WORKSHOPS

Educational Aspects - Strategies for Action

Moderator:
Martha Colquhoun, Executive
Member, CCLOW, Manitoba

Panelists:
Mary Beth Dolin, MLA, Manitoba

Grace Parasiuk, Consultant,
Women's Studies, Department of
Education, Manitoba

Jan Schubert, Assistant Superintendent,
Secondary, Winnipeg
School Division

Ruth Hartnell, Counsellor, Glenlawn
Collegiate, Winnipeg

Gayle Halliwell, Business Education
Teacher, Lord Selkirk
Regional School, Manitoba

At the first level of technological advance, which we are witnessing, skill requirements for workers may be reduced. This holds true in the large, female worker ghetto of the office. Skills such as manual duplicating, filing, record keeping, and several typing applications are unnecessary: records managers, data processors, reprographic technicians, and word processors use their equipment to handle these functions. Manual skills are becoming increasingly obsolete and the unskilled female graduate or dropout from high school has severely limited occupational opportunities.

How can we prepare young women to deal with the greater emphasis on mental skills? A solid, general education should include business education. Vocational business students should be taught to manipulate the new technology so that they may use it, rather than be used by it. Many young women are not afraid of it. They see the advantages: the ease with which routine tasks are performed, the speed and accuracy attainable, and the unlimited capabilities they now have. Given an up-to-date curriculum, a sharp vocational student is very well prepared to meet the challenges of the office of the future, and to advance in that office. It is important, then, that bright young women not be discouraged from business education as a possible career path.

Action:

• Parents must become involved at all levels of the educational system, to ensure that their daughters are taught adequate math, science and computer skills.

• Computer clubs could be set up to allow female students to network and support each other.

• Teachers must be sensitized to the biases faced by female students, regarding their aptitudes in the area of micro-technology.

Computer Familiarity for Pre-Schoolers

Workshop Leader:
Stan Squires, Director of
Children's Services,
Oakville Public Library

Stan Squires surveyed the program he has developed through the Oakville Library, in the field of access to computers for pre-schoolers. Discussion centred on the training of teachers, and the development of lessons to teach pre-schoolers the use of the computer.