Michael Zwaagstra is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre and public high school teacher. He received his Bachelor of Education and Master of Education from the University of Manitoba and Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Liberty University in Virginia. He is the author of A Sage on the Stage: Common Sense Reflections on Teaching and Learning, and co-author of What’s Wrong with Our Schools and How We Can Fix Them. He is a frequent author of education policy research and newspaper columns across Canada. His research mainly focuses on curricula, teaching instruction and public education. Michael’s research and commentary have been featured in radio, television and newspapers across the country. Michael lives with his wife and children in Steinbach, Manitoba.
Proof of vaccination is required for students who want to live in residence at the University of Toronto. No, this wasn’t cut-and-paste from a 2021 article—it’s an actual requirement for the fall of 2022. Anyone who plans to live in residence at the University of...
The Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) serves as the regulatory body for public school teachers in Ontario. When a complaint comes in, the OCT is obligated to investigate and, if the teacher is found guilty, decide on an appropriate consequence. By investigating...
Instead of making students memorize a bunch of useless facts, we need to help them think like scientists and historians. Does this make sense to you? It probably does if you’re a curriculum consultant or an education professor. After all, that’s what’s being pushed in...
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland thinks her government is too humble. At least that’s what she said when a reporter asked her why travellers are still forced to fill out the ArriveCan app before entering Canada. After extolling the virtues of national humility,...
“Ahead, Thar Be Dragons.” The world of 2023 is a scary place. One major war is raging, with others probably on the way. The Pax Americana that has given us freedom of the seas and allowed global trade to flourish might be breaking down. International piracy,...
Today, Canada’s natural gas sector is seeing its decade of darkness due to federal policy. And it’s not because the opportunity wasn’t there. It was because our government allowed its ideology, and that of its anti-oil and gas friends (also known as protestors) to...
Walk into an elementary school classroom and you will probably see a lot of books on the shelf. Take a closer look and you will often find a coloured dot, a number, or a letter on each book’s spine. Those dots, numbers, and letters show the reading level of each book....
With Michael Zwaagstra, Contributor to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and a public high school teacher, education researcher, and author.
Last fall, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario demanded that John A. Macdonald’s name be stricken from all public schools in the province. More recently, Halifax’s city council voted to remove the Edward Cornwallis statue that had stood downtown since 1931....
All Canadians agree that schools should be places of learning. There is also near-universal agreement that school is for everyone, not just for the privileged elite. This is one of the reasons why schooling is mandatory to age 16 or 18 in every Canadian province and...
Teacher and Senior Fellow at Frontier Center for Public Policy, Michael Zwaagstra, joins Geoff Currier to discuss his latest commentary entitled "Brainwashed Students Aren’t Critical Thinkers". (~20 minutes)
There is a fine line between teaching and brainwashing. Teaching informs students about the world around them and helps them become critical thinkers. In contrast, brainwashing provides students with heavily skewed information that leads to one predetermined...
"The older teacher thought first of his subject matter, that it get learned... The good teacher of the newer view well understands how it is the process itself, especially as socially conditioned that educates; and he makes every effort to get and keep the process...
A recent study claims that 90 per cent of classes in Alberta are way over the provincial standard of 17 students per class. But how much do class sizes affect a child’s learning process? Michael Zwaagstra, a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre joins Rob...
Teaching is a challenging job. Anyone who has spent a few days in a school knows that teachers have a lot of demands placed upon them. Their responsibilities often go far beyond basic classroom instruction. From dealing with disruptive student behaviours to organizing...