A Different Look at the BC Education Plan

In putting together a short executive summary of the BC Education Plan and I had an idea to use a neat little word cloud program called Wordle to see what really matters in terms of the words used in this BC education plan document. For those of you not familiar with Wordle, this piece of software can be found at www.wordle.net. You add the text of your choice and the program automatically does a word count and then represents the words in a graphic. The more times the word is used, the bigger the word. Hence the term for the graphic – word cloud. It's a cool little site that has many practical in and out of the classroom.

I took the text from the plan and poured it into the Wordle engine and this is what I got.

Interesting how you get all the important words for education: students; teachers; education; and learning. All the words you would expect when talking about a plan for BC's education system. These words don't really reflect the whole story in this plan. On page 4 of the plan, the strengths that will be built upon in the BC system are identified as:

1. Staying solid on the basics
2. More real-world skills
3. Improved student assessment and reporting
4. Importance of teachers
5. Effective teaching
6. Greater flexibility
7. Freedom to adapt

Now looking at the word cloud graphic above, I don't get a sense of these areas the government is suggesting we move our system, sometimes with legislation if necessary. And let's not miss this signal. legislation means there's a political will to make this happen.

In an attempt to get a better sense of the document, I took out the top 10 words in the word cloud. This included students, teachers, education and learning plus a few more. Dumping the text back into the Wordle engine, you get a very different view.

I will allow you to interpret this image how you wish, but for me the message is we're not clear on where we're where going. The multitude of words about the same size seems to indicate there are a lot of competing priorities for what is important. I think the contributors of this plan understood this issue and attempted to provide some clarity by identifying a response or action steps to this challenge. The plan identifies five key elements to creating a flexible, adaptable and excellent education system for BC. These elements are:

• Personalized learning for every student
• Quality teaching and learning
• Flexibility and choice
• High standards
• Learning empowered by technology

All great stuff, but I don't see it in the graphic and I don't see it in the plan.

20 years ago when the government of the day developed the Year 2000 plan in response the Sullivan Royal Commission on Education a lot of resources were brought to bear on creating a system for the 21^st century. That plan, which used very similar language to this plan, was thrown out and replaced with a vigourous, underfunded curriculum revision process. A process which was needed because we spent so much time talking about what could 'be' rather than what 'is' and what can we afford.

As we move forward, let's take the those words in the Wordle, identify which are key to us and make sure we can afford to implement and sustain them. From there we can take the vision from the plan and laser focus our efforts into making real change that improves our education system for all British Columbians.