Bankrupt Education: The Decline of Liberal Education in Canada

Dennis Blake is a visual arts teacher with the Halton Board of
Education.

Bankrupt Education is one of the best of many recent treatises on the
present condition of education in Canada. The authors, associate
professors of political science, decry the educational politics of
fashion that have left our school systems floundering in a morass of
bureaucratic valuelessness. While centring their investigation on
Ontario (an unfortunately fruitful target), the authors paint a
convincing portrait of country-wide systems of education that practise
all that is irresponsible from the fatally overoptimistic late 1960s and
all that is self-serving from the politically correct and victim-filled
early 1990s.

They believe that a strong grounding in the liberal arts is absolutely
essential in preparing students to be well-educated citizens of a
liberal democracy. Children cannot continue to be “educated” in a
directionless cultural mishmash. What gives this book its special flavor
is the final chapter, “Liberal Education and the Canadian Polity.”
Too often, Canadians, in a perverse pride, seek to find failure in the
human foibles of past leaders, apologetically offering our history as an
example of the uninspired veniality of the human spirit. In contrast,
Emberley and Newell offer the reader a rich intellectual snack that
presents Canadian history as the noble result of philosophical striving
and political vision. Traditional figures are emboldened with a new
stature of purpose. To the reader with a historical, political science,
or philosophical bent, this book is an inspiring gem that provides a
breadth to the educational debate.