In recent weeks, the Opinion sections of the main Quebec newspapers have provided us with a myriad of articles attacking the idea of an Institute of Excellence in Education based on evidence-based data. While over the past 25 years, many national institutes of excellence in education have been created around the world (e.g. Australia, Finland, France, United Kingdom, etc.), one is entitled to ask which explains this frantic climb to the barricades. What are the teaching staff of Quebec faculties of education afraid of?
To see through the gibberish of life, you have to dare to speak the facts.
Omnipresence of constructivism
Constructivism, which comes in several variants, has the philosophical monopoly in faculties of education all over the world.
Constructivism considers knowledge to be a personal construct. In its dominant version, constructivism denies the existence of an objective reality, fights universalism, adopts a recursive relativism and encourages a process of deconstruction to access the heart of power, which would be real! Constructivism denies the possibility of its claims being challenged and systematically evaluated, a posture that smacks of religious untouchability, as denounced in a report by the association of deans.
Nihilism accompanies the expansion of this philosophy. The similarities with postmodernism and wokism are not fortuitous, these currents giving birth to each other continuously.
Constructivism exclusively encourages inquiry-based pedagogies and, as everything is relative, combats comparative evaluations, the notion of efficiency, correlational/experimental research, evidence-based data and, as a corollary, more or less openly scorns the approaches of direct and explicit teaching.
To ensure that these positions are embraced by all, some supporters ensure that those who question them are ostracized, struggle to obtain research grants or publish their work, receive reprimands from the authorities and see the ultimate accusation used: that of belonging to the extreme right!
It is in this opaque béchamel that the faculties of education have been bathing for more than 35 years.
Over the years, a candidate for a position in a faculty of education who does not display his adherence to constructivism has little chance of obtaining a job. This trend is international, but it is particularly heavy in Quebec, where we deplore the almost complete elimination of any form of heterodoxy in the face of constructivism. In 2023, in many Quebec faculties of education, there is in fact neither a behavioral orientation teacher nor a representative of the Direct Instruction. There are also few, if any, specialists in evidence and scientific research (correlational and experimental). This ideological cleansing in the faculties is such that expertise in educational statistics and experimental methodology is almost lost.
Constructivism is not only hegemonic in Quebec’s faculties of education, it is also hegemonic in the ministry, in the unions, in the service centres, in the Board of Governors and in all the other peripheral organizations, as well as in all academic journals. The level of rigor of some of these journals is low, which is manifested by the publication of poor quality articles which can assert falsehoods, all accompanied by many signatories supporting these falsehoods.
Supporters of constructivism have built themselves over the years a cozy space (safe space). The risk of having to justify their philo-ideological claims is negligible. And this is where the Institute for Excellence in Education worries. The likelihood that their claims will be publicly challenged by any organization other than the many organizations they control terrifies them.
In addition, experimental research produced in faculties in Quebec is extremely rare. The findings of scientific research are not presented with rigor anywhere. Pedagogical myths are still taught in faculties of education as if they were established knowledge. The Pedagogical Renewal of the year 2000, which is a failure, was adopted by the Ministry of Education without the Higher Council of Education and the multitude of bodies bringing together experts in learning and teaching faculties attach the bell to the lack of rigor of this reform and the absence of conclusive data – only lone mavericks have noted it at their peril. It is therefore clear that the creation of an Institute of Excellence in Education in Quebec, based on the evidence of correlational and experimental research, is an absolute necessity.
What are Quebec faculties of education and many of its members afraid of? To lose their ideological monopoly.