Full Stop
The Nipper is learning punctuation. They were studying periods, exclamation points, and question marks in class. He told us they have hand signals for each one (they clap for an…
Education
Four-day school scheme shows Tories view Fort McMurray as not much more than a work camp
Public School District students await dismissal for the week on a Thursday afternoon in Fort McMurray. Actual students may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Edmonton-Calder NDP MLA David Eggen;…
Hudak would end support for students from low income families with attack on 30% tuition rebate
Tim Hudak rolled out his latest double down on right-wing policy, announcing he would end the 30% tuition rebate for Ontario post-secondary students. Hudak and his post-secondary education critic, Rob…
Sound and fury, signifying nothing
There’s a truly great moment in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, when Macbeth voices his last, and perhaps most moving, soliloquy about the fleetingness of life, and the meaning of what we…
Just an earthbound misfit
Just a wee preview, then. No long-winded stories about Canadian pilots. No jibber-jabber about aeroplanes. Just this: The skellington of the Nieuport 17, covered in tissue paper, shrunk and strengthened.…
The Original Torture Memos
FLASH: Idaho State Sen. tables bill mandating the torture of Idaho youth en masse. No, srsly: Coeur d’Alene Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate’s Education Committee, introduced legislation…
Redford government floats risky scheme to impose contract on teachers
An Alberta Teachers Association member gets ready to give an important lesson to the Redford Government. Alberta teachers may not be smiling quite as broadly as illustrated if the government…
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
This is a balsa and tissue paper model of the Nieuport 17 aeroplane flown by Billy Bishop during WWI. Well. Technically, this is the completed fuselage of said aeroplane. In…
NSCAD students disrupt university board meeting to announce manifesto
Last week over 100 students from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, concerned about how government funding cuts will impact the future of the university, disrupted a Board…
Interacting with those we disagree with
What do you do with people you don’t agree with? Do you agree to keep quiet about the topics you disagree on? Do you cut them out of your life?…
blogging about blogging
“Writers deserve to get paid for their work” says a popular blogger in defense of putting her blog behind a paywall. The arguments and comments made by her fans and…
We don’t want your dirty gold: corporate donations and the university
The following is a piece written by contributor Kevin Harding and guest contributor Natalie Gan. The piece was written in 2010, but is being published on Politics Respun for the…
What Paulo Coelho and other global leaders tweeted about at World Economic Forum in Davos
by Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Jan. 31, 2013: Let’s agree in one point: we can have anything, but we CAN’T have everything #wef — Paulo Coelho (@paulocoelho) January…
Reflections From Cuba
The following is one of several pieces I wrote on my Blackberry Playbook while on a recent holiday in Cuba. Because Internet access and outside information is limited there, I…
Foundation Skills Assessment: Another Dirty Trick
By Rachel Goodine The FSAs, or Foundation Skills Assessment tests, administered annually in British Columbia since 2000 to students in grades 4 and 7, are once again under way. They…
Austerity is the Real Story at the OLP LDR Convention
Eric Hoskins | Gerard Kennedy Sandra Pupatello | Charles Sousa | Harinder Takhar | Kathleen Wynne Slush filled sidewalks are tough enough to traverse first thing in the morning. They’re…
Canada Has Moved Backwards On Education: Our Past Demands Free Post-Secondary
Canada 140 years ago was a more intolerant, sexist, and unequal place, but on one important issue it was far more progressive than the Canada of today, and that’s on…