I watched it so you don’t have to! I’ve transcribed most of it, but left out repetitive information in places. I also added timestamps to some of the more pertinent bits. And I’ve added in my own responses here and there. Many reporters did an amazing job with persistent questioning,
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A Puff of Absurdity: Covid and Kids
I feel like I’m “cheating” just copying threads instead of writing, but so much work on social media needs to be acknowledged and saved in a more searchable manner. Here’s a thread from @MeetJess. She’s the go-to for long threads chronicling sudden deaths of teens and young adults – picked
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Teachable Moments: Should Schools Teach About Covid?
I’ve been talking with parents who are trying desperately to keep their kids safe in the classroom. It sounds like most staff and students are unmasked despite higher Covid numbers in the hospital and higher fatality rates than last year at this time. It doesn’t have to be like this.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What To Do If Our Classrooms Aren’t Safe
I’m getting these types of questions over and over: What should I do if other students and the teachers won’t wear masks? What do I do if my child gets Covid? It’s the hardest question to answer because there isn’t a clear solution when people in charge are ignoring or
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Strategic Plan: What about Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic??
This isn’t a response to a question directed at me, but some people are questioning trustee campaigns like mine that speak to equity and student well being without mentioning how to improve academics, and there are many concerned voices on Facebook addressing the board’s new Strategic Plan. Here’s a sampling:
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Really Deep Dive into Anti-CRT Rhetoric
This will be a long one, but I’ll break it into headings (after this preamble) for easier bit-at-a-time reading! There’s a division among school board trustees and some parents around the best way to tackle discrimination to ensure the best outcome for students and society. The board currently has been
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Privatization in Ontario
It’s vital in Ontario that we understand the problems with privatization because the shift of essential services from the public to private sphere is happening right under our noses. Brittlestar does a great job of explaining it here: The typical disaster capital scheme goes something like this: Wait for a
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Covid-Free Schools are Possible!
A school in Texas has been 100% Covid-free with zero learning loss. They used good masks indoors (N95 or better) with no ‘mask breaks.’ Everyone eats outdoors even in the hottest weather. Every room has a HEPA or Corsi-Rosenthal box filter and a CO2 monitor to track air quality. At 650ppm,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: We Need to Discuss Systemic Racism in Schools
In The Record article, “Waterloo Region District School Board Trustee Mike Ramsay speaks up about sanctions against him,” Mr. Ramsay writes that he is concerned that education has shifted from a focus on literacy and numeracy to White Privilege and Critical Race Theory (CRT). As a teacher at WRDSB this
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Masked and Vaxed in School
Q. Do you support bringing back masks mandates for schools, defying provincial orders, if necessary? Do you support your board demanding that the province add vaccination for Covid to the provincial list? A. (on the fly on Twitter) It will be so much harder to get masks back now that
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Claims of Porn in Schools
There’s a call to arms on a social media from a few people who think the memoir in graphic novel form, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (e/em/eir pronouns), should be removed from shelves in school libraries for being pornographic. For the uninitiated, “graphic novel” means it’s a cartoon, not that it’s graphic
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Last Day of Teaching – Ever!
Well, never say never. But I’m officially done at KCI, at any rate, where I spent part of my grade 13 year as a student back in ’85, then was a student-teacher there just five years later, and spent 31 years teaching (minus a few maternity leaves). I was invited
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Open Letter to Universities Removing Mask Mandates
Open Letter to Dr. Deborah MacLatchy, PhD, President and Vice-Chancellor of Wilfrid Laurier University, president@wlu.ca, and Dr. Vivek Goel, CM, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waterloo, president@uwaterloo.ca [NOTE: I sent this as a letter to both, without the images.] RE: Removing mask mandates at your universities. My daughter
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Bit More on Burnout
I was listening to VoicEd.ca last week (Wednesdays at 8:45 am), and they recommended Lynn Thomas’s post on resilience and burnout summarized from a talk by Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe. I agree with much of what she writes, particularly about the number of teachers hitting a wall (70% of teachers are concerned
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Optional Grade 13 – aka Breaking the 34-Credit Threshold
When Conservatives Mike Harris and Ernie Eves decided to get rid of grade 13 and the OAC year – Ontario Academic Credit – in 2003, I was opposed to the move even though Ontario was last in Canada to offer it. At the time, everyone had to finish grade 12,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Harrowing Road for Candidates – and the Rest of Us
I’ve recently read two articles on the problem and solution to the current nastiness in elections after hearing first hand about serious issues candidates have had at the door. You never know who you’re going to get when you knock on someone’s door, and most people don’t want to buy
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Student Led Differentiation
Occasionally we actually get some good ideas from PD in-servicing. I previously wrote in praise of Paul Gorski‘s anti-grit (possibly now anti-resilience) stance. Today we watched a video that, in a nutshell, asked us to better understand how stats work, which is a very necessary concept for everyone to grasp
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Not Dead Yet!
This pandemic feels like living in a horror movie that just keeps going on and on. We think the killer is dead, but then they come back for yet another attack. Is this one finally the end? Is this one?? When is it over?? Checking our watch is a bad sign
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Removing Mask Mandates
I’m gobsmacked by the recent move to remove the mask mandate for schools starting March 21st, at the start of spring. The Hamilton Board dared to face down the ministry, but my board only had one trustee, a former nurse, willing to go on record as voting against the new
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Importance of Civics Classes
On Monday, I did a five minute bit on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning with Ismaila Alfa about teaching civics. They called me last Sunday afternoon, having exhausted all other avenues, because I happened to tweet this the previous day: It wasn’t even a particularly well-liked tweet! And then right after
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