Year: 1994 - 95 AGM December 1, 1994 - SSAAM

Faye Brownlie was keynote speaker at the recent Partners in Change. Beyond Chalk & Talk workshop
in Brandon, May 4th and 5th.
She lists the following as the 5 key points that make the biggest difference in education and learning
(based on 50 years of research):
1. Classroom Management
- active participation of ajl.
2. Metacoqnitive Processes
- thinking about your thinking.
3. Cognitive Processes
- based on what students already know and what needs to be buitt in.
4. Home Environment / Parental Support
- to ensure completion of homework, etc.
5. Student / Teacher Social Interactions
- positive student response to teachers and to each other.
Schools need your help to
By Stephen A. Nelson
"he Brandon Sun
The education system is
working well, and always has
oeen, but that doesn't mean
there isn't room for improvement.
That's the underlying
message from Faye Brownlie,
author and consultant who is in
Brandon this week to talk to
parents and teachers. She says
the question is not "What's
wrong with the school system?"
but "What's right, and what can
we do to make it 'righter'?"
"I think we've got a system
right now that works quite
well," says Brownlie. "But it's
not necessarily meeting the demands
of today."
A former teacher herself,
Brownlie says the schools have
done well in teaching the skills
that were needed yesterday.
Now, she says, we need to work
teach your children well
to develop skills needed to meet
the demands of tomorrow.
So Brownlie has little sympathy
for those who say schools
need to "get back to basics".
"I personally don't feel that
we ever left the basics," she
says. "I think we've always
been doing reading, 'riting and
'rithmetic."
The fact that the 3 Rs are
now been done differently is a
good thing, she insists. The kids
of tomorrow need to know
more, not less. And1 continuing
to do things the same way can
only lead to trouble.
"We wouldn't take our cars
in to be fixed by mechanics who
hadn't done things differently in
20 years. And I don't want my
kids to go to people who think
that everything they did 20
years ago was going to be tried
and true forever."
Brownlie says it's important
to realize that schools now face
challenges they didn't have to
face 10 or 20 years ago, and noone
really knows what
challenges they'll face 10 years
from now.
A changing society with a
diversity of students and a diversity
of needs means students,
parents and teachers still
have to figure out what skills
students are going to need in
future.
One thing Brownlie is sure
of, is that students will need
"skills that keep them as contributing
members of society,
but also as healthy and happy
individuals within a society."
The key, she says, is to have
everybody working together —
at home and at school — so that
kids not only can read and
write, but have the desire to
read and write. She says educators
think they know a lot and
it's really a matter of being able
to put it into practice.
BROWNLIE: Changes
"We're doing a pretty gocx
job," she says. "We can do be
ter."
Originally from Virden
Brownlie now lives in Van
couver and is the author of se\l
was in Brandon for Partners i
Change '95, a conference fo
educators and parents sponsoi
ed by the school divisions i
western Manitoba.