National Post

The Smart Money is on Motivation

Many students entering university have poor literacy skills; professors say the problem starts at home

Johnathan Chevreau
Financial Post

Education accounts for a huge slice of the budget of most Canadian families. Putting the maximum in registered education savings plans (RESPs) costs up to $4,000 a child per year. Private school can cost $10,000 a year -- or twice that for the most elite schools. Even if your children attend public schools, homeowners still pay through a combination of municipal property taxes and provincial funding.

Many parents also pay for private tutors to fill the gap between what the schools should do but appear to be failing at doing. Add to this the price of books, field trips, supplies, laptop computers and the Internet, and a modern education is one huge investment.

The big question is: Is your investment paying off? If kids don't have the proper skills to study, manage their time and write exams, money diverted to education may be wasted. If a child isn't motivated to learn, throwing more money at her education won't change things. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think!

Enter Professor Bernie Gaidosch, an English teacher at George Brown College in Toronto. Dubbed by the U.S. media as the "Doctor Phil of Education," Prof. Gaidosch runs a cottage business on the side. He views motivation as "the springboard to success" and sells multimedia material to teach children basic study habits and writing skills.

His two sets of CDs are titled The Professor's Secrets; one is for kids in grades one to three, the other for grades four to six. He also has a motivational DVD for older students and two books, How to Get Top Marks on Tests and Exams and How to Write Essays and Term Papers.

Students entering George Brown take diagnostic tests to reveal what they learned in secondary school. By the time Prof. Gaidosch sees them, "we're immediately in remedial mode. These kids are just scraping by."

Without help, many children flounder when they enter the workforce, he says. "Then it's sink or swim."

When he asks business leaders what skills they look for in graduates, they tell him they want students who can read, write, research and think. "The business world wants formal and structured thinking."

The problem with under-skilled kids is particularly acute in the public school system. Private schools are better at helping students with time management and study skills, he says.

After 30 years of teaching, he says things haven't gotten much better. "If anything, with the short cuts students are using with technology, I'd say their skills are weaker than they've ever been."

His entrepreneurial venture began when he decided to teach the missing skills in his own classes. He triumphantly told his wife, Maureen, that he thought he was finally getting through to them. When she asked him how he could reach the many others not in his classroom, the idea for the books were born: 10,000 have since been sold.

He points to other evidence of a market need, such as the surge in private tutorial services like Sylvan Learning Centre. "That tells me there's an audience out there."

The $40 price Gaidosch charges for each CD set (Iwanttopmarks.com) seems a cost-effective way to maximize the return on the thousands most of us shell out to educate our children.

The Professor's Secrets materials are self-published and produced. They're not in bookstores. They're currently available by calling 1-877-439-3999 or online at www.iwanttopmarks.com

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