I have some nuanced or maybe fence-sitting views about Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) that I’ll try to sort out below. As a trustee, I went to a PD session in part about the WRDSB’s use of ABA, which I questioned, and I’m currently taking a course with some material about Autism
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A Puff of Absurdity: Emperor’s New Clothes 2.0
Paul Krugman wrote about how someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becomes such “a crank”: “One sad but true fact of life is that most of the time conventional wisdom and expert opinion are right; yet there can be big personal and social payoffs to finding the places where they’re
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Could This Be You?
So, you’re at the grocery store on Saturday morning, in the check-out line, and perusing the gossipy mags and debating a chocolate bar, and the air you exhale is quietly raining down on a little boy standing in line a foot in front of you. But you’re fine, so what’s
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Problems with Psychiatry
Paul Minot, MD, wrote a thread inviting other threads on the practice of psychiatry. Caveat, I have no idea of the credibility of any of these claims, but some make a lot of sense to me: “I’ve been practicing psychiatry for 38 years. I love my job, my peers, and
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Dr. Stephen Levine on the 13 Untruths Behind Gender Affirmative Therapies
The truth about transgender ideology as always been there, it has just been that people have been too afraid to speak out against it. The tide is turning. On Feb 21, 2023 the Florida House Health & Human Services Committee heard testimony from licensed psychiatrist Stephen Levine MD. He outlined
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Conformity Experiments
This image comes from a century ago, of course. It’s still very hard to be different, but sometimes it’s vital. When I taught a course called the Challenge of Change, I offered up a number of challenges along the way. Students who were uncomfortable participating in any of them
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Social Identity and Narratives
From Alan Levinoitz: A lot of politics can be explained by ignoring Maslow’s hierarchy and realizing that people care as much about symbolic meaning, a sense of dignity, narratives in which ‘your people’ are the heroes, as they do about promises of material well-being. Why–ask liberals–do conservatives vote against policies
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Letting Them Fail
In my recent “Kids Today” post, I mentioned the problems with not letting kids fail classes as one of many examples of how we swoop in to rescue them instead of actually supporting their learning and growth as human beings, arguing that their behaviour is being affected by never having to experience
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Don’t Think Of An Elephant!
Our brains are weird. It works though, if you aim for the path between the obstacles rather than not hitting them, it works out waaaaay better 🙂
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Frankl’s Phases of Life in the Camps
My lovely friend and former colleague recently passed away unexpectedly. The kindest people go far too soon. We also went to teacher’s college together over 30 years ago, and his quips and just the calm and jovial way about him helped make the ridiculous assignments there far more tolerable. Sitting next to
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Where is My Mind? On Freud and Neuropsychology
Freud got some things right, and this isn’t a post to slam him. But he understood the whole concept of the unconscious mind upside-down. It’s a lot like Aristotle’s science, with the cause and effect going in the wrong direction. It’s still pretty impressive how far they got as they
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Peter Boghossian Reacts To Jordan Peterson Vs Ontario College Of Psychologists
When you cannot engage with a person’s arguments, use institutional censure instead. Sad times for the Ontario College of Psychologists.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Dating for Dogs
Lots of people discredit the Myers-Briggs as just a horoscope, but it’s significantly different and can be useful in recognizing that we’re all innately different kinds of people. This awareness can help us get along in this world and maybe even find love, or at least a better roommate. Dividing people
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s a Social Problem, not a Medical Problem
Carol Dumaine wrote about the Davos safety measures, and how the rest of us are playing Covid roulette. It’s a solid read, but I got totally sidetracked by one of the links she provides: “Infection of Society,” by Antoine Danchin, published in EMBO Reports back in April 2003 – almost
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: OPSBA Conference in the Time of Covid
I’m missing my first trustee conference this weekend because there are no Covid mitigations in effect. I called to ask about it, and they’re following the Ontario protocol, which is basically nothing. It’s a full weekend at a hotel eating together, and I suspect that very few will be masked.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Deprogramming Your Child From Transgender Ideological Cult – Six Steps.
Excerpt from Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans. Step One: Preparation and research So, what exactly is deprogramming? It is simply removing the programming that your kid has received and allowing them to think for themselves. All you are doing is talking to your teen and telling them or
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Tavistock Child Gender Identity Closed – (Hallelujah!)
Finally some positive news on the gender front. The Tavistock Centre in the UK is to be shut down because they are not adequately helping the children sent there. The BBC reports – ” “Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has been told to shut the clinic by spring after
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: And on to LongCovid
Masks are all but gone in my neck of the woods. A couple stores have employees that wear them, but not many, and then very few customers do. The people I know who don’t wear masks seem to fall in two camps: The first are people with kids who are
Continue readingThings Are Good: Increase Happiness by Getting Out of Your Comfort Zones
If you ever feel that you’re in a rut then do something to get you out of your comfort zone. A new study reveals the importance for expanding one’s boundaries to increase one’s happiness. Going out of your comfort zone doesn’t need to be skydiving, public speaking, or anything extreme.
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