war

Thursday March 28, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 28, 2019

Fact-checking Lisa Thompson’s controversial comments on class size in Ontario

Bigger class sizes make students more resilient.

That was just one of several eyebrow-raising claims that Ontario Education Minister Lisa Thompson made during an interview last week. Her comments quickly provoked a deluge of criticism from many members of the public, educators and the opposition parties.

In an interview with CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, Thompson said that businesses and post-secondary educators relayed to her during recent consultations that students are “lacking coping skills and they’re lacking resiliency.

“By increasing class sizes in high school, we’re preparing them for the reality of post-secondary as well as the world of work.”

Thompson was defending the government’s recent decision to increase high school class sizes in the province from 22 students to 28. Since that’s a board-wide average, some classes — especially important pre-requisites — could swell to as many as 38 or 40 students, educators have warned.

Grades 4 to 8 will see a more moderate average increase of one student per class, while earlier grades will remain the same.

So does the government’s plan make sense? CBC Toronto took a deeper look.

The impact of class size on students has been debated for decades, both in the halls of academia and among policymakers. Numerous studies, conducted worldwide, have produced varied results.

Generally, there is scholarly consensus that smaller class sizes improve academic achievement, particularly among vulnerable student populations. But the extent, scope and ultimate value of those improvements is limited, and the benefits diminish as students get older. And it is far from a magic bullet.

In her interview, Thompson said: “The biggest factor in student success is actually how effective the teacher is” — and there is research that supports this assertion when it comes to high school-aged children. (Source: CBC) 

 

Thursday March 28, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 28, 2019

Fact-checking Lisa Thompson’s controversial comments on class size in Ontario

Bigger class sizes make students more resilient.

March 13, 2019

That was just one of several eyebrow-raising claims that Ontario Education Minister Lisa Thompson made during an interview last week. Her comments quickly provoked a deluge of criticism from many members of the public, educators and the opposition parties.

In an interview with CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, Thompson said that businesses and post-secondary educators relayed to her during recent consultations that students are “lacking coping skills and they’re lacking resiliency.

“By increasing class sizes in high school, we’re preparing them for the reality of post-secondary as well as the world of work.”

Thompson was defending the government’s recent decision to increase high school class sizes in the province from 22 students to 28. Since that’s a board-wide average, some classes — especially important pre-requisites — could swell to as many as 38 or 40 students, educators have warned.

Grades 4 to 8 will see a more moderate average increase of one student per class, while earlier grades will remain the same.

So does the government’s plan make sense? CBC Toronto took a deeper look.

Animated!

The impact of class size on students has been debated for decades, both in the halls of academia and among policymakers. Numerous studies, conducted worldwide, have produced varied results.

Generally, there is scholarly consensus that smaller class sizes improve academic achievement, particularly among vulnerable student populations. But the extent, scope and ultimate value of those improvements is limited, and the benefits diminish as students get older. And it is far from a magic bullet.

In her interview, Thompson said: “The biggest factor in student success is actually how effective the teacher is” — and there is research that supports this assertion when it comes to high school-aged children. (Source: CBC) 

 

Saturday February 2, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 2, 2019

No victory for U.S. as it leaves Afghanistan

The long and pointless Afghan War may finally be coming to an end. If so, this will be a relief for the U.S. and its coalition allies operating there. It certainly won’t be a victory.

June 21, 2013

The broad strokes of a deal in principle between the United States and Taliban insurgents were released this week. They are not likely to bring much solace to the families of soldiers — including Canadians — who fought and died in the 17-year-old conflict.

There is no mention of ensuring that girls can go to school, which at one point was given by Canada’s government as the rationale for this war.

There is no mention of defeating the “scumbags” as Canada’s then top general Rick Hillier described the Taliban. Indeed, it seems likely that the Taliban will be guaranteed a major political role in the country.

There is no mention of bringing democracy and development to Afghanistan — another of the Canadian government’s ostensible reasons for the war.

 

March 11, 2009

The essence of the deal, as described to the New York Times by chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad, is simple and familiar.

The Taliban will ensure that terrorists don’t use Afghanistan as a base to attack the West. The Americans, along with the 38 allied nations still operating there, will withdraw their troops.

Ironically, the agreement in principle bears a marked resemblance to the offer that Afghanistan’s then Taliban government made to the U.S. in 2001 after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Don’t invade, the Taliban said then. And in return we will expel terror mastermind Osama bin Laden to a third country. (Continued: Toronto Star) 

 

Friday April 13, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 13, 2018

‘We do not participate in Twitter diplomacy’: Russia responds to Trump

November 3, 2017

In the wake of President Trump’s tweet taunting Russia while promising a missile attack on Moscow’s ally Syria, Russian politicians and officials are jumping at a chance to show they are the more mature and serious party. Here’s how Russian officials from the president on down have responded to Trump.

President Vladimir Putin did not address the tweets directly while greeting new foreign ambassadors to Moscow at the Kremlin. But he reiterated his frequent call for global stability — which can only be accomplished, in the Kremlin’s view, by giving Russia a prominent role in a “multipolar” rather than U.S.-led world order.

“Indeed, the state of things in the world cannot but provoke concern. The situation in the world is increasingly chaotic. Nevertheless, we hope that common sense will prevail in the end and that international relations will become more constructive — that the whole global system will become more stable and predictable.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to the tweets in comments to Russian journalists. While he dismissed Trump’s Twitter diplomacy, he left unmentioned that Russia’s own diplomats in London are no stranger to it.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova quickly took to Facebook, wondering whether an American strike would only be a pretext for erasing all evidence of a chemical-weapons attack that Russia has described as staged.

“Smart missiles should fly in the direction of terrorists and not a legal government that has been fighting for several years against international terrorism on its territory.… Or is the whole idea to quickly wipe away the traces of a provocation by striking them with smart missiles, so that international inspectors would have nothing left to find in terms of evidence?” (Source: Washington Post) 

Published in the Waterloo Region Record

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Friday February 23, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 23, 2018

Families struggle to survive in Eastern Ghouta, under siege

A four-day-long bombardment by Syrian government forces is reported to have killed more than 300 civilians in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area. Here, people living there tell their stories.

February 20, 2014

The enclave – home to an estimated 393,000 people – has been under siege since 2013. But pro-government media say a major military operation might soon begin to clear rebel factions from their last major stronghold near the capital Damascus.

The relentless air and artillery strikes are leaving civilians, particularly women and children, in a state of fear and forcing them to seek shelter underground, where they are largely deprived of food and sanitation.

“We are living in a basement, underneath a half-destroyed house,” Asia, a 28-year-old student and mother-of-three whose husband was killed in an attack while he was on his way to work, told the BBC. 

“My daughter is sick. Her hair is falling out because she is so afraid.” 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, says the government and its allies have carried out more than 1,290 air strikes on the Eastern Ghouta and fired 6,190 rockets and shells at the region since mid-November, when hostilities between government and rebel forces escalated. 

Between Sunday and Wednesday alone there were reportedly about 420 air strikes, and 140 barrel bombs were dropped by helicopters.

UN war crimes experts are also investigating several reports of rockets allegedly containing chlorine being fired at the Eastern Ghouta this year.

The recent surge in casualties means that more than 1,070 civilians, including several hundred children and women, have been killed and 3,900 injured in the past three months, according to the Syrian Observatory. (Source: BBC News)