Things about Canada that would surprise Americans

The math teacher instructing gym and too many football players running around.

The recent statements by Donald Trump about making Canada the 51st State have received a lot of attention. Besides secretly hoping it was true, so I could start playing four down football, I have been surprised by the amount of Americans and Canadians who have not reacted adversely to this sound bite. As an American sleeper agent who has been living in Canada since 2010, I thought it might be useful to share two observations about Canadian schools and football that might be surprise Americans.

In terms of education there are more similarities than differences. Students follow the elementary-middle- high school model. They are graded on a numeric scale and for the most part, the curriculums are similar. However, the biggest difference I have seen in Canadian high schools vs American high schools is twofold.

First, Canadian high schools are not the focal point of the community like American schools. I think this is because of the lowered emphasis on sports. Canadians play high school sports, however the emphasis is not on the level with that in the United States. With the exception of a few high profile sports- hockey and occasionally football and basketball, Canadian interscholastic high school sports run on a level equivalent to American intramural high school sports in the 1980s. They practice once or twice a week and show up to the games if possible. In comparison, I once taught at a small school in upstate New York whose gym was full every Friday night because their winless basketball team still represented the town, no matter how many free throws they missed.

Second, Canadian high schools don’t hire specialists, they hire teachers. This means that you may have specialized in history as an education major, but you could be teaching ELA one year and Phys-ed the next. Because of this, and other factors like large classes, Canadian teachers tend to fall back on the “stand and deliver” method of teaching, with a high emphasis on textbooks and work packets. Due to their nomadic teaching assignments, Canadian teachers rarely master their curriculums to the point of diversifying instruction to reach multiple intelligences. Because of this, the 10% of the class, who are the linguistic learners, are the ones earning As.

Both of these factors have created an “industrial workplace” environment in Canadian high schools. Students come in, punch their time cards, do what they have to do to get the credit and leave as soon as they can. Most students have a stronger affiliation with their part time job than their school.

I am not so sure this is a bad thing.

My daughter went through the Canadian school system. When she was in 10th grade, she transferred to the school where I was teaching. It was great and I miss those days. We had lots of good talks on the 30 minute commute. In one of those talks, she wanted to discuss her math teacher. I always made it a rule that I would not discuss other teachers and that if she had an issue she needed to address it with the teacher and not through me. For this particular class she had a teacher who’s teaching method was to hand out work packets and go over them the next day. If students didn’t have any questions, he moved on. There was a quiz every Friday and a unit test at the end of each month. She didn’t enjoy the class, but she got through it.

She is now in her final year as an Anthropology major with a specialization in biological identification. When I brought up Mr. M’s class she said, “Yeah, I don’t remember much of the material, but his class taught me how to teach myself. I learned that all I really need is the text book and someone to ask questions to.” The Canadian system worked for her.

Now she digs up bodies instead of math packets.

In terms of football Canada is similar to the US, but different. I like to tell people that Canadian football, like Canada, did not breakaway as far as the US did from our shared mother country: Great Britain. Because of this, Canadian football has several rules that are reminiscent of rugby. Two of them, three downs to get a first and unlimited forward motion, not only surprise Americans, but change the way the game is played and, more importantly, shape the type of kids who play football.

The Canadian tendency to punt on third down isn’t because Canadians like to play it safe. It is because they only get three downs before the ball is turned over to the defence. To balance this, the offensive is allowed to put up to five players in forward motion, before the ball is snapped. This basically gives five offensive players a running start. There are lots of other interesting rule differences, but these two cause Canadians to want to pass the ball, LOTS.

Because of this Canadian football tends to mirror what you would see on TV. They want to put the quarterback in shotgun and throw the ball on every down. This is great, as long as you have the kids to do it. What I mean by that, is if you want to throw the ball on every play, you need an alpha-male quarterback, and huge kids on the offensive line who can give him time to throw. If you coach at an elite, large, high school you may have the resources to create these variables every year. If you don’t, you will not win, unless you do something different.

I don’t think this is a good thing.

I was an average size, average ability, athlete. I was fortunate to always play on football teams where the offensive line didn’t need to be huge. If I had played high school football in Canada, like most linemen on my current team, I wouldn’t have gotten a second look. I simply wouldn’t have been big enough. The Canadian system would not have worked for me. I would have never played in high school, nor university, nor Europe, and then had a never had a life where football was my third child. I sometimes wonder how many Canadian kids are denied a football experience because they don’t fit the mold shaped by the rules.

Canada is a fine place. It’s no Garden of Eden but it has been a good home for me and my family since 2010. I think we do have something to learn from their educational system. Although I don’t think it was by design, it is a system where the responsibility is on the student to be the worker. My daughter doesn’t remember much of what she learned in high school, but the skills she developed continue to shape her life. As far as football is concerned, I think Canadians could learn something from the diversity of American teams. I don’t know if it would win them any more games, but it would allow for more kids to have a football experience that will shape their lives.

I don’t know if it’s worth annexation, but Canada is full of 170 pound guards who are worth their weight in gold.

If you are going to be David, don’t play by Goliath’s rules

Coach Tom was recently on a football podcast where he helps explain Canadian football to American coaches. Its a fun listen: