The Politics of Student Part-Time Work - Part One

Having taught high school for 30 years, one of the issues of interest that I carried over into retirement is whether or not students should work part-time. While students have always worked for any number of reasons, ranging from saving for post-secondary education to purchasing things their parents either wouldn't or couldn't buy for them, over the years it was my perception that the number of hours young people were devoting to their jobs rose significantly. A recent article in the Globe and Mail addressed the problem, and some interesting and startling conclusions were reached.

Jorgen Hansen, an associate professor of economics at Montreal’s Concordia University, used data from Statistics Canada’s Youth in Transition Survey, a survey that follows cohorts of students over a number of years. His conclusion: working part-time hurts grades. The more you work part-time, the greater the harm to grades.

According to Wendy Patton, a dean of the faculty of education at Queensland University at Brisbane, Australia, the upper limit should be 12 hours per week. Other studies showed a deterioration in academic performance commensurate with the number of hours worked.

From my own personal experience, it was not unusual to have some students, usually seniors, working almost the equivalent of full-time jobs, and, of course, their grades, homework completion rates, and assignments all suffered. Plaintively, they would tell me they had to work to save for university; my usual response was that if they continued to put in those kinds of hours, they likely wouldn't be going to university anyway, as they wouldn't have the marks. Such harsh observations generally, of course, fell on deaf ears.

And this is where we come to the political aspect of the equation. For a number of reasons that I will outline in my next post, I strongly believe that government has a role to play in regulating how many hours high school students can work.

What Do Big Brother and the Harper Conservative Government Have In Common?

The simple answer is, "They both know what is best for us."

In so many ways, it is such a relief to know that we Canadians no longer have to think for ourselves, as the Harper Government has assumed that burden for us. The latest evidence of their benevolence comes from a story by Richard Brennan in today's Toronto Star about the long-delayed release of a report on the effectiveness of the long gun registry.

More Reasons for Mr. McGuinty to Worry

I've been writing lately about the declining political fortunes of the Ontario Liberal Government. Another reason for the Premier to worry about his political fate comes from the latest inflation statistics, which are being pushed up thanks to the HST that was imposed this past July. The Star has a story well worth reading in today's edition.

From my perspective, this is just another example of what happens when a pro-business agenda is aggressively promoted at the expense of the citizen-consumer-taxpayer.

Ontario's Insurance Reform

One of the biggest pitfalls in striving to practice critical thinking is the risk of either appearing to be, or actually being, a bit paranoid, especially when it comes to government pronouncements. Quite frankly, I am immediately skeptical when government tells me that a change they are imposing or championing will be good for me.

Like the HST, which the McGuinty government tells us will actually result in lower consumer costs as businesses rush to pass on their savings to customers, the latest change in automobile insurance should be met with a healthy skepticism. By lowering the payouts that companies have to make for injuries sustained in car accidents, we are being told that insurance premiums will moderate. One, of course, immediately notes that there is no promise of premium reductions, despite in some cases the impending halving of payouts to accident victims.

Once more, the McGuinty Government is showing a pro-business agenda that is being implemented at the expense of the consumer and taxpayer, something that should be remembered when the next election comes.

Jim Coyle's Column

Although the last person I would like to see leading Ontario is Jim Hudak, a protege and clone of former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, according to the latest poll, written about by Jim Coyle in today's Toronto Star, the head of the Ontario Conservative Party poses a real threat to the increasingly disliked and distrusted Dalton McGuinty.

Given his unpopular tax measures, and, from my perspective, his patent dishonesty during the G20 Summit and his lies to the people of Hamilton regarding the Pan Am Stadium, one wonders whether this poll will have a sobering effect on the Premier

A Two-Part Interview with Clayton Ruby

Before starting this political blog, I wrote extensively on my other blog about the abuses of Charter Rights during the G20 Summit in Toronto by both the police and the Dalton McGuinty Ontario Liberal Government.

In this two-part interview by The Real News with Clayton Ruby, the well-known Toronto lawyer discusses both the legality of what happened on Toronto streets in late June, as well as possible ways to prevent future suspensions of our rights.

An Article on Critical Thinking

Allan Levine, a history professor from Manitoba, has written an excellent article on critical thinking in today's Globe. An excerpt from the article offers a clear and concise explanation of the concept, and what its goals are:

“Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way,” explains Linda Elder, an educational psychologist and president of the Foundation for Critical Thinking. “People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably and empathically. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason.”

Illustrating its importance by examining the current controversy surrounding the building of a mosque a few blocks from the twin towers' terrorist attack, Levine demonstrates that those lofty goals are well-worth striving for throughout our lives, even if complete attainment eludes us.