Mariah Bouchard
Reading Analysis Week 2
09/17/2017
Article 3: Egerton Ryerson and the School as an Agent of Political Socialization
The focus of this article is on Egerton Ryerson and his establishment of the Canadian education system when Canada first started to become a country. This article not only talks about the development of the system but why it was so important for the political socialization of the Canadian people. Ryerson believed that education is the foundation in which the order of our society is built on. Without education, there will be a lack of order in the societies social and political ways. The main point of this article was to point out the need for an education system that will assist in the proper development of society. The thought that education and a functioning society go hand in hand may lead us to believe that we as humans have still not quite mastered the art of education. There may still be fundamental things that we are missing or maybe in the past were doing and have now turned away from. We also see the flaws in Ryerson’s theories his beliefs and concepts were idealistic in the hopes that every person would know their place and abide by rules when we know very well that’s not how humans work. However, Ryerson’s theory on the education system as an agent of political socialization is one that can be applied and is easy to see as relevant.
Article 4: Reform, Literacy, and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852
The article focusses on the time in Canadian history when Prince Edward Island started a system in their province in which you did not have to pay a tuition cost to attend school. Prince Edward Island started this act before any of the other provinces and the main question was why this province was so keen on making sure their people did not have to pay for education. There is belief that they did this because this island dealt heavily with land tenure as its main production. Many of the average people of the island were unable to deal with their own paperwork and affairs due to the lack of education for the people. So by providing free education they were ensuring that all people in the future would be capable to take care of themselves and their family. This article was enjoyable because though Canada has developed a public-school system that is accessible for all people we still have the debate about the cost of university. Many countries offer free post-secondary studies, and I think this is something Canada really needs to consider. We live in a country that is constantly fighting unemployment or low minimum wage and the governments solution seems to be to encourage people to work at Starbucks and live off of the 12$ an hour you make. Why not instead offer people free post-secondary education so that they are not afraid to go to university (due to the crippling debt you leave with) but instead encourage people to thrive for more education, so that you can have a job where you don’t have to stress over unemployment or low pay.