On Evaluating Teachers and Edu-Speak
I just went through the final teacher evaluation of my career, since we are evaluated every five years, and I don’t expect to do this for more than another four.…
Marie Snyder
Fridays for Future
I went to the first #fridaysforfuture protest in our area with my youngest, yesterday, outside my MP’s office. The idea is the brainchild of Greta Thunberg who wants all students…
Energy Conservation in the Home: I’ll Show You Mine…
I know this is just one tiny piece of the puzzle, but there IS an effective way to get people to reduce their energy usage in their homes: publicize how…
Gertz’s Nihilism and Technology
I really love this book. First of all, the chapter headings and sub-headings are all clever little in jokes, like “Beyond Google and Evil,” that make anyone with a cursory…
On Taxing the Rich
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshest Democrat to hit the White House, is making headlines for mimicking the dance sequence from The Breakfast Club back in college, and wanting to raise marginal…
On Coddling Our Kids
The Agenda has a video with Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist. I watched it with my kids, and we had a good discussion about it. Haidt published a book, The Coddling…
On Capitalism’s Limitations
Every year, when we get to the part of my philosophy course where we read some Marx & Engels, and I ask for criticisms of the reading, like I do…
On Arguing Facts
It never ceases to amaze me how often I’ll be writing or thinking about something, and then the perfect articles drop in my lap. It might help that I’ve been…
The Place of Teachers in this Mess
Once, about twenty years ago, when I was talking about teaching both sides of the climate change debate in the classroom, a colleague told me, “There’s just one side; the…
Courage Over Hope
This got a little out of control, so I added in pictures! But there is suddenly tons in the news about climate change, and many excellent videos to watch. Jeremy…
Ontario’s Education: Call for Ideas
Today’s the last chance to tell Rob Ford and the Minister of Education, Lisa Thompson, what we should do with the educational system. As if it matters. At least it…
Fighting for Midwives: The Personal is Political
Peter Beinart recently wrote a perceptive article in The Atlantic: “The New Authoritarians are Waging War on Women,” that argues that the one thing in common with all the authoritarian-type…
The Toll of the Gig Economy
From an article in today’s New York Times by Ruth Whippman: “Buying, promoting or sharing your friend’s “thing” is now a tax payable for modern friendship. But this expectation becomes…
On Extinction Rebellion
Here’s climate scientist Dr. Kate Marvel on hope and courage as quoted in Truthout: “Hope is a creature of privilege….he opposite of hope is not despair. It is grief. Even…
On the Origins of Cultural Marxism
From an article by Samuel Moyn in the New York Times: “‘Classical Marxists, where they obtained power, expropriated the bourgeoisie and gave their property to the state,’ ‘Where you obtained…
Stuck Between Fear and Hope
Graham Saul was on TVO’s The Agenda: “We need a better narrative to motivate us towards change. We need to be dragged from our ethical fog. The best leaders we…
On J.S. Mill and Free Speech
Most on “Just say ‘no’ to hate speech.” Maverick Philosopher wrote about free speech today, and I’d love to comment there, but there seems to be no means. So I’ll…
Munk Debates: Is Populism the Way of the Future?
I watched the recent, heavily protested, Munk Debate between good buddies on the right, Steve Bannon and David Frum. The issue they were debating was, “Be it resolved, the future…
Climate Change Education: Maybe Too Little, Too Late?
I’ve been teaching about climate change since I started teaching in 1991. Back then, most students just laughed, and I came across as a crazy person. I was fine with…
Can We Turn This Corner?
September is always a busy month for me, and typically I don’t get the luxury of reading the new significantly, but this time was different. It’s been a car crash…