Kolbert’s Under a White Sky
It’s World Environment Day (who knew?!), and the Independent published a collection of hopeful messages despite the world not being on track to keep temperatures below two degrees this century.…
Marie Snyder
Post-Covid Educational Reform
I try to restrain any excitement that bubbles up over the prospect that education will be different when all this ends, assuming it will end. Teachers have suddenly had to…
Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist
Nearing the end of my two-week long prep period at the END of a year that slayed me with back-to-back senior courses, and I’m finally getting caught up on my…
Got a Better Idea?
When I was little, my parents told me never to complain unless I have a better idea or a solution that can work. They likely did that to stop me…
Michael Mann’s New Climate War
It’s not all that new. There are tons of books on this topic now, so it would be hard to find a completely new angel. But the public still needs…
Safe Schools in September – Second Try
Last September, despite all the science to the contrary, school boards opened schools with “mask breaks” built in to the mornings rather than have a shorter day and let the…
Michael Sandel’s Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?
This excellent read, The Tyranny of Merit, by Harvard philosophy professor Michael Sandel, actually shifted some of my thinking, and I love a good lightbulb moment provoked by a book!…
Interview with the Guelph Back-Grounder: On Teaching Critical Thinking
In early February, just before immersing myself into the current quad of online teaching, a friend of a friend interviewed me for a local independent journal. I thought it would…
World Autism Day
I’ve come up for air from this crazy year of teaching for World Autism Day – and I’m a day late. Many autistic people find April an awkward time because…
Stop the Lucrative Cruelty in Yemen
There was an online rally with some impressive speeches about the war on Yemen today, What Yanis Varoufakis referred as a form of “lucrative cruelty.” Here’s the full video and…
Freedom at Any Cost
I believe it’s not a coincidence that the UK, US, and much of Canada – the trio that promoted neoliberal free market politics – are not doing enough to restrict…
Painting for Community
I did these fun little puzzle pieces as part of a local community initiative, “Belonging Together,” with the aim of an ever-expanding mural from people across the region. I based…
Gertz’s Nihilism
A year after coming out with Nihilism and Technology, Dr. Nolen Gertz wrote just plain Nihilism, an “examination of the meaning of meaninglessness: why it matters that nothing matters.” It’s…
2020 Year in Review: Teaching Under the Banner of Covid
Dr. Jennifer Kwan put out a call on Twitter for messages we wished to have sent ourselves a year ago. Then she added, And Ryan Imgrund, provider of daily stats…
Hedges on American Psychosis
Chris Hedges just put out a short video about American Psychosis, in which he explains, We have blissfully checked out. Most people have no concept of how fragile their environment…
On Cuties, Euphoria, and Promising Young Woman
My social media feed is full of political scandals that I have no ability to affect, so I’ve immersed myself in movies and shows. Bechdel test for the win for…
Ten Climate Change Items That Need Wider Reporting
Out of the frying pan, into the fire. A vaccine is here, hooray! But now let’s actually take a good hard look at climate change mitigation. This is from a…
Unforeseen Custody Issues: Who Could Have Predicted THIS?
I’m generally a worrier. If my kids don’t text back after a few minutes, all sorts of images bombard my brain. Sometimes they don’t text back for hours, and it…
Hannah Arendt in Lego
@EthicsInBricks posted this lovely tribute to Hannah Arendt on Twitter last October, in honour of her date of birth, October 14, 1906, and I want to save it in the…
How Is Hybrid Teaching Going?? It’s Complicated.
We’ve recently been told that next semester, starting in February, will operate the same way as this semester did: running quadmester terms with in-school students attached to each school in…