Ontario Education Minister approves more deals with teachers

Ontario Education Minister approves more deals with teachers
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-education-minister-approves-more-deals-with-teachers/article5588421/
Published: Friday, Nov. 23 2012, 12:22 PM EST

Ontario Education Minister

Summary:

Ontario's Education Minister has approved four more deals between schools, boards, and high-school teachers. This will help schools return to a normal academic year. These deals were identical with the agreement reached with the English Catholic teachers. Thames Valley, Avon Maitland, District of Niagara School Board are the latest to reach the deal with the Ontario Education Minister. There are schools that are still awaiting approval from the Minister. Union members will also be asked to approval the deal. High school teachers at more than 20 boards are in legal strike position. Many of these teachers are restricting their withdrawal of services to administrative duties and supervising outside their classrooms. All teachers have said that this is a strike targeting administrators, not students. But many students marks have been suffering because of the strike. Also teachers have attended to restrict supervising students at lunch and in the hallways. This is a great concern for the students and the for high-school officials because of the safety of the students.

My Opinion:

 I think that the teachers and the school boards that have not yet approved the deals with the Ontario Education Minister are making the students suffer a lot because of the restrictions that the teachers are making for themselves around the school. I also think that supervision of kids should be mandatory everywhere because of all of the kids that get bullied around the world. Many kids have committed suicide because of bullying and I think that the school boards should be very strict about the supervision of the students. I also am glad that the percentage of schools have gone down for strikes which allows kids to learn in depth their criteria. Teachers should find another way to get back at the administrators and not by punishing the kids. I think that students need to be learning everyday and not having teachers go on strike. To get into a good university, the students need to learn the criteria they have infront of them and they need a teacher to help them.

Dominance of French and English languages shrinking, census shows

Dominance of French and English languages shrinking, census shows
Published Wednesday, Oct. 24 2012, 8:36 AM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/dominance-of-french-and-english-languages-shrinking-census-shows/article4633786/

Summary:

A multicultural little Indian restaurant

The historic dominance of French and English are shrinking and Canada is turning into a country of many languages. The percentage of people who speak two or more languages were around 17.5%.  This is a major different from 14.2% five year earlier. Demographers have predicted that the number of Canadians who speak French as their first language drops below the number of people who speak immigrant languages in Canada. The gap is very close to though's people who speak French and to though's people who speak another language. It's only 4% apart with the French just a little past the immigrant languages. Many researchers like Jane Badets have also noticed the increase in the diversity of languages Canadians are speaking. Mandarin and Arabic have significantly gone up between 2006 and 2011, according to the census. The most commonly spoken immigrant language in Canada in 2011 was Punjabi, followed by the language, Chinese.

My Opinion:
I think that its fine that Canada is learning new languages. It is also a good thing for Canada because it opens up conversation and other options like business and medicine. I think that people should learn minimum two languages because when people travel around the world it is good to know the language of what country you are in. The other factor is having a polite conversation in the language you are speaking. Learning other languages can also be very important and helpful if you need directions or if you need to buy things when you are in another country. When immigrants come to Canada they should also know how to speak our language but they should also bring some of their heritage over so we can learn some of it and learn some of their language. I don't think that Canada should be out balanced by different languages and be overrules as well by immigrant languages because Canada well then lose its own heritage itself. I think that we should be open to other languages and keep on being more open because the more languages our country learns, the better the future will be for the people.