Was it bemusement or befuddlement? I wasn’t sure.
When Sask’s Eduction Minister of the Month, Don Morgan announced last week that the “never start the school year until after Labour Day,” legislation that was passed last year, and written in stone was … well, it was going to be tweaked a bit. It seemed starting school on Sept. 8 in 2015, was going to present a litany of challenges for the also newly created school year users. That mandate requires 950 hours of face-to-face instruction time. To do all this and still provide a couple of days for Christmas, Easter and a few days in July for summer vacation, was bordering on the impossible.
It seems as if the educational gurus didn’t consult the calendar crafters when they forwarded the legislation. So now, we have a new “written in stone” rule that states the school year will never start until after Labour Day, unless it does.
It seems there wasn’t a whole lot of consultation going on before that edict was drawn up.
If our educational gurus decide to add Mandarin or Japanese language instruction, I hope they’ll at least give the school divisions a week or two heads up this time so they can hire a few foreign language educators.
We have French instruction readily available to us and only a few in Saskatchewan pick it up. I think some Spanish and Japanese lessons would be a big help. If Saskatchewan is heading down the Lean management rabbit hole any further, the leadership teams are required to learn a whole slew of Japanese words that are supposed to represent something in the name of efficiencies. Having to master a Japanese vocabulary to be a leading employee in a long term care residence in Esterhazy, Estevan, or LaRonge doesn’t smack of efficiency in my little world.
How do you say, “get better,” in Japanese?
How do you say “me get gooder?” because that’s how it will sound to the Japanese who actually use the language for its intended purpose of communication.
Bring on the sensei guys and let them wiggle their way through our various public sectors, making life grander for all.
As you can detect, I find our wholesale buy-in of Lean rather amusing and yes, somewhat befuddling, just as I was bemused and befuddled by the new-look education act that had to be tweaked.
It makes one wonder how Lean management is going to fit in with the new reality of lower commodity prices. Now that oil is down to $65 and potash sellers have to compete with less than $320 a tonne and natural gas prices are … whatever natural gas prices are, which hasn’t been much for three years, can we still afford the $3,500 per day for efficiency in Japanese?
Will oil bounce back to $75? Can Alberta’s high cost oilsand diggers make any money at $65? Can we?
Better yet, can we even get it shipped anywhere anymore?
We noted that at least some grain producers now have the option of sending their stuff south instead of having to ship it west all the time, thanks to Northgate’s new hub.
The problems that come with being a landlocked province, beholden to CPR and CN have certainly raised their ugly heads of late, but I’m sure our senseis will come up with the solution.
Maybe if we started the school year a little earlier?
