There are days when I despair for humanity’s future. Many days, of late, it seems, and they seem to get more frequent as I read the news. I recently read an article online that confirms my belief we’re all doomed by the accelerating stupidity that seems to be consuming the
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Things Are Good: Will Kindergarteners be Better at Fact Checking than Boomers?
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0 We tach kids how to read so why not teach them to understand how to critique what they read? People tend to be fine with that (although some basic people claim schools shouldn’t teach kids how to question the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Scott Gilmore discusses how our elected leaders have failed us in responding to COVID-19. Shannon Devine offers a warning to the Ford PCs about their insistence in putting workers’ lives and health at risk in the midst of a pandemic. And Christy Somos
Continue readingScripturient: The Long Read Lost
“What we read, how we read, and why we read change how we think, changes that are continuing now at a faster pace,” wrote Maryanne Wolf, a neuroscientist, in her book, Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in the Digital World (Harper Paperbacks, 2019). It’s the sequel to her previous
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Education Minister’s K-12 curriculum news conference by turns bizarre, deceptive, incoherent, and a comedy classic
No one who watched Education Minister Adriana LaGrange’s news conference on the United Conservative Party’s plans for Alberta’s K-12 curriculum yesterday could come away with the impression our province’s education system is in capable hands. Putting aside the government’s intention to send students back to schools ill prepared for COVID-19
Continue readingScripturient: The slow death of reading
To me, one of the most depressing stories to come out of 2018 was posted in The Guardian, last August. Its headline read, “Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound.” Its subhead reads, “When the reading brain skims texts, we don’t have time to grasp
Continue readingScripturient: Dictionary vs Dictionary.com
Did you know that doxastic is a philosophical adjective relating to an individual’s beliefs? Or that doxorubicin was an antibiotic used in treating leukemia? Or that doxy is a 16th century word for mistress and prostitute? That drack is Australian slang for unattractive or dreary? Drabble means to make wet
Continue readingScripturient: Storytelling cubes
You don’t expect Wal Mart to be the source for literary tools, but if you amble into the section crammed with toys, you can pick up a set of Rory’s Story Cubes for just $10 (the base set). Now, I realize these are meant as a creative game for children
Continue readingScripturient: Collingwood’s first postliterate council
At the Corporate & Community Services standing committee meeting this week, the committee discussed the Art on the Street festival, its operation and management to be taken over by the BIA. That’s probably a good thing because any affinity to culture and cultural events at the council table evaporated early
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘What would Lois do?’ asks leader of St. Albert’s Vote Yes for the Library campaign at Saturday evening launch event
PHOTOS: In the foreground, former St. Albert Public Library Board chair Charmaine Brooks, who now leads the Vote Yes for the Library campaign, and mayoral candidate Cathy Heron, a city councillor, at last night’s campaign launch. Below: A band perked things up and Library Director Peter Bailey addressed the crowd
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘What would Lois do?’ asks St. Albert Public Library Board chair at launch of Vote Yes campaign for a branch library
PHOTOS: In the foreground, St. Albert Public Library Board Chair Charmaine Brooks and mayoral candidate Cathy Heron, a city councillor, at last night’s Vote Yes for the Library campaign launch. Below: A band perked things up and Library Director Peter Bailey addressed the crowd of about 200 people at the
Continue readingScripturient: Does anyone still read books?
I came across an early version of this infographic on Facebook and it shook me to my core. You can see it here. The updated and corrected infographic is shown to the right. It is only marginally less distressing than the earlier one. Unfortunately, the early one, although inaccurate and
Continue readingScripturient: Where Have all the Readers Gone?
No, it’s not a remake of Pete Seeger’s famous 1955 anti-war song. That’s the title of an article that appeared in the Globe and Mail this week, by Peter Denton, lamenting our overall slide into image-based information with the “…
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Nasty, Just Plain Nasty
It’s not like it comes as a big surprise that the Harper Government is nasty. But the extent of their vileness continues expand. First, the Harper Government seems to have decided to shut down basic literacy programs across Canada. The claims of the Harperites on this matter are the usual
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Why Spelling Matters
Sometimes I despair when I surf through the social media. Technology has empowered everyone to be able to comment, to post their stories, to share their opinion. Yet it has not enabled their ability to compose a sentence, or to spell the words correctly. It has not made us better
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Problem Described #nlpoli
One of the major factors affecting economic development in Newfoundland and Labrador is the literacy level of the population. If you want to see the extent of the problem in one area, consider the case of Bell Island. According to a May 2008 briefing note released as part of a
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Digital Life
The Disaffected Lib recently wrote a post expressing ambivalence about the ubiquitous role that technology plays in our lives. It is an ambivalence I think many of us, especially those of an older generation raised on typwriters, print and analogue television, feel. On the one hand it has been an
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Celebration of Literacy
Despite its rather lengthy history, yesterday was the first time my wife and I attended Toronto’s Word On the Street, a celebration of books, literacy, and the dispelling of ignorance. As a retired English teacher and keen observer of the political machinations that envelop our society, it was very heartening
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Word On The Street
Word on the street suggests that reading books in becoming obsolete. This Word on the Street, which we are heading off to attend, suggests otherwise. Recommend this Post
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