It is the day after Jack Layton’s funeral, and much of what needs to be said has been said. I can’t add to the eloquence of a Stephen Lewis, or to the raw beauty of people speaking with their feet, their chalk, their bicycle bells, their hearts.
Some of what was said really didn’t need to be said – and I’m talking to you, Christie Blatchford.
For me, there are three small but significant pieces to this story that haven’t been reviewed to my satisfaction, and I hope to address them here.
Health: When I hear the name “Jack Layton”, the image I have in my head is of an incredibly fit, active, healthy, vibrant man. A man who, even in a busy, active life, clearly made time to exercise. I have no information on his dietary choices. From my vantage point – 99% off the television and 1% from seeing him up close at Pride every year – he looked the picture of health. Always.
I’m finding it hard to draw a conclusion from this outcome. That someone whose physical presence always radiated health and vitality can be cut down by cancer. Of course, I have been surprised and made anxious as I watch some of my “picture of health” friends struggle with the disease. We are told to exercise, to watch our weight, to eat properly. A huge industry has arisen, selling all manner of health supplements to ward off cancer and other insidious physical ailments. Yet, one has to wonder what is written into our DNA upon conception, and that if our time has arrived, it has arrived and no amount of Greens Plus, broccoli or cardio is going to challenge that programming.
Elizabeth May: Where are you? Perhaps it is a trick of the media, like a trick of the light, that your voice has been quite absent this week. I see you as a well-spoken woman who usually has something insightful to say. Yet the Green Party has issued a boilerplate condolence message and left things there. I think we need more from the leader of the Greens on the occasion of losing the national party leader who was, in many ways, most closely aligned to that party’s views. Elizabeth – perhaps you weren’t close, and perhaps there was rancour, but leadership demands some class from you at this point.
Apology To Former Students of Indian Residential Schools: On June 11, 2008, the Canadian Parliament apologized – finally – for the treatment of First Nations children and families. What seems to have been overlooked was Jack’s role in encouraging and guiding the Government of the day – specifically, Prime Minister Stephen Harper – to take this action. Prior to making the official apology, Stephen Harper acknowledged Layton’s role in making this happen. Here is Jack Layton making his apology in the House of Commons on that day.
Jack says in this address in June 2008 that this is a beginning, not an ending. Here is Jack, two months plus a day before his death, June 21, 2011, still pressing the government to take action on improving living conditions for our Aboriginal peoples.
I haven’t heard a word about this part of Jack’s work this week, and I wanted to give it a bit of air time. This was a man who was comfortable operating in the full public eye and, yet, able to work behind the scenes in concert with his political foes to get important items hauled to the forefront and dealt with. There is lots to miss about Jack Layton. The part we will miss, without even knowing it existed, is the part in which he laboured, and encouraged others to labour, quietly behind the scenes to achieve momentous things.
We need so many more like him, and yet are granted so few per generation. Salut, Jack, et merci.
It has been weeks, months, of managing space. Of living in limbo as Knotty Girl and I try to blend our lives in the midst of challenges that are completely unrelated to this blending. KG trying to manage her mother’s complex health and personal affairs. Me trying to get my head around my working life and trying to “vacation” while doing so. Me living partially in my staged, listed condo space, partially at KG’s temporary house-sitting space. One foot here, one foot there. As I type this now, I’m sitting in a local, newly discovered pub to accommodate a showing of my condo space.
Everyone who “knows” my living space of the last seven years seems to love it. Many of my friends have said, “If my life pointed me to living in downtown Toronto, I’d buy your place in a heartbeat.” That is sweet and heartfelt. However, the market is indicating something different. When surrounded by new, highly-amenitied high rise glass and steel towers, my little low-rise loft – lacking in the concierge, the marble foyer, the in-house gym - seems to lack the glassy cubicle coldness that the market seems to expect.
If only my walls could talk. I purchased the place from architectural rendering before the shovel hit the ground in May 2002. I waited, impatiently, in a 400 sq. ft. basement apartment until July 2004 to move in. The first six months were hell, with 57 items incomplete on the construction list, including two out of three sinks missing. Much of my valued stuff in storage had been wrecked through dampness and I thought I’d made a huge mistake with the whole thing. However, about six months in, everything seemed to settle a bit. I started to enjoy the magnificent space, the location, my neighbours. A community started to form in the building, paint got up on previously stark white walls, and the space started to really feel like home. Meals prepared and enjoyed. Rehearsals for plays and music performances. Laughter. Socks and underwear even careening off the ceiling fan from time to time. (Perhaps I should put that in the listing.)
I have called this space my “oasis in the city” and it has felt like this – a quiet, secure, healing place. There has been much to heal from, as there often is in an examined life. It has felt safe and protective, yet welcoming and communal. It is, as a space, special to me. The walls, now freshly repaired from nail holes and scuff marks, and beautifully painted, have wrapped around me, fitting whatever needs I have had, from rehearsal space to party space to gallery space to quiet reflective space to new love space.
Time passes and a home can be outgrown, as is the case now. There is no room for KG’s two children, not to mention a workshop and another office. To pass this space on, I want to reminisce, to help them “feel” it … to feel as comfortable, relaxed, open as I have felt – more comfortable than I could ever feel in a glass tower overlooking a cityscape. To help them feel the sense of community that they can help build anew, just by their presence in this space.
But listings don’t work that way, and some decisions are made with the cold reality of interest rates, square footage, and the fitting of furniture and placement of televisions. However, life does not work that way. A peaceful, quiet, light-filled space in a downtown location is surely worth some fiddling around with sofas and entertainment solutions.
In truth, with the staging, it feels much less like my space than it once did. I’m curiously enjoying the neat and tidy minimalist lifestyle. But I can’t cook big complex meals … or bacon. Everything I take out of cupboards or drawers has to be put back. None of the detritus of day-to-day life – receipts, pocket change, scraps of paper with shopping lists, odds and ends - can be visible. The place feels sanitized and so much less personal. This, however, is in an effort to help the next person visualize themselves in this space. Their colours, their art, their detritus. Their laughter, their love, their life. I know when this space finds its next occupant, it will respond to their needs as beautifully as it has responded to mine. And this thought makes me smile.
Folks who have been following along with Facebook updates will know that the lovely Knotty Girl’s mother is in hospital, ICU in fact, and struggling. Each day, it seems, brings some new piece of unhappy information or new medical complication of some kind. It is a sad, stressful time and we hope she can turn a corner soon.
Moments of brightness and levity can be few and far between, but there have been a couple. Here is one of my favs: KG and I were texting early on in this saga and, if memory serves, she had just been informed that her mother needed extensive, high-risk surgery. Details were exchanged and, having run out of helpful things to say, I texted, “Be strong!”
Or, I thought I did. Just before I hit “send”, I noted that my iPhone had helpfully corrected this to “Be Stroganoff!”
I left it in. It is a measure of my vegetarian girlfriend’s fortitude that she thought it was funny, too, even in this horrible moment.
So, I encourage my darling readers to adopt this as your rallying cry, in those moments where strength is needed, and humour helpful, simply … Be Stroganoff!
It is late evening, and I’m exhausted and frustrated. Grading deadlines are slipping by me as the technology I’ve relied on to exchange work and feedback with students is letting me down. I’m beginning to believe that the process whereby any young person in this age learns how to communicate is quite broken and, as a communicator, this leaves me despondent. My apartment is a disaster, from a hygiene standpoint, and I’m not really all that special myself at the moment. My dog is unwell, again, and that is frightening and expensive. After the grading deadlines are dealt with, there is another – slightly less intense I hope – wave of activity on the horizon. I fervently hope, daily, that the social connections and opportunities I’m missing out on will still be there when I’m in a more balanced place.
That is really the issue: everything is just a bit out of balance – some days, a lot out of balance. I’ve been through this before, and it does pass. I know that. When I was 17, however, this lack of balance felt profound and cavernous. Insurmountable. Unending. My father had shown up the summer previous, and after a five year absence, announced that he was selling the house and “moving us to town”. Just like that – he decided. It took a year to find a buyer and to negotiate the purchase of a house in town. My estranged parents did not speak to each other and avoided even being in the same room. There were opinions to share on potential homes, and instructions to relay between parties – parents, brothers, real estate agents, potential purchasers. I was the interpreter / go-between. My father, suffering then with a not inconsequential onset of early senility, had the habit of yanking me out of class, without warning, and hauling me off to look at a house “for your mother”. And … we were selling the most precious place on earth, as far as I was concerned. I’d lived on that farm all my life. Thus, the Great Move off the Farm in the summer of 1981 was the last chapter in what had already been a year-long, rather harrowing, squabbly saga.
We moved on Friday, June 5 and there was a party at a friend’s house that night. I remember getting very drunk and staggering home to a bed that was not properly constructed and subsequently sleeping at a 45 degree angle all night. My grandmother died, suddenly and unexpectedly, on Sunday, June 7. Or at least they found her that day. She didn’t get to see our new home.
My summer job had started. For the second or third year running, I was part of a traveling children’s theatre troupe, performing at day camps and libraries across our part of the province. Several of my friends were involved in this troupe as well. Long days of bouncing around in a van with no seats – certainly not meeting any safety code of any kind – and leaping out, setting up, performing, loading up and moving on. Some days, we had three locations to hit in quick succession. It was fun, but it could be gruelling, hot and monotonous.
Somewhere in the year leading up to that summer, my inner life had shifted. I became slightly more aware, without language or even strong consciousness, that I was attracted to women. I abhorred this knowledge, floating somewhere below my articulated thoughts. I remember looking at my hands one day and thinking, “God – please don’t let these be the hands of a homosexual.” Every time I had a thought like that, I pushed it very far down. I had deeply, deeply internalized the wrongness of these attractions. And, being a good student, I paid attention. I didn’t need external bullies – I bullied myself.
But, when you are 17, sexual energy is everywhere and it was certainly present that summer in our little theatre troupe. We had the two Ds – boys, my best friend A, J the older female chaperone “adult”, and me. The five of us, bouncing around the province in a VW van. I remember getting quieter and quieter as the summer unfolded, and I remember that the only top I wore for weeks was my orange hockey jersey from my winter rec hockey team. It has only just struck me now the protective nature of this choice – my jersey, which originated from the only group of women that included people like me. Even on the hottest, sweatiest August days, I would sit sullenly in that van, in my orange hockey jersey, watching the two Ds flirt endlessly and mercilessly with A.
Included among the many attributes of that summer is that it is the first time any of us ever witnessed A telling another person to “fuck off”, her frustrated response after the playful, raucous flirtation crossed some line or other.
I didn’t “get” the flirtation. I didn’t speak, hadn’t learned or understood, the language of it. The meaning of it. I understood the textual, obvious meaning, but the subtext of playful meaninglessness eluded me. It did not elude me that I was not included in this ongoing, electrostatic, summer-long exchange between these three people who were my friends. The exclusion became more painful than anything I’d experienced. I remember my frustrating inability to just be like them and join in, even lightheartedly. Girls didn’t flirt with boys directly and if I tried, it would be like sawdust. There was no energy in it. It was impossible. I withdrew, further and further. I was deeply angry, hurt, and confused.
Mid-August, we had a booking at the Pinery Provincial Park. There was to be an late morning show and then a “just before bedtime” show for the campers and their kids. Lots of free time before and after both shows. A and I decided to have our lunch in the woods and a “friendly” raccoon wandered over to check out our offerings. A, not having knowledge of wild things, tried to pet the raccoon and soon learned that one gets bitten when one attempts such a thing. Then followed a “search” for the specific raccoon which was rather ridiculous really. How many raccoons are there in the Pinery, anyway?
I had reached some kind of nadir of my despondency that day, and I don’t recall if there was a specific thing that happened to drive me there. We had brought our bathing suits and had planned to have a bonfire on the beach after the early evening show. There I sat on a log on the beach, with my orange hockey jersey on over my bathing suit, the sun setting across the horizon and my friends cavorting in the surf of Lake Huron. I sat there for a long time, watching. Finding the mystery of how people get connected to be too difficult. Simply not believing that I would ever be one of those people to experience a human connection. A sexual connection. I didn’t have or develop what it takes for this mysterious thing that clearly comes easily to everyone else. I wasn’t good enough, nor would I ever be.
Sunsets over Lake Huron are among the most beautiful on earth and I suddenly thought it would be a good idea for me to just get lost in it. Just swim until I no longer existed, and had become one with the Lake and energy of the sun. I remember clearly peeling off the protective jersey and wading into the cold lake water. I started swimming, right past my friends. Further. I kept going. Steadily. I could hear my name being called. I kept going. And the sun kept going down.
I was a very strong swimmer at 17, and quite a determined one in that moment. I had gotten a long way out before I heard splashing behind me. One of the D’s, the weakest swimmer ironically, had bolted after me which was quite an impressive feat, really. He grabbed my foot, I think, and then my arm. He yelled something at me, right in my face, in a scared, angry voice. He was struggling to stay afloat himself and that hadn’t been my intent. So I let him steer me back to shore and “save” me. If memory serves, and it does get a little foggy at this point, I think I put my hockey jersey back on and sat back down sullenly on my log while he sputtered and stamped around our bonfire. It was all a bit surreal.
Later that weekend, there was a kitchen table meeting with A’s parents and my Mom, discussing how to handle treatment for A’s raccoon bite. She was furious at me for making my big swim and she brought it up at this discussion. I had nothing to say for myself, as I recall, so the subject was dropped. No one ever brought it up again, as I recall. I remember accompanying A to the hospital for those horrid rabies shots. She tells me that I went with her for every single one. I honestly don’t remember that. I do remember feeling that the raccoon bite had made a more lasting impression on the adults than my big swim had.
Being a teenager is really hard. Emotions loom large and they all feel complex, entangled and frustrating. Suicide attempts happen in a larger context than simply “being gay” and “being bullied” although these things have enormous impact. Being able to talk about whatever it is that makes us feel apart and isolated, being able to really appreciate a healthy, whole reflection of ourselves, to see all the beauty each individual brings BECAUSE they are individuals, not part of a mass-produced mind-meld – these are important gifts that young people need.
For the record, I more than made up for the absence of teen flirting later. I was a late bloomer in that regard. And I’m very, very grateful that D swam after me that August evening in 1981. Because having too much work, an attention-seeking feline, an elderly canine, a beautiful girlfriend, a dirty apartment, a drawer overflowing with hockey jerseys, too many invitations and not enough time … these are all the blessings of a full, if not always balanced, life. And I am indeed blessed.
… a country that should rightfully be called “Rockland”. There are way more lava rocks – entire fields of them – than ice. At least as of October 2010.
… a country that knows about water. You can be assured of a hot shower anywhere on this island as all the hot water is geothermal. I’d be surprised to learn if there is a hot water heater anywhere on Iceland. The slight downside is the odour of sulfur that comes along with the hot water. After a while, like when you are standing under a waterfall at The Blue Lagoon, the hot water pounding down your back and neck, one ceases to notice the sulfur odour. All the buildings – all of them- are heated by hot water rads with water FROM THE GROUND. Oh, and the cold water? They have cold springs, too. You can be assured of completely cold, tasteless, wickedly perfect cold water right out of the tap. Which makes me love this country.
… not sure what to make of a bunch of loud, funny, energetic, smiling, laughing Canadian dykes and dyke-loving womyn. After a few seconds, they “get” us and laugh along even if they don’t completely understand. Icelanders have been welcoming, accommodating, helpful, amused, and generally good-humoured sports. Except for the bitchy, bizarrely-dressed flight attendants.
… certainly not suffering from over-population. During the truncated Golden Circle tour on Thursday, there were moments on the road out in the countryside in which we could see for miles and miles. And there was not another vehicle or a house in sight. It is baffling to imagine that a country the size of Kingston (population wise) has the extensive infrastructure that it does. One does wonder how a population of 318,000 can have several tv stations, multiple airports, including a domestic airline, an extensive highway system, and all the other trappings of a modern European nation. Interesting … and it makes me a bit frightened for its future as the global recession deepens.
… quirky. And I mean that with affection. As accommodating as they have been, there are some odd bits. Like the switch in the hotel room that cuts off power to the entire room – even the outlets. Like the cleaning staff who smilingly informed us that we didn’t get clean towels on day two because “all the rooms are full and we have run out. Oh well!”
… beautiful in places. And not, in places. Photos of the beauty may follow. Then, there was the moment on one of the tours in which the Icelandic tour guide drove us around some desolate looking industrial sites with endless single-storey aluminum buildings. The tour narration went something like: “And this building on the right, it was a fish plant. But now it is a Viking museum. And this building on the left, it was a fish plant. But now it is a library. And this building, straight ahead, it was a fish plant. But now it is a monastery.” There are no photos of this part of the tour.
… the female population – at least the ones we’ve come in closest contact with – are as follows:
- tall
- blonde
- young … apparently, one opposition player is 13 yrs old. They are all approaching or over 6 ft tall.
- strong … So, there I was in front of the net with my stick on the ice. Soon, it was up to me to go into the corner for the puck. I turned and skated – boom! – directly into some tall blonde creature who was like a brick wall. Maybe it was the 13 year old.
- momentarily taken aback when they first are exposed to our team and our on and off-ice antics – which include dancing and laughing at inappropriate moments, wearing De Valkyrie horned helmets, and using a 3 ft length of garden hose as a trumpet – but soon quite willing to “play” along with us. They soon were butting into our team photos and videos, laughing along and generally getting a kick out of us.
- really going to develop into good players. Turns out that we were playing members of the Icelandic Olympic team in every game. Each team has coaches, some imported from Russia. Keep an eye on Iceland, people. Some of our laughter was sort of reckless hysteria, like during the game we lost 8-1.
OK – we are about to watch the video of our games over take-away burgers. Some might watch such a video for skills development. This team is in it for the yucks. Although there was talk of the team starting dry land training IMMEDIATELY upon our return so that we can at least keep up next year.
My family didn’t go on vacation. Ever. So the concept is quite foreign to me. Oh, I “get” it, intellectually. We all need a break, blah blah blah. But it isn’t in my programming, really.
I think my Mom would have been a traveller, given half a chance. She famously (well, famously to me anyway) hitchhiked across the continent with her best buddy, Charlotte, after they both graduated from nursing school. Whenever they ran out of money, they stopped and got nursing jobs for a few months, then carried on. What an adventure that must have been, exploring North America in the late-40′s, post-war era. They traveled together for over a year, I think. Across the prairies to Vancouver, down the coast to LA, through New Orleans and back up through New York City. That’s my Mom.
But … was it a vacation? Not really. It was an adventure. Soon, she married my father and started having babies. When I was four, and Mom had been married almost 20 years, she took me to Florida. We stayed for a week with my aunt and uncle in their trailer. That was the only vacation we ever took, and I only vaguely remember it.
Actually, now that I think of it, I remember being told something about a camping trip to the Pinery Provincial Park when I was still in a wicker bassinet. Hardly an experience that would have left an indelible mark.
My father used words like “tomfoolery” and “lazy bastards” whenever anyone took a day off work, so the concept of taking an extended break was certainly not in his programming, either. Those words also applied to Christmas and birthday celebrations but I think I’ve managed not to let his severe case of the grumps spoil my fun on those days. I’m not sure if it is a family farming culture thing – no time to rest! – or just my father’s peculiar inability to let go of his Protestant work ethic. But we didn’t go anywhere as a family, or plan anything like a trip or a “vacation”.
That makes it sound like we didn’t have any fun – we certainly did. There was card-playing, board games, lots of horsing around and activity with my brothers, including building our own ice rinks, fishing the local creeks, swinging from ropes into piles of straw in the barn, and breaking windows with errant baseballs. I spent a significant amount of time begging my mother to buy me, or let me buy, a mini-bike. Later, for me, there were organized sports (hockey, softball, swimming), music lessons and theatre projects. But … no vacations, per se.
My life looks a bit like this now, in fact. Busy – a lovely balance between work and play in my day-to-day life. However, now that I am better at recognizing the signs and appreciating the rhythm of modern life, I am faced with the indisputable fact that I Must Go Away From Time To Time And Shift Gears. The signs are clearer to me now than they once were: emotional exhaustion, lack of motivation, mild depression, disinterest, disorganization, lack of creativity. The rhythm, particularly of my primary job as a professor, couldn’t be clearer. This great gaping maw of time stretches from mid-June to late August, begging to be filled with interesting distractions.
What do I typically do? This year, my official obligations ended with my institution on June 18, a Friday. My first client meeting was scheduled for – wait for it – June 21, Monday. Now that I really think on it, there is something almost obscene about this. As with other years, I have sort of puttered through the summer, not really planning much, doing some work for clients, sleeping in, trying to relax and be less structured, spending some lovely time with friends, letting things unfold. But it doesn’t feel very “vacation”-like. I’m terrible at planning vacations in advance – I have no training, role-modeling or examples from my past to guide me – and I shudder at forking out the dough. Check with anyone I’ve been involved with for any length of time … they’ll confirm this in spades.
How does someone like me really go on vacation? I have learned that I can trick myself into it. In 2008, I took off by myself to Barbados and justified it as a “strategic planning retreat” for my business. I found a bed and breakfast with high speed wireless and spent a portion of every day drumming up new ideas and documenting a business plan for the next few years. Of course, I also got a tan and swam in the ocean a lot. This compromise – a working vacation – is about as close as I’m going to get to the real deal.
So, what have I done on my summer vacation at this last-minute cottage rental? I have:
- Developed a workshop (powerpoint and materials) on recruitment best practices for a client. First time I’ve prepared a session to be delivered by someone else. Very liberating.
- Developed a bio for a client to be included in a bid for a significant chunk of work. I love spin.
- Completed the first edit on the script for Fundy Boy: Back to Broadway. The original gang is re-assembling, I’ll be directing/lighting/running around. Rehearsals start late August for an October 1-2 staging. Be there!
Still to be completed:
- Working out operational workflows for two specific processes for a client, mapping out and justifying the recommended changes in processes.
- Creating a workplan for my two weeks of prep prior to classes starting at Centennial. Lots to do … very little time to do it!
Oh … I have also …
- Slept like a rock
- Gotten up early, with the mist on the water, and spent hours fishing on a silent, still lake, absorbing the sound of the loons
- Dozed on the floating dock, listened to audiobooks and gotten rather a lot of sun
- Re-connected with dear, long-time friends who also have a cottage on this lake and eaten steak and – mmmm – mashed potatoes and s’mores
- Gone swimming
- Spent some glorious time with Knotty Girl when she dropped by
- Bailed out the boat, in the pouring rain, so I can get back to shore for supplies (this was actually kind of fun although I’m very glad it had stopped raining by the time I’d returned)
- Pondered blogging and a re-entry therein
Still to come:
- More hanging out with Knotty Girl, and two more joyful and lovely fishing buddies who are arriving for the weekend
- More dozing on dock
- More fishing and swimming
- Some yummy cottage meals when the gang is here
- Perhaps some live action Scrabble playing and Balderdashing
- More blogging?
So, this business of tricking myself into vacationing actually works. As long as I feel I’m accomplishing something, I’m good to go. I think of it as the Protestant-work-ethic-work-around.
OK – I need to think about workflows now. Well, shortly. First, a dip in the lake … I may have gotten a sunburn writing this.
We are all data collectors and data users. I bet if you thought about it, you’d realize just how much data you process on a daily basis, making your basic day-to-day operational decisions.
- Surveying the fridge and the pantry before grocery shopping. Making purchasing decisions based on what you know you have, or are missing. Making other decisions based on what you know, or can predict, will be on sale at some later date, or in some different store.
- Visualizing your day and how much time you can allot to certain tasks. Being able to estimate how long certain tasks will take, based on how long they took before, and taking into consideration new variables. For example, the drive across town to the grocery store took 20 minutes last week but will take 30 this week as the trip is being attempted at a different time of day.
- Planning activities for children, based on what they have enjoyed in the past. Trying to predict, based on what you know, what they might like in the future.
These are all scenarios in which we, as adults, recall, calculate, remember, process and interpret data we have gathered unconsciously – even subconsciously – and stored over a lifetime. We do all that, then we make decisions.
So, what does it say about our government when it does not want to take time to gather accurate, detailed data on citizens in order to make their decisions? I know so many people, including myself, who are outraged about this. In my opinion, StatsCan has never collected ENOUGH data on Canadians. Certainly not enough on the issues that affect groups that are marginalized or otherwise poorly understood.
- We know too little, and have therefore done too little, about the health and welfare of our First Nations communities. We have a fragmented, rather than a systemic, understanding of the factors that have led to disasterous conditions.
- We have a national blood services agency that feels justified in voting an entire group of potential donors off the donation island as they do not have enough current data and must lead with assumptions instead.
- We have only scant data what families really look like in Canada in 2010 and are still setting public policy based on 1950′s era assumptions about intact male/female partnered households, 2.5 children and sub-urban lifestyles.
Indeed, StatsCan has never gathered enough data, in my opinion. And we are right to be outraged. But, here is the real problem. This government does not wish to make decisions based on data. Facts are not relevant to their decision-making process. If facts were relevant, the G20 would have been held practically anywhere else in Canada BUT downtown Toronto. No, this government does not wish to act on a factual basis. It wishes to act on its own assumptions and biases, on “gut-feel” and “everyone knows …”. We have public policy based on the “gut feel” of the individuals who have wound up in the power structure in parliament, and their own particular views and biases that accompany them to Ottawa.
This is akin to going shopping without any data on what you have already, or where you might find the best or cheapest items. Like flying blind in the grocery store, you wind up with too much milk and it goes off before you can use it, and you pay too much for bread, and you bring home the wrong salad dressing. Inefficient, and a poor attempt at meeting needs.
What if we had proportional representation? Surprise – the Harper Conservatives don’t like that idea either. Here are some charming facts from the Fair Vote Canada site:
- 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party elected no one, while fewer Conservative voters in Alberta alone elected 27 Conservative MPs.
- In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the votes of the Liberals and NDP combined, but took seven times as many seats.
- Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.
- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 49 seats, the NDP 37.
You see, if Canada had proportional representation, the census data issue would matter slightly (only slightly) less because the parliament would be comprised of elected officials who actually represented the choices made by voters on election day. And, therefore, the issue wouldn’t come up at all – because if the people we had actually voted for were in power, in proportion to the actual vote, Stats Can would get increased funding to gather more useful data to assist in the setting of public policy.
To make reasonable decisions based on actual data, not assumptions. Like we all try to do, every day.
Once again, Mother’s Day rolls around and I find myself in a pensive, reflective sort of place. Looking back, or down as my colleagues would say from my standard perspective of 50,000 feet, a pattern emerges. Early May is always the end of two long semesters, and that always feels like the end of a marathon, emotionally. This year has been especially challenging, with the stress of a potential strike, and the sense of powerlessness one has to do anything at all, individually, to affect the eventual outcome. The deeper frustration at having no ability to affect the systemic issues that would cause such a disruptive and disturbing action to even be considered.
All that aside, teaching is a kind of parenting, I think. I recognized a while back that I engage with my teaching practice as a sort of parent/guardian/mid-wife/mentor/coach. I’m not interested in lecturing and I have no confidence at all in such a dynamic resulting in any “learning” of any kind. I’m constantly scheming about fun ways we can get groups of students involved in classroom activities that help them learn and practice their communications skills. Sometimes I think these are more fun than my students do. Also true of parenting, perhaps.
Where teaching – formal teaching – and parenting are different has to do with evaluation. In my experience, healthy parents love their children unconditionally. Without reserve as to their actual level of skill or knowledge. And here is where it gets emotionally tricky for the parenting teacher, because it is our job to evaluate, to judge. To assess whether skills and knowledge have actually been acquired and successfully demonstrated. Unlike some of the more quantitative skill sets, evaluating communications skills is tricky and somewhat subjective. There are some very good communicators who are not so good with funky details of applied English. There are extremely poor communicators who managed to ace all their quizzes and any assignments that did not involve eye contact, and thus will pass the course. There are students who hate anything to do with communicating who cannot understand why this is important or relevant in any way.
As a “parent” figure, I get a little attached to them all – and herein lies the danger for me. I don’t want to fail any of these, my pseudo-children. I feel affection for them – I find most of their quirky, undisciplined, messy, “sense of entitlement” selves endearing. I want them to succeed, to feel like they are successful. I hate being the judge. But I am. And, this past term, it was my job to fail roughly 20% of my communications class. It simultaneously breaks my heart and makes me angry.
I challenge anyone who thinks that teaching is a cushy, over-paid job to actually do it, full-time, for two semesters running. Then, we’ll talk.
I had an awesome good news story this term, though, and it taught me a lot. In the Fall 09 semester, a student came to me mid-point in the term and explained that her parents had arranged for her to get engaged in Dubai during the last three weeks of term. This young woman has aspirations of becoming a journalist someday and so she knew that this communications course would be important to her. However, her actual ability in this area was proving to be rather weak. Not “failing” weak, but weak. As it happens, the last three weeks of this course involve working in a team to research and deliver a presentation. Thus, if she was going to be out of the country, it would be impossible for her to complete the work.
We worked out a compromise. I gave her an “Incomplete” and offered to have her return to my class in Winter 10 (this past term) to complete the team project with another class. She did so, contacting me exactly on schedule and arriving in class exactly as I had asked her to. There was a change in her. In the intervening three and a half months, she had matured and she was clearly able to demonstrate and use the communications skills I had been mentoring her class through the previous term, even though her average at the time she departed was around 57%. Her team, under her leadership, rocked the final presentation. This was a revelation to me – that students, even weak ones, continue to “learn” the material AFTER the course is over. This makes me feel better about the 10 or 15% who SHOULD have failed, but didn’t because of the strength of their quizzes, the mid-term or their group effort. Maybe some stuff will sink in and re-surface later. One can only hope.
I’m sure I’ve told this story before – here it is again in a slightly different context. I’ve always been a bit of a language nazi. Good writing makes me swoon and bad writing makes me gag. This has been true since about Grade Six, I think. So, I was well-entrenched as the self-appointed language police in my household from an early age. When my oldest brother was living in Saskatchewan for a time, lightyears before the age of the Internet, my mother would pain-stakingly write him one page, hand-written notes, usually weekly. She would sweat and labour over each phrase. Her letters wound up reading a bit like this:
Dear Ben,
Harvest todday again, beans. Almost done here, going to Thomas place tomorrow. Combine jammed but it is ok now. Mae brought kool-aid, cherry, and a pie. Too hot but can’t wait. Bails dry soon but no time. John Deere had oil. Leaky again but Aubrey had the right hose and fixed. With clamps. Charlie got a new radio, Fred Woods says new fridge back-ordered. Made cookies. How are you?
Love, Mom
Once, when I was about 16, I came upon her writing one of these, with her face wrenched up in serious concentration, the clicker end of her pen in her mouth as she thought. I scoffed, rolled my eyes and generally behaved like a 16 year old know-it-all who could critique the mechanics but missed, entirely, the depth of communication and love that was being successfully poured into each note. I feel ashamed when I think of this incident and I note, ruefully, that I do not have any such letter from my mother, even though I moved permanently away from home when I was 18, and 20 years would pass before her death. She would not bring herself before the language police again, and I don’t blame her.
But what I wouldn’t give for one of those letters.
I remember this incident often and it helps me be a better teacher. Clearly, for some people writing is extremely difficult. For others, it is easier. Put another way: some very good, talented, valuable, smart people are terrible writers. Being a good writer does not necessarily translate into being a good person. My role, my job, is just to teach a skill. Try to help each individual express themselves a bit better when they leave my course than when they started. If they reach a certain external standard, I have to let them move on to the next challenge. That is the best I can do.
Thanks, Mom … Happy Mother’s Day!
Today is the last day of classes for the semester. I have a lot of grading and evaluation to do before May 5, but it will be manageable.
It has been an intense time, as evidenced by my absence here (sorry) and by my inability to keep up with some of my social connections and commitments (sorry). I had Freddie with me for seven weeks, which meant getting up at 5:30 in the morning on Thursdays to be sure to be in front of my 8:30 a.m. class in Scarborough. On days when I had photocopying to do prior to class, or collect the video camera before class, it meant an even earlier morning. Having Freddie here was a real blessing, though. Aside from the fact that she is excellent company, she and I got into the routine of going to Cherry Beach, one of my new favourite places. I’m still going, without her, to just sit still and look at the water.
I have blogged a lot – in my head – while sitting and looking at the water. Writing and processing it takes time and energy that I’ve had to devote to other pursuits, like teaching and, frankly, worrying. A worried blogger is a boring blogger, so I have just kept my cud-chewing to myself.
The intensity of this semester seems to be the result of a collision of competing ideas and realities, like a conceptual particle collider. Lots of questions being asked, to which there are no firm answers. For example, so many people have said to me, “Phew! At least you didn’t have to go on strike!” To which I respond, wholeheartedly, “Yes -Phew! I can’t afford to go on strike!” However, the very deep and troubling mis-management of our education system – and the impact that has on the classroom and other modes of delivery – is still present and without a Very Big Stick to get people’s attention about some of these issues, we are still swimming in the same shit.
Let me try to express this mathematically. Yesterday, a student – a very sweet undergraduate student – asked me after class to review her grades with her as she wanted to understand her “standing” in the class more clearly. The grades in this course come in several chunks (presentations, mid-term, reports). One chunk is called “in-course work” and is worth 30% (quizzes, homework, in-class exercises, etc.) I can understand why students are a bit confused as the online tracking of grades does not allow me the granular level of calculation required to show this amount clearly. What the students see is a percentage, in this case, let’s say this student had 54% in the “in-course work” column. So, I pointed to this on the screen.
Me: So, here it says 54%. This part of your mark is worth a grade out of 30.
Very Sweet Undergraduate Student: Yes. This is why I’m confused.
Me: (?) OK. So, 54% is close to 50% … so we could estimate this. (Smiling, sort of joking …) So, what is 50% of 30?
VSUS: (blank look)
Me: (trying to surpress my rising sense of alarm) 50% of 30?
VSUS: (blank look – now also alarmed)
Me: (in as soft and quiet a voice as I can muster) Half ? Half of 30?
VSUS: OH! That is 15.
Me: Yes, OK, so we know that 50% is half. So, we know, then, that you have already got over half of this portion of your grade, so more than 15 out of 30, since your grade here is 54%, which is more than 50%!
VSUS: (big smile) Oh, thank you Miss!
You see, it isn’t her fault, actually. (Well, maybe it is 54% her fault … which is over half … never mind …) Because somewhere, at some point in her education, she started to be taught by people who were given that one extra class to teach. Mathematically, there are only 24 hours in a day, and we can only do so much. Thus, when teachers and professors are required to take on that one extra class per week, something has to give. Usually, the weak spot is assessment and evaluation which takes up vast amounts of non-classroom time. So, somewhere along the line, this second year college student did not acquire the ability to conceptualize simple percentages because one or more of her teachers didn’t have the time to do more than a multiple choice exam. Because they were asked to take on that one extra class. Because, on paper, it looks like an easy, cost-saving solution when compared to hiring more instructors. I wonder what this type of choice actually does cost us in terms of labour force quality and competitiveness?
In any case, it is simple math. Add one class. Something has to be taken away. Addition. Subtraction. I consider the possibility that some of the people running this show are, themselves, products of this same over-burdened and underfunded education system and may, in fact, require remedial classes in fractions, percentages, proportions, decimals …