Time for a “Good News” Story for Education in PEI

One of the things you have to keep in mind about social media is that it’s all about conversations. Facebook, Twitter, emails, etc. are conversations going on around the world 24/7. Last week I listened and became involved in many conversations regarding education on PEI.

I had the pleasure of meeting the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education and we discussed internet in schools, social media, educational technology, the importance of 21st Century Skills and the IT infrastructure for education in PEI. I had recently presented to the Advisory Council on Technology to the Minister of Education on using social media for education, as well as to hundreds of teachers at the annual PEI Teachers Conference in October. I expressed my concern regarding an afterschool technology program that I couldn’t deliver because of technology issues and proposed a solution.

Later that day, the PISA results were released and the next day I was approached by phone, email, Facebook and Twitter by journalists who wanted a quote… looking for a story. I declined as I did not feel that I had enough information to be able to speak to the situation and signed off on one email to a journalist saying, “Thanks and I hope to talk to you in the future for a positive news story on education on PEI. ”

I was encouraged by a post on Twitter from Minister Currie the next day:

“Someone told me today well the discussion around PISA is over and I made it very clear that its only starting with much work to be done”

And further encouraged by Minister Currie’s vehement rebuttal to the negative press and the fact that “bad news sells” in a post on Facebook titled, Canada is Not Becoming Outclassed on PISA. A response, I suspect, to an article from the Globe and Mail How Canada is Becoming Outclassed in School which mentions:

An analysis of Canada’s performance reveals that Prince Edward Island has become the first Canadian province to fall below the average of other OECD nations in students’ reading proficiency.

And part of Minister Currie’s response is:

"But since bad news sells, we fret about the poor rankings of Prince Edward Island. They are indeed bad – below the average results for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development students. Clearly, there’s work to be done there, but get a grip. PEI is the smallest province in Canada by far, and always will be."

I don’t necessarily agree that because we live in the smallest province in the country that our children should have less of an opportunity to receive a great education. I strongly believe that it doesn’t have to be this way with how school models and new visions of education are transpiring on a global scale.

In the below Ted Talks video “Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education…. (and gave) kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.” The results Dr. Mitra shares in his talk are incredible. Scalable, quantifiable, measurable successes.

It’s worthy to note that Dr. Mitra is “the academic who inspired Slumdog Millionaire (and) believes all pupils should be given time in groups with a computer to teach themselves” (from this article from the UK Guardian Give them a laptop and a group of pupils will teach themselves).



What excites and enthrals me about his findings are that many of the experiments that he uses that garnered significant success have the ability to be duplicated and replicated. Sugata Mitra contends that “an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge.”

I think the students in the education system on PEI are prime for this; transitioning to a higher level of learning and engagement.

My goal has been and will continue to be, getting educational technology into the hands of children in our province. There is more than enough compelling documentation and quantifiable results from many communities, schools, provinces, states and countries around the world who are seeing great success and results from the opportunities that digital learning gives to students. PEI, the small province that it is, has an exciting opportunity in terms of scalability, to transcend its current less-than-stellar PISA test results by challenging fundamental components of our current education system.

Giving our children access to educational technology is paramount to this transition. Although (as is often the case with government) politics, bureaucrats and red tape can get in the way, I believe from extensive due diligence and research that Minister Currie may be the person to make change happen.

Minister Currie appears to be committed to transparency, progress and education. From what I have heard from every single person I’ve talked to, he is someone who follows through on commitments and has demonstrated integrity throughout his years in public office. I cannot say that I have ever heard such great testimonials of any other politician on PEI since I’ve lived here.

So, at the risk of sounding too hopeful and possibly optimistic, I am looking forward to a “good news story” on education on PEI in the very near future (as I alluded to the reporter from CBC). It’s long overdue and our children deserve it.