Cancer and Lymphedema: Two Year Update
In the span of one year, from August 2016 to July 2017, I was told I had three tumours in my left breast which led to three surgeries, which provoked…
Marie Snyder
Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Or maybe we’d recognize Nietzsche’s last man as ourselves: “Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is…
Eleanor Oliphant? Not So Fine
I rarely read fiction, so maybe just ignore this rant. I know little about this kind of thing, but it might get me writing again after a dry spell, and…
Real World Curriculum
Almost two years ago, in July of 2017, I crafted a “Real World” curriculum. It must have rained or been outrageously hot for a few days in a row for…
McKibben is Banking on Protests
Bill McKibben in The Guardian: “Luckily, we have two relatively new inventions that could prove decisive to solving global warming before it destroys the planet. One is the solar panel,…
Can We Change by 2030?
The timeline of 12 years has stuck to the point that we’re continuing to say it after the first year has passed. We have until 2030, which is 11 years…
Life After Warming
David Wallace-Wells’s book The Uninhabitable Earth starts out with a repetition of facts that won’t be news to anyone paying attention, but he has a lovely way with words. Four…
Like Rats Jumping a Sinking Ship
My class had a great conversation the other day about discrimination and W.E.B. DuBois’s “double consciousness.” I discussed the theory and solicited for comments, but there were none, as I…
Varoufakis’s Economic History for Dummies
First published six years ago, Varoufakis’s book, Talking to My Daughter about the Economy, addressed to his then 12-year-old daughter, is a quick read in economic theory that would benefit…
Climate Change is About Capitalism
Phil McDuff in The Guardian: “Today’s children, as they become more politically aware, will be much more radical than their parents, simply because there will be no other choice for…
Another Piece of the Puzzle that is our Premier
Nora Loreto on Twitter yesterday: We already know that part of the increase in anxiety and depression is due to straight up loneliness. Kids are already too isolated from one…
More Ford Cuts: Ban Cell Phones, but Mandate Online Courses
From iPolitics: “On top of the change to class sizes, the government is also mandating that all high school students take four of their 30 credits online. This requirement will…
Ford’s Cuts to Education
As reported in a CBC article, Ford’s cuts to education, so far, aren’t nearly as bad as anticipated. Could it mean he actually listened to citizens? Or maybe they’ve been…
Arctic Destruction
I just want to put this document here so I can find it again: Global Linkages: A graphic look at the changing Arctic. It was compiled by the UN Environment…
Seligman’s Hope Circuit
Martin Seligman is famous for a learned helplessness study I wrote about a few years back: In a famous experiment, dogs were put in a compartment and trained to jump…
Are Grades Harmful to Students?
A bold claim was made to me recently that giving students grades on assignments and tests actually impedes their ability to self-assess their work. It’s a big deal when an…
A Different Sort of Electoral Reform
What if politicians were no longer allowed to campaign by burning fossil fuels travelling all over the world?? What if there were a very strict and low limit on campaign…
OFSTED Report
OFSTED recently published a report on what works in schools. Some of the ideas were relevant only to the U.K., but other ideas can be used here. They studied schools…
Amber Alert Red Herring
People were upset to be woken up by the Amber Alert Thursday night. And now, on social media, people are REALLY upset that people were upset to be woken up…
On Fake News and Russian Collusion
In a recent interview in AcTIVism, Glenn Greenwald, one of few people Edward Snowden agreed to speak to, shamed other countries that benefited from Snowden’s revelations but refused to grant…