The Guardian has an excerpt of Stephen Emmott‘s new book, Ten Billion, about the effects of overpopulation on the environment. The situation is dire. I haven’t read the book, but in the excerpt he delineates that we’re definitely in a state of unprecedented emergency. Unfortunately he fails to offer any
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A Puff of Absurdity: A Work-Out Rant
As soon as I was in my mid-30s, women everywhere started randomly looking me up and down and warning me that as soon as I hit 40, I’d have a much harder time with my weight. It didn’t happen at 40, but now, at 48, I see what they mean.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Animal Testing: What’s wrong with education this time?
Okay it’s really about our kids. But this post was inspired, in part, by this cartoon gaining swift popularity: There’s a burgeoning rebellion against the way we teach. I’m all for rebellion, but we have to figure out if we really want to overhaul the entire system or just tweak
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Humans: Too Invasive or Too Compassionate to Survive
In my last post, and elsewhere over the years, I went all Agent Smith and suggested that humans are a virus that can’t be contained. All other animals work within their environment to regulate their population. As long as people don’t mess things up by moving animals around (like bringing rabbits
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Enviro-Optimists vs Doom-Mongers: Another Wentian False Dichotomy
Margaret Wente, in her latest discourse, thinks the reason the environment’s being ignored is because of all the pessimists making us too depressed about it all. She splits all environmentalists into two camps: “But the biggest divide is really between the purists and the pragmatists, the pessimists and the optimists
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Silence During Tragedy
I went to a history conference, and one of the PhDs at the front was talking about the common occurrence of silence during tragedy. And, while those around me discussed WWII, and the Iran-Iraq war, and internment of the Japanese in Canada, I started thinking more about how uncomfortable people are
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Our Rape Culture: Rehtaeh Parsons’ Unfortunate Legacy
And another one gone – a victim of assault and revenge porn enacted and filmed by a bunch of teenaged boys who had more power than they might have ever imagined: they could kill from a distance. As Elizabeth Renzetti says of these double-barrel assaults, they are, “not just an
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: When Men are Raped
A man was sexually assaulted by four women in Toronto, and the story is make the facebook rounds. I hate to say “of course,” but of course people think it’s hilarious. Here are some choice comments directly copied and pasted without names – but these were all written by men
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Boredom
I’m not talking about the “nausea of ennui” discussed from Seneca (“many who judge life to be not bitter, but superfluous”) to Sartre, that total lack of interest in anything that makes it difficult for some to get out of bed in the morning, but of that feeling that overcomes
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Undergrads: Underloved or Just Under Grads
An article in the G&M today expresses concerns with the “hookup culture” of university students. There’s a big fear that casual sex will create “a drastic divide between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy,” and that people will see human bodies as disposable and “become incapable of creating ‘valuable and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Seniority Does Not Always Equal Merit
The title is from a line in an essay published in Friday’s Globe and Mail: “I’m a First-Year Teacher Who Will Automatically be Fired at the End of the School Year.” The author of this unwieldly title laments the reality that, as a new teacher, s/he’ll be first out the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Teacher Accountability
One criticism that Cooper and friends say is part of the problem with education is a lack of teacher accountability. I actually agree with this one. But how do we assess teacher ability? And, maybe a bigger problem, what do we do if we find some teachers below par? This post was
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Deducting Late Marks
I was going to list the pros and cons of taking late marks off assignments, but I had my students blog about it, and they hit on pretty much any points I could think of. So I’ll let their words speak here – in a bit. But first some back-story:
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Misplaced Admiration
Damian Cooper’s out to reform education, and our board has come up with yet another a new assessment document as a response. The article of the day that he co-wrote with Ken O’Connor and Nanci Wakeman, is “Redefining Fair.” The article suggests that there are four challenges to improving assessment
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Crappy Contractors – a Solar Powered RANT
I’m trying to get solar panels on my house under the MicroFIT program. It’s been a process so fraught with frustration, I’m thinking of forgetting the whole thing. A colleague told me, “This could only happen to you,” which offered a strange sort of comfort. At least it acknowledges that
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Hate Crimes and Sexual Orientation
I was reviewing for a test on theories of discrimination and hate crimes in Canada with grade 12 students, and one review question was, “When was sexual orientation added to the list of identifiable groups in the hate propaganda legislation in Canada?” And the answers I got started in the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Following Your Dreams or Living an Illusion?
Ken Robinson, Sir, you are killing me! I know you probably didn’t mean for people to interpret your words in a warped way. Nobody does. But that’s what happens when you use several rare examples as if they are the norm and send people off to change the world. Some of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Regulation 274, Education Act of Ontario
I was just about to start a petition at Change.org about this, but, thanks to Angie Potts, there’s one already there. After, I’m guessing, about 5 day, it’s got 415 signatures. Please take two seconds to click on the link and sign it. I wrote a letter to Liz Sandals,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Education, Stress, and Success
I’m starting another run at the Futures Forum Project: three subjects over two periods with one teacher (two team-teaching this year) that emphasizes an intentional digital footprint as we write for an authentic audience including students from classes in the 14 other participating schools. Whew! There’s no way I can
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Not-So-Awful Truth About Being Single
“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” Jean-Paul Sartre In yesterday’s Globe & Mail, Margaret Wente claims that people can get to a much greater depth of understanding and “perfection” of self through a married relationship than they can possibly do if they remain single. “…the road
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