grandparents and parents are saying we should separate those kids out of the classrooms, just like it used to be.   And on that particular subject, I was talking to a teacher. She's, I mean, it's kind of known now that a lot of teachers are quitting after five years. Well, she is going into her sixth year.   So I said, ah, you got over the hump. And she told me several times, I believe in inclusion. And but she did tell me that yes, she has been injured.   Yes, she has been assaulted. And right after she says that she says, but I believe in inclusion. And I said, you know, it hasn't always been like this where you have kids of all levels, learning ability and behavioral ability in a class.   And I saw the light go on. The light bulb came on. Hasn't always been like this.   (45:42 - 50:31) We. And as a school board, we probably have control over that. You know, I think I think we do to an extent.   And in a minute, I'm going to ask you for your ideas on how we fix the system. But first, I'd like to make one more observation. It is easy to lay the blame entirely to the feet of our educational system, but I think it's a broader societal issue.   And where I see that is when I was a kid, a teacher typically didn't, I mean, sure, we still had the strap, at least for the first few grades that I was in school. I don't believe I ever recall receiving it, but then I was kind of a getting two shoes. So if you, if people can believe it when I was younger.   But, you know, what I can recall is the greatest threat a teacher could ever level at a child was, I'm going to tell your father what you did. And that typically was like, okay. Because the last thing they wanted was for their parents to know what they'd done at school, because they were going to be in serious trouble.   But parents don't discipline their children anymore either. And so that's no longer a threat for a lot of them. Yeah.   It's, it's really hard to say what the home environment is like these days. Yeah, it's really hard for me to say, but yes, people have pointed out to me at the door that things aren't the same. That, but also I've had, I guess it usually comes from an immigrant or a recent Canadian.   One young fellow, when I asked him how he felt about the education system in Calgary, he told me that he was from the Middle East and he had been living in many different parts of the Middle East, but his teacher was a former, his mother was a former teacher and she would establish authority in class before the kids were ready to learn. She was the, she established that she was the authority in class. And when that was established, then she would begin teaching.   So she took control of the classroom. And so he, he knows that this isn't happening in our classrooms. It's, he feels that it's all very willy nilly that, and I guess I'm not blaming teachers, but they definitely need to know that people like me are on their side.   I would say what, once again, having been married to a teacher for all those years, what would be the best thing for teachers is to be told that you have the right to discipline children in whatever way we decide. You have the right to fail a child which didn't perform and the board will back you up. Yeah.   I totally agree. Now that brings me, I guess, to kind of our final area of discussion, because you have been door-knocking since the spring. You've talked to about a thousand people you'd estimate.   We sat and we discussed the issues that you're hearing from them, the issues that you and I are seeing having grown up in a very different system. You're running for trustee, which means obviously you have some ideas about how we should fix it. Yeah.   Well, as trustees, we are responsible for making sure that teachers get the right training in order to teach properly. So instead of going back to what is really garbage, we need to go back to our traditional, time-tested, research-backed pedagogy in order to teach reading, writing, and basic math again. I mean, actually, the kids aren't even learning how to write.   So they're printing and they sort of think that they're writing, but it's chicken scratch. So I had this petition, and more than one person told me that, well, kids these days probably wouldn't be able to fill in this form, and they probably wouldn't know how to write their signature. One child did tell me, one teenager did tell me, oh, well, we were taught how to sign our name.   (50:31 - 51:52) Well, I don't know what that really means. So that's definitely one thing. But we really do need to express to the chief superintendent, who is our only employee, about what our expectations are for day-to-day operations, and to put a performance measure on it to make sure that she's actually doing her job.   Because right now, there's no accountability. I don't know what they're using for performance measurements at all. I've gone back four years of minutes and agendas.   I've done a lot of research on this current board, and most of the things that are discussed at these live stream board meetings are, in my mind, pretty trivial. They're not problem solving. Why do you think that is? It could be because most of the members of the board have no experience for being on a board.   (51:52 - 52:04) I mean, to me, a board of trustees is a board of directors. We should be setting the tone. We should be directing the chief superintendent about the things that are important.   (52:05 - 52:50) One parent told me about, well, I've had two parents tell me about bullying that's happening to their child. So one of them is an East Indian person, and so his child is being bullied. The principal didn't want to do anything.   His reasoning was that he didn't want to be, yeah, he just didn't want to be bothered about it. Another parent, Caucasian, was being bullied by a person of color. Principal refused to do anything about that because he didn't want to be seen as racist.   (52:50 - 53:00) Right. But what about right and wrong? Yes. What about the same rules applying to everyone? I don't give a crap what color your skin is.   (53:00 - 54:01) Exactly. Yeah. Right.   Who's the adult? Where are the adults in the room? I guess for myself, and maybe this isn't so much a question as a journalist as it is as a parent of kids who have been through our system, as somebody who, like you, is looking at our system and going, there's no standards. There's no bar here. What I would love to see is a return to standardized testing.   Grade six, grade nine, grade 12, there should be tests for every subject. And I would like to see them not just be nationwide, so one province or jurisdiction could be compared to another in their performance. I'd like to see them be part of an international standards.   So then we can look at Canadian students and say, how are they comparing to, say, Norway or Russia or China or whatever? Well, maybe not China because they'd probably lie about their results, but. Well, there are. There are.   Yeah, for 15 year olds. Yes. But anyway, you know, and we should be looking at those and saying, well, if we're not performing, there's clearly something wrong with our system.   (54:04 - 55:53) Well, yeah, Alberta and Quebec in these international tests for 15 year olds. So it's, I think for math, maybe science, maybe English, I'm not sure, but definitely math. So 2003, we're doing really well.   Alberta and Quebec usually switch first place in Canada. Okay, but Alberta's done pretty good. And we're still top of the heap, but the heap has been downward trending quite a bit ever since 2003.   So our teaching standards, our learning standards have been trending downwards, and it's definitely hurting our kids. And certain people look at these test results and they poo-poo them. Not important, or it's not a real reflection of how our students are doing, but the reflection I'm getting from parents at the door, from other people at the door, is that our educational system is completely failing our children.   Especially, I guess it's because I've spoken to so many people that, and I learn so much more every time I go out. And that recent story about that young woman being passed over for a promotion because she doesn't have enough math skills. I mean, that's going to affect her future.   Even if she's really ambitious, she's not going to get where she wants to go. And especially since I think that the woke ideologies are going to backfire in the workplace because companies are there to make money. Oh yeah.   (55:54 - 56:10) And I think a lot of them, and a lot of them have already ditched their DEI policies because they're finding out it's costing them money. They can't afford to put somebody in a position just because of the color of their skin or their gender or their gender supposed identity or whatever. They need to put people in that job who can do the job.   (56:10 - 56:31) Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, you know, it's not all bad news.   Parents who are aware are doing the very best that they can. Those who have kids who are coded are fighting for children to get education. Now, I guess there are still special needs schools though, or classrooms around.   (56:31 - 56:56) But they don't necessarily work. This is another area where I have some knowledge. Some of the really problem children that my wife had to deal with did eventually end up at the one school in Calgary in the Catholic system that is set up to supposedly deal with children like that.   Without going through a long song and dance, I can tell you it's not working. They're not getting any better of an education. The behavior problems are not getting corrected.   (56:57 - 59:22) These kids are still being pushed to a system without being, of ever being failed for anything, without being ever asked to do anything. And they're coming out with a high school diploma, completely unable to function in our society. Yeah.   Yeah. Okay. Yeah.   So I did meet up with a special needs teacher at the door and she said that, um, we don't really need to focus on literacy and numeracy for these kids. We need to focus on life skills. So that was her, um, her, um, idea about that particular situation.   So like I said, you know, the more people I talk to, the more I learn about the system and the more ideas that people have because nobody's surveying this, the parents, they're certainly not asking the teachers, you know, how they feel things should be done. And I really feel that the teachers should be heard because they are getting hurt out there and they're quitting. I mean, why do we have a teacher shortage? Because we have a lot of dissatisfied people who some of them, their health is also in danger.   I mean, why should teachers be subjected to that sort of thing when nobody else in any industry. Most workplaces have a safe workplace policy. Exactly.   Zero violence, where you should be able to go to work and expect that no one is ever going to lay a hand on you. Except of course for our teachers who are assaulted by students all the time and nobody does anything about it. Yeah.   Yeah. Things are so upside down. And unfortunately, the board doesn't seem to realize that there are problems because they never ask people.   I've learned so much. So I'd like to ask this final question, Dr. Juney. In about six, seven weeks, Calgarians will go to the polls for a local election.   You, of course, have given us a lot of thought of talking to a lot of people. And I'm very much hoping that some of your potential constituents will see this interview. What would you say to those people when they're going to the polls in seven, eight weeks? What questions should be going through their heads when they decide who they're going to elect? Wow, that's a really good question in itself.   (59:24 - 1:04:15) So the question again is what should. What should they be thinking? And like I said, this is a critical thinking question. What should be going through their heads? What I want you to try to do here is to stimulate them to be asking the right questions, not just go into a poll box, check a box.   What should we be thinking about when you choose who you're going to elect? Well, I guess the question that I'm asking at the door is, do you think our kids are getting enough instruction in reading, writing and basic math? Do you think that the Calgary Board of Education is providing the best possible educational programs that it can? Do you think that we can improve things? Do you think, what do you think can be done to improve our educational system? As a parent or a taxpayer, what will you do in order to improve our education system? So does that mean that you would go out and vote for a person who cares really deeply about education? What means a lot to me is not just our educational system, but our kids' mental health. That's a real reason why I'm running, because I care about your child's mental health. And if they are successful, if they learn how to learn, if they learn how to work hard, and whether they fail or achieve a project that they're working on, they're still going to feel good about themselves.   We don't need people who feel like victims all the time, which is exactly what our education system has created. A lot of victims. The stories that I've heard at the door would make you cry, and I'm really feeling it right now myself.   It would make you cry, because our kids are suffering, our teachers are suffering. And why? What for? Why does it have to be like this? Well, it doesn't have to be like this at all. So please vote for me to transform, not to just change, but to transform an education system that is failing all of us, making all of us afraid, frustrated, angry.   An education system is supposed to be there for our kids. It's for them to learn how to learn. It's for them to succeed and be self-sufficient for the rest of their lives.   Isn't that what we want for ourselves and for our children? To be self-sufficient? That's the end goal for me. Dr. Joanny, those are some excellent thoughts. Thank you so much.   I seldom interject my own thoughts at the end of an interview, but having watched my own children go through this, having been a journalist for years now, and reporting what's happening in our country, in this particular case, I'll hope you forgive me if I throw in one last thought. Something else that you should be thinking about, folks, when you go to the polls, whether it's here in Calgary or any of the civic elections that are coming up across Canada in the next couple of years, is to ask yourself whether you have children in the system right now or not, are our kids graduating from our schools, capable of being competent and competitive in our job market, not just here in Canada, but globally? Because if they're not, as Dr. Joanny said, their ability to provide for their own children, to build a good life for themselves, is going to be severely curtailed. You are going to see a lot of new names on those ballots because the system is broken, which means, I would say, voting for the very same people who were voted in four years ago and eight years ago may not be a good idea because, clearly, the system they built isn't working.   Dr. Joanny, thank you. Thank you so much.