Comment Re:Don't push Canada content, and no to the french (Score 1) 197
"When it comes to the other point, if the point is to relay the story, but the quality of the writing is poor, what does that really end up doing?"
Its generally all been published -- "real published" not "self published". And a lot of it has won various notable Canadian awards. These are not he highest bars by far but it does generally reliably filter out the stuff that's actually "poorly written". Again, I think you are being too hard on it and letting cyncism color your subjective review. Sure it may not hit the new york times bestseller list (for many reasons) but its not nearly as bad as you make out.
You've had some bananas teachers in a school/district captured by bananas administration it seems. My kids have not experienced that kind of crazy. Not every teacher was great, we definitely encountered some "B Ark" people; but overall it was pretty positive and, as I've made plain, I've come away supporting a lot of the concepts of the curriculum, even if the execution needs improvement.
I will say that letting the kids pick their own books is a shitshow. They largely pick the modern equivalent of 'penny dreadfuls' (the literary equivalent of pablum) and worse they'll pick the same books every year, because that's even less work for them. Sure they should be encouraged to read a couple books of whatever they want and write about it, but forcing them through a curriculum of curated books is worth it. I'd never have read many of the local works nor international classics i was forced through in school if I'd been given a choice. I remember what i was choosing to read at the time - I might have enjoyed it more, but largely, it was NOT "better" quality.