Philosophy of Education

Statement of Personal Philosophy and Vision

My personal philosophy of education is one involving a partnership between school, families and communities in order to create opportunities for success.

 It seems as society changes schools must change.  Any set of educational values must incorporate the fact that nothing stays the same, even core societal values change over time.  The reality is that schools do not always lead societal change, more often than not they reflect the norms of society and as such teachers become civic role models.

Certainly any public education system funded by tax dollars managed by elected boards responsible to democratically elected government must reflect and foster the roles of good citizenship.  On a basic level this involves an understanding of the dynamics of social structure and its interplay with governing bodies.  Within limits the norms of the public school system and that of the larger society should significantly overlap.  This may suggest a rigid model, but it isn’t really because society is in flux and constantly evolving, therefore so is our educational system.

To some degree curriculum reflects the knowledge base and values of society, and ideally should allow for as much diversity as possible.  It is the function of educators to teach the curriculum at a base level and then exceed those boundaries.  Rote learning and memorization does not lead to a creative thought process. While working in both Kuwait and China I noted the emphasis placed on rote teaching practices by the local teachers.  I felt sorry for them and their students. Education at its best will give insight to the curriculum while engendering a sense of curiosity in the learner.  Educators must use creative and intellectual means to reach higher levels of thought and inquiry.

Educators should strive to develop social virtues such as cooperation and tolerance for different points of view, given that we live in a multicultural society.  In addition, students should learn to solve problems in the classroom similar to those they will encounter outside school, which provides them with the tools needed to become flexible problem solvers in preparation for adult lives, such an approach will ease the transition from a school environment to that of the real world.

It should go without saying that while achieving the curricular goals school systems will offer a safe, nurturing and caring environment while seeking to develop the potential in each student.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book entitled, Outliers, he examines some of the factors which lead to success.  Through reading this book I came to realize that some of the beliefs I held about my own success, or student success had to be altered.  In traditional thinking we might conclude that Bill Gates became a billionaire (a measure of success) through genius and hard work.  Certainly these attributes need to be present.  Gladwell  points out that there were at least eight other factors that led to Gate’s success.  One of those factors happened to be that Bill Gates attended a school that had a remote computer terminal which allowed for real time programming, something very rare and progressive for the 60’s.  It was because of this advantage and other factors, that Bill Gates became a highly competent programmer while still in high school.

My point is that schools must be able to recognize the needs of students and make these opportunities available.  As Gladwell points out there are many genius level students who never reached their potential or even a fraction of it because the opportunities were not available.  I know I am giving a simplified version of the book,  but Ideally schools need to identify  the skill sets students need for success, for Gates it was a computer terminal, for someone else it might be violin lessons, a resource room, a home economics room or maybe just a lunch program.

In an ideal world I would like schools to be all things to all students.  In the real world we work within political, societal and economic restraints.   A school I recently served in as Special Education Coordinator  experienced serious cut backs.  There were fewer staff and fewer resources to meet a growing demand for educational services.  The same will occur in many rural Albertan schools as rural grants are cut because of government deficits.  In some ways we, in the education field, have little control over these powerful external factors.  The world price of oil and the royalties charged by our provincial government could in the end determine if a given school, my school, has the resources it needs to provide opportunities for success.

For me School is about opportunity.  Studies show, as does Gladwell’s book, that families in low income settings often perpetuate a cycle of poverty, or a cycle of ignorance because they do not know how to advocate for themselves or take advantage of opportunities that come their way.   Schools and school systems, can never operate in isolation. They can only be exemplars of opportunity and success when they effectively partner with families and community.  My vision of leadership is to understand the diversity of a community and offer the programs and therefore some of the opportunities which will lead to a sense of life- long learning and success in the larger world.  School, family and community are the partners that can make this happen.  

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Teachers are the Worst Students

The Sad Truth about Teachers

It is a sad truth, teachers make the worst students.  I have had this nagging, lingering and disturbing thought ever since I became a teacher and a bad student some 35 years ago when teaching was still in its infancy.  

I recently took a computer seminar at an Edmonton Apple store.  I was having trouble keeping up with the rest of the class which was composed of just my wife.  She catches on quickly, is attentive, asks good questions and excels at what she does.  She is not a teacher.  I do not want to cast disparaging innuendo on her profession, but suffice it to say social workers see the human condition differently than the rest of us.  The thesis of this my little cathartic message became clear to me when my Apple instructor asked me what I did.  You know for a living.  Averting eye contact and while mumbling and fiddling with my wireless mouse I told him that I was a teacher.  Somehow in the student role I do not seem to possess any of the self- confident, super hero characteristics of my professional persona.  In truth I was feeling very vulnerable as if my mouse pad was a slice of Kyrptonite. 

“Teacher, they make the worst students.  They always want to know the answers right away.” His laugh almost made me feel that I was being mocked. I know a mocking tone when I hear one.  I just knew at that moment I should have told him I was a social worker, but it was too late for that.

I had to think for a moment or two about what my youthful tech savvy instructor had said to me and eventually and internally I had to agree with him. Teachers make bad students.  Join me in a flashback, or better have one of your own if you don’t want to use one of mine.  I was thinking about any number of conferences, seminars, lectures, guest speaker appearances, staff meeting, and committee meetings and as my professional life passed before me in a dramatic but very quick mental VHS format video loop, I could think of teachers in all of these situations doing all the same stupid things we don’t want, and never would allow, our own students to do.  I have witnessed, at various times and places, teachers passing notes, talking during prayer and/ or announcements, laughing at jokes during meetings, texting (imagine that), marking papers, passing notes (low tech texting)and generally being inattentive at all the wrong times.  Teachers are bad listeners and students.

Why is this you may ask? Why this ironic turn of events?

Theorem #1 states that because teachers have never left school and spend much of their time in discipline mode, correcting, marking, wiping noses, encouraging, motivating, putting on kid’s snow suits, nagging, directing, lecturing, modeling and much more we each at some point reach a neuron saturation point in our long term memory. Some neurons actually start to fray at the end like a used worn out piece of useless rope.  In a situation in which teacher becomes student, say at a seminar or staff meeting, there is almost a spontaneous polar reversal of actions, values, attitudes and therefore behavior and we almost predictably begin to act out in bizarre ways and become like the very people we don’t want to be…our students.  It is a release of pent up emotions associated with doing one thing over a career and all of a sudden, in all the wrong places, we act out. 

 I would like to think that we, as teachers, are not the only professionally confused group.  I can think of examples in which accountants don’t manage their personal finances efficiently, or even do their own income tax returns.  Nurses and doctors, I am convinced make the worst patients.  Rhetorically, I’ll just add that I would bet that off duty policemen/women are not all paragons of virtue, and in the same sentence some prostitutes may have a bad love life.  Do Sarah Lee and Betty Crocker really like baked goods. Does the Michelin Man have a driver’s license?  Does the Pillsbury Dough Boy have an eating disorder? Is Uncle Ben really someone’s uncle.? I could go on.  Let me just say that as teachers we do not stand alone in our professional role reversal dilemma.  

Theorem #2 states that, and is also predicated on the fact that we as a profession have never been out of school in our entire lives.  I mean look at me.  I am 60 and I am still in high school.  How disturbing is that on some Freudian level?  My id and ego just don’t want to have anything to do with each other anymore and it is getting extremely serious.  So the theory goes that because of this sustained time in the school system we have never really grown up and therefore when given the chance, in a setting in which we have to be a student, we often fail miserably because we have never really matured on some levels and faced the real world.  

Okay, those aren’t really my words, but I do know a certain social worker who fed me this idea, in fact she texted it to me while in an Apple computer class, yet another sad little irony I thought.  

Native Education: Athabasca Community High School, Alberta

Spring is in the Air and other random activities…

For a child nothing says Spring like the thrill of playing in ice cold water on muddy playfields, breaking through thin ice and getting soakers.  It brings back fine memories from my own school days.  I was always able to find the ditches with the most water and the thinnest ice and do the ultimate dare of determining just how far I could walk in a murky ditch and how high the water could climb to the edge of my rubber boot.  I enjoyed the firm pressure of the water as it collapsed my boot against my calf just moments before feeling the first chill of ice water flowing over my woolen soaks.  For some the first sign of spring is a Robin, to me it is wet socks.

As a staff we have decided it is a losing battle to devote our energies and adrenaline to the cause of keeping kids out of water.  It would be like getting the captain of the Titanic to stop speeding on his maiden voyage across the Atlantic.  It is simply self-destructive behavior which when carried out has natural consequences.  On the school yard, kids who broke through the ice, or slid on the ice and hurt themselves were often in shock as to how this could happen to them.  I heard one kid muttering after getting a complete soaking in ice water, “but I thought the Titanic was unsinkable.”

The other true sign of spring involves going out on the playground and picking up the beer cans and vodka bottles left behind from evening and week end parties.  Why on a playground? Are there no better places in town to get drunk or high?  Some of the school yard parties can be viewed on You Tube, but no one is easily identified because they are wearing hoodies, but don’t get me going on hoodies. 

It is a sad world when I have grade one students eagerly and competitively collecting beer cans from the school yard in order to gather more than I do.  I wasn’t sure if it was the thrill of being close to a banned substance that motivated them, or the impact of our school’s anti littering campaign. It could go either way.

The bell rang at 8:30, as if by clockwork, and most of the kids walked or ran for the entrance doors. There are always some who hide out on the play apparatus and linger as long as possible to avoid their fate of a prescribed public school education which promotes an agenda of creativity, curiosity and lifelong learning.  While on supervision it falls to me to round up the strays and bring them to the corral.  I am always amazed how these kids can totally and completely ignore my calls.  It is if I did not exist and to them I probably don’t.

Although one group of three boys caught my attention at the far end of the yard totally oblivious to bells, school, real time or anything with the exception of the water beetles they had discovered living in the mud under the ice.  I have to admit I was quite impressed too at these hardy little creatures.  I also marveled at the respect these kids had for nature, perhaps growing up in a native community, as they took the hard shelled beetles and crushed them sans mercy under their rubber boots.  Only then, after the massacre, were they ready to line up for their first class.

My first duty of the day, as I don’t have charge of a homeroom class, was to phone a parent.  It was something I was not looking forward to because this man was in a rare class of parents I term, “ultimate assholes.”  In my teaching career of 35 years I have come across two other such parents.  The first, a father, back in the winter of /85 while teaching at Frank Spragins School in Fort McMurray, the second, was a mother in Kuwait who I eventually made peace with, and the third is Paul Tuccaro, father of Jillian, Elias, Harmony, Summer and Dawson.  His wife is a local school board trustee.

Last Friday, in the absence of a substitute teacher for the grade 6 class the duty fell to me. Dawson Tuccaro was the only one giving me grief and attitude.  He would do no work and was generally disruptive.   Finally, when I gave him my last warning, students always expect clemency after the final warning, I sent him to the office to work.  He never got there and was later discovered by the VP hiding in a stairwell probably claiming refugee status.

When I finally asked Dawson to leave the class he said, “No I’ll be good,” which to me reads like a confession.  I touched his shoulder and directed him to the door…physical contact!!!! The stakes had now been raised because every kid knows his rights, “YOU CAN’T  TOUCH ME”.  I responded by saying “Actually I can and you are now leaving. There is no discussion.”

The rest of the day went fine, until I got the call from Dawson’s father, Paul Tuccaro, wanting to know why I manhandled his son and kicked him out of class.  This, from the father I was at one time directed by my administration to determine if we could get a restraining order against preventing him from coming near any of the new first year female teachers, those he liked to bully and intimidate.  It’s not a big leap to understand why the Tucarro kids feel entitled.  They have a bully dad to back them up.

In the staff room today I heard teachers describe three situations I found sadly amusing. The first, involved two students who were arguing as to which of their mother’s was the sluttiest.  No one was clear if being more or less slutty was good or bad. The second, involved two girls who were arguing  about which of their mother’s had the most abortions, and the numbers were quite high.  It may have been the same mothers in both arguments. The last situation involved a girl, Cheyanne, who wanted to use her cell phone in order to bring her mom to school with the purpose of beating up the student teacher who Cheyanne felt was always picking on her. Natural justice.

As I routinely walk through the junior high wing I am ever vigilant to check stairwells and washrooms for those students who have gone AWOL.  I came across young Mason an ECS student who often leaves class to hang out here, or worse leave the school.  His 19 year old mother wants to know why we can’t stop him from wandering or leaving  the school, demanding that we do a better job. While escorting Mason back to ECS I pass any number of kids who are usually out in the hall, Brandon, Darnell, Delvin, Antoine, but most common, Silas from grade 3.  He refuses to do work, participate in any activity or stay in the classroom.  I believe he has spent more than half of grade three out in the hall, silently just watching us.  I am waiting his final report.  It should be good.

My grade two student, Theresa, with no short term memory that I can recall told me today during a reading/phonics  session, ( we were covering the words: my, this, home, a and is), that mothers know more than fathers because they watch more TV.  And you know who am I to disagree. 

Native Education

Back to the Future: In Fort Chip Alberta

I was asked to be the substitute teacher for a grade 11 class because the regular teacher was sick and there are no real qualified subs out in the community.  I was it.  The first session involved watching portions of the Last Lecture a presentation by Randy Paucsh. The lecture from this dying professor is about realizing your dreams.  I have only seen part of this lecture previously and I thought that perhaps a few of the senior kids would also find it of interest, but that would be a NO.  In a second class I was to show a video clip narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio on the topic of global warming.  It was a documentary from the 11^th hour.

I would describe the student response to the videos in this way.  Sad.

Of the eight students in attendance several were texting during the viewing, several more had their heads down during most of the presentation and saw nothing and probably heard nothing as well.  I had tried to discuss each topic in way of a little intro prior to the viewing, but there was no evidence of curiosity or any level of interest whatsoever.  No questions, no comments, no understanding, no insights, no care.

One girl did not respond when I spoke to her.  Another just got up and left the room never to return.  Most laughed when Stephen Hawkins spoke through his voice synthesizer.  They did not know who he was.  I asked. 

Another healthy girl got up said she wasn’t feeling well and left the class. 

On either topic these students have no base line knowledge and no context with which to put larger world events into.  They have such a narrow realm of understanding and they may not even know it and if they do they do not care.

I give you the future.


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Kuwait Driving

Mad Max

“When I looked into my rear view mirror and all I could see was the grill of the GM monster vehicle behind me I knew I had a situation.”

It is quite daunting when road rage is directed against you, especially when the driver is behind a SUV and is covered, as in the Muslim sense of the word. Road rage and dominance of the road is part of the culture here as is general stupidity, lack of respect and no sense for the greater good.  Accidents involving Westerners are our fault because they wouldn’t happen if we were not in the country.  

I was driving in the fast lane, big mistake, with my seven year old and very under powered Hyundai Elantra.  I had just crossed the Hawally Bridge heading to Salmiya on the Fourth Ring Road “when there came such a clatter that I sprung to my rear view mirror to see what was the matter.”  Actually, I knew there was a car on my ass when I saw the headlights flashing like mad followed by the continuous horn blast.  This driver came up so fast I didn’t have a chance to react.

The drill is that these bully drivers aggressively drive so as to force the cars in front of them into the middle lane.  They can repeat the process with the next driver and the next and thereby progress forward with sheer ruthless  aggression. 

 As I drove that day traffic was such that I had no where to go. I couldn’t move to the slower lane.  I was blocked in. I slowed down only to further infuriate the daughter of Islam behind me.  She flashed her lights with more vigor and left her horn blaring.  I’ve never heard such a long continuous sounding of a horn in peace time or in anger.  This lady was off the scale nuts.

I was of the general impression that this was not worth dying over.  My little Muslim dare devil had different ideas and passed me closely on the right nearly scraping me with her mirror while forcing me out of the passing lane to the left. I have never quite seen such a wrathful stare, with such overt evil intent, as the one I got from this insane Islamic woman.  I felt like a true infidel. 

 Mad Max then pulled out in front of me and braked hard and got her speed and mine down from about 80 to 30kph it just a few seconds.  It took some effort to avoid driving into the rear of her vehicle.  She then rapidly took  off leaving me slow and vulnerable as other traffic had to,  in turn, slow down to avoid hitting  me as I sat  there like potential road kill. 

As Allah would have it I got to the next light a few minutes later and who should be beside me but my little mad Muslim.  I gave her my biggest smile and waved over to her in a bid for greater Western/Arab road solidarity.  

She screamed over to me “Fuck You!!!”  

You just have to love these people and their little cultural foibles.

mr 

Real Men

On Being a Man

It is common knowledge that real men don’t eat quiche, just as it is equally understood that real women don’t pump gas.  Certain things are just not done and certain social barriers are not crossed. We are also told that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Real Men watch action movies with chase scenes and gratuitous sex, lots of gratuitous sex, they value their stoic independence, they take Viagra, they are masters of the barbecue, a carry over from our Neanderthal heritage, and real men don’t eat vegetables.

Apparently, there are differences between the sexes.  I’m not talking about the basic anatomical differences, such as large, voluptuous, firm breasts with exciting parabolic curves, or wrap around legs that go on forever, thick hair with that wild come hither look with a Jennifer Lopez ass. Those are all superficial trappings that men don’t even think about more than once every three seconds.  I really want to say something meaningful about the male side of the equation, real men versus “Betty Crocker” men.

At first I thought real men drink lots of beer and constantly watch sports. Talk about sports.  Read sports magazines and sometimes get off the couch and play sports or to get more beer.  That of course is a crude and unfair stereotype that doesn’t apply to more than 90% of the male population. 

At my place of employment there are several guys who live and breathe sports. I can rarely take part in any of the conversations.  Every since the NHL recently expanded from 6 teams I am no longer with the program or in any way in the sports loop.   These guys know the names and stats on every pro and college team in Canada and the United states in any sport.  They can talk at length, and usually do, about any combination of these teams and their players.  With this almost infinite knowledge they are able to bet and lose large sums of money each and every week end.

In some sports related conversations I can ask certain innocuous and generic questions concerning the half time shows, a theoretical question on violence in amateur and pro hockey versus the non contact Olympic-type hockey.  I know I am actually better advised to stay out of these conversations as I usually get evil impatience looks or polite superficial answers to my lame questions and/or comments, which led me to question my masculinity which in turn resulted in 3 years of expensive and intensive therapy.  I don’t talk sports any more.

Through therapy I learned that everybody needs it and every one can benefit from it in some way.  We are all screwed up to some degree.  My masculinity was not necessarily in question.  My “puck envy” was not really an issue.  There are lots of things that real men can do and talk about as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with feelings, emotions, monthly cycles of any type, budgeting and household chores.  Otherwise we can bo chatty about most anything.  Let me give you an example.

It will come to me.

Moving on.  Men do like to talk about their sexual exploits either real or imagined.  These stories often go back to university days if they attended, or high school days if they did not.  Most of this type of conversation can be heard in men’s locker rooms. I’m talking private racquet clubs, various fitness clubs including the YMCA.  Men will also talk about business and investments.  As a group, men like to boast about accomplishments of a physical nature, or in the business world. We seem to be busy preening our feathers in mating rituals and bragging quite a lot of the time.  

Many of my friends are coincidently my age.  I’m not sure how that happened, but there seems to be a statistically pattern.  They all use Viagra and trade pills back and forth like kids playing with marbles.  I was amazed as they were with me, for my not using this miracle drug.  Not that I actually need it mind you, but it could come in handy in some sort of emergency like having a spare tire or an extra set of keys.   I tried to get my doctor to prescribe Viagra for me once, but I suffer from a rare syndrome called candor and honesty.  After answering all of his questions with candor and honesty my doctor determined that I did not suffer from any manner of erectile dysfunction and that I should be quite pleased with my performance to date. I felt like I was some sort of a sordid circus act in one of those peep show tents. Although I’m told there are places in San Francisco where you can actually pay to see live sex shows, or maybe I saw that in 9 and a half weeks.  You know one of those movies with lots of gratuitous sex.  Although I don’t recall any chase scenes.

While living on my own for several years I had to develop domestic survival skills. One day I found myself in the laundry room of my apartment.  A place I have learned to hate with a passion.  Sorting laundry seems to be such a simple thing to do.  I will now sort the laundry. I will put lights here and darks here.  Although I am pleased to report that I have discovered where all the missing socks go, but I’m not telling.  In my laundry room there is a large sorting table in the geographic center of the room. In fact the whole place is very organized; all the driers along one wall and all the washer along another wall, creating the amusing situation in which one has to remove the wash from one side of the room and some how transport it to the other side of the room some 15 feet away.  This to me just seems like a waste of time and effort as does the whole washing process.  What ever happened to that Japanese idea of making clothing out paper and just throwing it away, or if there is a stain get it out with an eraser.  

I place all my cloths on this gigantic sorting table and began sorting.  In the best of light I defy anyone to identify at least 7 times out of 10 a blue sock from a black one.  I can not do this.  However, the elderly, legally blind lady on the other side of the sorting table miraculously “seeing” my problem was able to help me with my dilemma.  I was both amazed and appreciative. I value my independence while still depending on a blind octogenarian to sort my wash.  Go figure.

Fishing trips are a time and a place for men to express their maleness in it highest form.  It is a time to drink, eat food out of a can, sleep, trade stories and lewd jokes and fart in public, constantly.  I was on such a fishing trip as a rite of passage.  It was the opening of trout season in April when it was still too cold to sleep in a tent.  In fact we brought electric space heaters and plugged them and ran them on high for 24 hours a day.  Our tents were toasty warm.  

 The actual fishermen amongst us got up before the break of dawn.  Dawn broke for me at my convenience because I had my own tent and heater and did not fish.  I heard the other guys get up in the dark and stumble and swear as they bumped into things and each other before making their way to the river only a few hundred meters away.  At the river they would bait their hooks with some miserable dew worm that really did not want to die even if it was of a Hindu disposition and may come back as say a trout.  What’s the advantage there?  Either way that worm did not have a future.  The guys cast out their lines opened a bottle of beer (the sun was not up yet) and fell asleep in their sleeping backs on the ground or in lounge chairs.  It was a true vision of manly sportsmanship.  Man against nature as god intended.

I eventually wandered by seeking male companionship after waking up some two and a half hours later.  I made a point of photographing everybody sleeping with their beer and later e-mailed the pictures to their wives and girl friends.  I was the only one that thought that was funny. 

No one caught any fish that year.  As I recall no one caught anything more than a few inches long the year before.  It wasn’t about the thrill of the chase.  We were all about male bonding, camaraderie and sharing stories around the camp fire. 

Parent Teacher Interviews

Parent/Teacher Interviews: A Retrospective

As a young teacher some three decades past, the parents who attended my parent /teacher interviews were all much older than I. Often I felt quite insecure about this age differential and was more hesitant to say what I really thought.  I still felt much like a kid myself in the presence of these parents.  I tended to stay close to the ropes because I lacked experience.

After becoming a father myself for the first time, and after having taught for five years, I felt that I had come of age as a teacher. The era prior was merely my apprenticeship. At this pivotal point in my career as both teacher and parent, I straddled the line of each world. I felt that finally I had something more relevant to say as a peer and an equal drawing on my dual insights.  Over the years, I have loosely grouped parents into five categories.

The first group, and sadly a rapidly expanding one, consists of those parents who enable their children. These parents seem to operate out of a confrontational modality which seems to instinctively cause them to rise to their child’s defense no matter what the situation.  Comments such as: “She’s not like that at home.  What are you doing to her school?”

 “My son is excused from doing oral presentations.” 

 “That’s not fair.”

Parents who blindly “protect” their child also assist them in escaping any semblance of accountability and responsibility.  Such parents popularize conspiracy theory in that to them all teachers are out to get their child because there is a constant “personality issue.”  

A second group of parents, those of over achieving students (or perhaps just over-achieving parents) whose strong family values and work ethic lead them to ask me how their violin prodigies/ math genius/ school council president/honour roll student/ scholarship winning sons and daughters can improve. These parents I call the “4% factor”.  The question left hanging in the air at these parent interviews is always the same, “What about the other 4%?”  With these parents, I try to cool their jets, let them smell the coffee and/or roses and lead them to realize that by most standards a mark of 96% is actually quite good. In these cases, I lobby in the direction of allowing their kids to have a life.

The third category of parent is the “Silent or Absent Father Group.”  During these parent interviews, the mother asks all of the pertinent questions and often and quite overtly will kick her husband under the table for asking a question or even clearing his throat.  In such cases, I try not to show too much pity and try to get the father into the discussion through tentative eye contact.  In many households mother knows best and father is a silent background hum or sometimes static noise.  When I do direct a question to a silent father, often a look of temporary panic crosses his face before he can defer back to his wife who alone holds the family nurturing skills.

Most recently, I have taught ESL and discovered a whole new category or parent.  These parents are usually recent immigrants with marginal English skills.  These interviews are therefore more problematic. In a common scenario, one of my ESL students will act as the interpreter.  During these interviews I often wonder why my very short comments take so long to translate, and even more worrisome, why my longer comments are translated in just a few words.  These parents, with old world values want the best of opportunities for their children and care deeply for their academic success. Perhaps the greatest honour bestowed on me during an interview occurred when a Korean mother bowed to me after the interview and presented me with a gift. I was speechless and deeply touched. However, as I view the contrasts between parents and some of my ESL students, I conclude that the children with their I-pods, Adidas and slang are assimilating too quickly and I feel a certain sadness for the parents and what will become of their expectations. 

The “Proud Parent” group is the easiest to work with as there are no real issues of any kind to deal with, as their children are well adjusted, motivated and generally right on track.  My role is to dish out the well deserved accolades and kudos and allow the parents to savour the moment as they would a Belgian chocolate.  These interviews are short but rewarding.

The last group is the “Anonymous Parents” these are the ones that you generally need to meet most urgently but rarely ever see.  Often their kids are problematic, have learning disabilities or social/emotional problems.  One such parent actual apologized to me for being the mom of one of my students.   They are the blank spots on your parent/teacher interview schedule, the no shows who through indifference or total frustration avoid the school.

The constant in all of this is that there is no one perspective, reporting on student progress through interviews is a process briefly and partially illuminated through the teacher/parent interview which has become an educational institution in and of itself. 

After so many years, I prepare my classroom, gather my notes and clear my throat.

“So let me tell you about “little Johnny…”

Canoeing

A Romp in the Wilderness and Why I still Cry at Night

There was a time in my life, not too long ago, during which I had an appreciation if not a love for nature.  I enjoyed walking in Rim Park or spending time on our boat, the Shunpiker, on Georgian Bay.  Winter walks in the Schneider Woods were all pleasant highlights in my life.  Nature can be spiritual, like a delicate dawn, over a log strewn foggy beach near Tofino, or a walk in the magnificent Redwood forests of Northern California. 

 Nature is also pure hell.  Let me tell you about a canoe trip I recently embarked on.  Columbus sailed to San Salvador on the Santa Maria which later was destroyed on a sand bar near Hispaniola. I was in a canoe in Haliburton, but small difference between the two voyages.

As a child I wasn’t exactly Girl Scout material and I therefore never really had an opportunity to learn the skills and earn the merit badges for outdoor survival.  Naively, but with some measure of eagerness I agreed to go on a five day canoe trip with a group of women.  What did I have to fear?  This is Canada.  We have more outdoors than anyone else.  What could possible be so difficult about canoeing in languid waters, loon watching as water drips from the tips of our paddles reflecting the last golden rays of sunlight as we head to the comfort of our snug campsite on the waters edge.  Almost sounds like a travel brochure.

In preparation for my trip I had Rick, my husband, teach me a few basic canoe skills and paddling strokes while at my brother’s cottage in the Muskokas.  On those days the sun shone, life was good and I picked up the techniques like a lab takes to water.  I was poised, I was prepped and I was good to go on my trip.  I was wrong.

Originally I thought that I would make a journal of my trip and make entries during the relaxing times in front of a warm fire as people chatted and sang “Kumbayah My Lord”.   Today in quiet solitude or in the presence of others I take out this chronicle of my travels and it reads like the Old Testament, with tales of plagues and pestilence.

 As I look at my tear stained water logged journal I can make out a few of the brief cryptic entries…tortuous hundred pound packs carried like coolies over treacherous terrain on impossible portages…references to feeling faint and weak tripping on tree roots, slipping and slogging in mud, rain for forty days and forty nights in Biblical proportions …must keep moving…constant rain, building an ark…wet sleeping bags…desperately putting up tarps and laying down ground sheets for survival and to stave off scurvy and hypothermia…stay close for safety, body heat and comfort…keep gathering fire wood…”a camper screams “don’t let the fire go out, don’t let it ever go out…Others singing “Closer my God to thee”…the quest for purifying water and avoiding dysentery and other water born contaminants and bacteria…  I wrote of the futility and discouragement as nine people try to share a single tiny back packer’s camp stove while water (will it never stop raining) fills our dinner bowls. ”Please sir can I have more” a fellow camper laments as she holds up her pathetic water drenched dinner. 

The  on going demoralizing despair of facing wet blankets and why does that lady have all her clothing off sitting on that rock by the water???  What is that all about?  Do Girl Guides do it this way and survive? The last page of my journal is ripped and water damaged.  It contains a partial entry about the outdoor box toilet followed by a plaintive plea for help.

The sun did come  out one day and I  saw the scenery and saw that it was good, but I was truly too weak to care any more  as welts began to form over large areas of my body and I continued to itch, swell and scratch for the next 5 days.  

I am a survivor, but now when I even feel the slosh of water in the bathtub or see a rain cloud forming in the distance I notice a little quiver beginning to form in my right hand, as if I am trying to use my well perfected J- stroke to escape a clear and present danger.  I can not sleep.

 Nature is good and should be kept outside.

Kuwait

How I Lost a National Writing Contest

I was making my typical drive to work this morning and like driving a regular route in any location, for any job it gets very routine and anything that changes from that routine stands out in your mind.  One of the Arab drivers in front of me used his signal light to announce to the world his intention to make a legal turn to the right.  I remember feeling a sense of surprise and perhaps even pride that here, in this time and in this place a Kuwaiti driver was showing the good sense and common courtesy to signal for a turn.  He then turned left.  Dum-ass.

Fine.  This story is really about a writing contest, but I thought the driving example would be testament to my attitudes about Kuwait and in the end very germane to my case as to why I lost the writing contest.  To be fair I did get a certificate of participation as they give in elementary schools and we were all told that we were winners; and so you see I am not writing out of a futile and misguided feeling of bitterness.  I have my certificate.

The sponsor of the writing contest, AWARE is an organization dedicated to bridging the gap between the Arab and Western cultures represented here in this small desert nation.  As part of my orientation, last October, a group of teachers, including myself, were invited to the centre to get an introduction to Kuwaiti Culture 100.  Most memorable for me was the large buffet that followed the lectures and the question and answer period.

From the AWARE website I took  this  paragraph  to explain their purpose: “The Advocate for Westerners-Arab Relations center is a non-profit, non-governmental, and non-political organization working for promoting positive, constructive relations between Westerners and Arabs by organizing social activities and information services related to Arab and Islamic culture.  "It is through culture that we preserve our heritage, that we express our creativity and that we share our individuality with the world,"  Over the years, AWARE has built a reputation as a consistent, trusted, and reliable resource for westerners in Kuwait.” 

I was new to Kuwait and I thought this exercise at the AWARE would give me some valuable information.  By this time I was drawing on about 4 weeks of exposure and had toured some of the megamalls.  The Avenues is probably one of the largest and most modern malls on this planet.  This mall even has Dubai beat without the skiing.  Malls are large because they are the focal points of shopping and recreation.  They are domed cities in the hot desert where families come out to stroll the wide avenues and explore the many shops.

One thing I noticed early on is that Kuwaiti men love to parade.  They are well groomed, with trimmed five-day growth beards, immaculate dish dash and head gear, expensive watches, jewelry and foot wear.  They don’t seem to shop or carrying any parcels or even go into stores for the most part. I see them in groups, usually with cell phones and frequently holding hands. Freeze frame.

Yes, in this ultra conservative Islamic state boys and men parade in open public areas holding hands and often show overt levels of affection. The culture and religion is oppressive in the sense that it does not allow what the western world would consider normal levels of interaction between the genders.  My theory of rampant homosexuality in a religious society is simply another manifestation of the Catholic Priest Syndrome in which imposed celibacy from a religious hierarchy leads to repression and ultimately “intimacy retardation.”  In the case of the Catholic priests read the newspapers documenting  the abuse and torment some of these holy men have imposed on innocents.

In Arab culture boys are not allowed to date.  The more conservative families have their daughters covered at adolescence or earlier in the abaya, sometimes accessorized with a veil, a mesh over the eyes and gloves.  Is it no wonder that when women who are considered taboo, are covered and unavailable in any physical or emotional sense that men revert to other outlets.  Homosexuality, which does not actually officially exist here, is rampant.  Catholic Priest Syndrome in the Islamic world.

I am aware of a situation in  which a young woman was severely beaten by her mother because she was found to have boys’ names and numbers on her cell phone speed dial.  After the beating she changed her ways and altered all the boys’ names to girls’.  Lesson learned.

The two writers who won the AWARE writing contest were positive and passionate about the merits of Islam and Arab culture in Kuwait.  As I sat in the audience listening to their stories, the first place story entitled, “Fire in the Desert” had to do with the passion of the faith and the language, and I began to have self doubts.  Was I such a cynic after only 9 months that I couldn’t see the positive? Was I so jaded that I couldn’t get the winners points about equality within this society?  The answer was a resounding NO.

Equality?  What equality?  Upon three seconds of further reflection I thought the author was a dum-ass like the driver in paragraph one.  This young British author actually wrote that when he came to this country he was under the illusion that there was no equality between the genders and through living here he has been able to dispel this stereotype of Arab culture.  He cited an example from his own experience in which he went to a dentist and assumed, when in the examination room, that the man in blue cover alls was the dentist and the female in attendance was the technician/assistant.  Quelle surpris when he realized the roles were reversed thus proving gender equality in Kuwait.

First, I would have to say that the female dentist likely was not from Kuwait.  By the way my dentist is a Kuwaiti male trained in Ireland who has numerous female Filipino assistants floating around. I’m sure they don’t make a western salary and as for gender equality, I haven’t seen it yet.

Over the last two years I have been doing a quick read of Thomas Friedman’s book,        “The World is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.”  The book is about globalization, the flatness of the Earth has to do with the ability of countries to compete in the new global market place.  He explains why some places like China and India have become so successful and why the Arab world, for the most part,  has not.

I’m not a business person, but I think that openness is critical to successful business practices (Friedman, 2005)” because you start tending to respect people for their talent and abilities.”  He explains that when  chatting over the internet to another developer, planner, programmer or investor one loses sight of ethnicity.  You deal with people on the basis of talent and ability.  In fact the whole view of human beings is, “talent based and performance-based rather than the background-based world.”

In the Muslim world, as in Kuwait and Saudi especially, religious clergy, fundamental islamists ban jtihad, or the interpretation of the principles of Islam in the light of current circumstances.  Much of Islam is stuck in the past and has difficulty aligning itself with other cultures in a modern time in a globalized world.  The more radical would like to purge the Arabian peninsula of all foreigners and foreign influences.

Keep in mind it is often these same conservative elements that import drugs and alcohol into the region and go on sex vacations to Bangkok.  A friend recently told me that while waiting in the Riyadh airport for a flight to Amsterdam he got into conversation with a cleric.  They exchanged stories and itineraries and it seems that the holy man was off to Amsterdam for some well deserved sexual recreation in the red light district of this liberal city.  Hypocritically as this may sound, it is justified by the fact that such behaviour is permissible while passing through a secular society.  

Friedman states that  “in the Arab-Muslim world women are treated as a pollution or a danger to be cut off from the public space”.  Attitudes like this and the treatment of women which results effectively removes half of the talent pool from contributing to the enhancement of the economy and to the society as a whole. Equality?

Men have become accustomed to a system of great privilege from birth on, and because they are male that gives them power over their sisters and female members of society.  Ironically, gender control is also bad for men as it seems to instills in them a sense of entitlement and discourages within them whatever it is that causes one to improve as an individual.   

The winning essays spoke of tolerance and understanding, two things that I don’t believe are currently represented in the educational system.  My school, might be an exception.  I actually am allowed to teach a world culture course, largely of my own design.  This may be rewarding and enlightening to the students and eventually get me deported.  Conservative schools do not teach about other cultures, nor do they stress tolerance to other faiths or to other schools of Islamic thought.

As I sat in the hall at the AWARE listening to the winning stories, I could admire some elements of their technical and creative writing style, especially of the first place paper.  I later congratulated that author and indicated that I thought he deserved to win.  However, I am left with my observations that I live in an intolerant and privileged society.  It is a over indulged, pampered welfare society that depends on its Islamic tribal nature to cope with the modern world, and as a result is failing itself and especially the generation I now teach.  I am so glad I lost that contest.

Men's Book Club

The Knights Walper

Recently, a member of the women’s “Dinner and a Movie Club” asked me about the “Men’s Book Club.”  I think she had trouble getting her head around the fact that men would voluntarily go to a bar and actually discuss a book. I think she suspected that our little meetings were a front for some sort of subversive activity.  She asked me, “What really goes on in the Men’s Book club?”

I replied with the insider story of the notorious Men’s Book Club. All the lewd jokes, innuendo and gossip as seen from the inside, names, dates, places…

Beginning with an analogy:

My brother-in-law owns a 28 foot Bayliner which he keeps at a dockage in Penetanguishene.  Over the years he has invited me and others to experience the marvels of Georgian Bay aboard the Shunpiker.  One such trip took us to Manitoulin Island and back.  During this week long cruise we did some fishing with amazing results. 

My brother caught an 8 inch Pickerel and pulled it on deck after an epic battle, man versus nature, truly worthy of the Discovery Channel.  I recorded the landing of this monster with the video camera I had borrowed from my school.  To make sure the adventures lasted and before removing the fish from the hook and returning it to the water, in classic catch and release, I took the pole from my brother and gave him the camera to record me catching the same fish.  On camera who would know it was the same fish.  Its not as if they wear name tags.  We then in turn passed pole and fish to my two brother-in-laws who also caught the same fish.  Later, while playing the video during a family visit everyone was impressed with our prolific fishing abilities.  No one even bothered to question why our celebratory spirit consistently diminished with each catch.  

The secret of my little fishing ruse remained intact to this day, well with the exception of those reading this story and putting the pieces together into an ever tightening ring of incriminating evidence, other than that my secret is safe.  Captain Rick impressed upon his crew the time honoured and age old “Law of the Sea” in which whatever is said onboard stays on board. So, being true to my pledge I can say absolutely nothing about the drugs and/or alcohol, pornography and women we enjoyed while onboard.  Like the fish trick, these secrets will die with me; the rest fades into urban myth.

However, I choose to use the exemplar of the fish because of its Biblical resonance, multiplication tricks with fish seem to be a popular religious theme. Just as with the “Law of the Sea,” the mariner’s sacred code of silence practiced onboard the Shunpiker, the Knights Walper, (hereafter known as the Men’s Book Club) follows a similar exacting code of conduct.  That is to say, “What is said at the men’s book club stays at the men’s book club.”

Based on that Mason-like secret premise our modus operandi, (think of the Men’s Book Club as operating under a giant cone of silence as did Maxwell Smart agent 86 of Control), this might be a very short story, so I will have to narrate along the fringes of the past year as I experienced this liberal, intellectual group of teachers as they discussed, dissected and analyzed some of our culture’s greatest literary works.  I’m looking at a word count of about 2600 keeping in mind I must remain true to our time honoured and sacred pledge. For example, I can say nothing about the drugs and/or alcohol, pornography and women enjoyed while at the Walper, the rest fades into urban myth.  (500 words)

In addition to the Dell Classic Comic series and a few miscellaneous Readers’ Digest condensed novels we have also analytically examined one of Oprah’s favorites, The House of Sand and Fog.  Members take turns leading the discussion group each month in the basement of the Walper Hotel.  The last time I had been in this venerable old building was for my wedding reception, August 22, 1975. 

It was a dark and stormy night; I was wearing a bow tie with a yellow shirt, cuffed, plaid, baggy pants, and a green corduroy jacket with patches on the sleeves. I also had on platform shoes, very weird because I’m already over 6 feet tall.  The new height should have given me a better perspective on what was to come.  Anyway, time passed quickly, career, kids, dogs and divorce and I was back at the Walper a mere 33 years later to talk about books.  I felt like vintage wine with a twist top cap.

My turn at leading one of the monthly book studies ended sadly.  What can I say months later I am still mocked for providing a handout to the group. I thought I was being helpful in guiding the discussion.  I guess once a teacher always a teacher.  This did have other sad repercussions for me. Although I am still allowed to attend my present group since word leaked out about the handout I have been banned from joining the book club at the school I will be teaching at next year.  

Of course I shouldn’t feel bad as Casey (not his real name, but he works in Program Support) finessed an analysis of one of our novels by reading the book jacket and the short author bio.  Some members come late and rarely read the books, others of us just don’t read but  find that the company is good.  

Last month Marco led the group in a discussion of a science fiction novel entitled, Hominids. It is a story about a portal that apparently exists in a deep mine shaft in Sudbury linking us to a parallel planet Earth populated by Neanderthals. The whole time I thought the place was only famous for its big nickel, who would guess it also had a portal.  No one saw that one coming!

The novel causes the reader to compare and contrast how hominids and Neanderthals organize their society.  It seems Neanderthal’s also have Men’s Book clubs only they are allowed to give out handouts.

Now when it comes to Neanderthal’s I have to admit that I have very little exposure.  I am not a member of the Conservative Party nor will I drive all the way to Sudbury to meet one. I do know they first appeared in Europe about 200 000 years ago and disappeared just when the first humans appeared about 30 000 years ago.  I can’t prove it, but I have always suspected foul play.  Sure we had better brains and more sophisticated tools, but just look at the timing.  To add some further insight to this topic I do have one story barely touching on Neanderthal’s.  Oddly, it has to do with a visit to my dentist about ten years ago quite sometime after the Neanderthal extinction.  

My appointment was for 11:30.  I still had some time to kill and being somewhat avoidant when it comes to dentists I threw in a load of wash before getting on my rusty 3-speed bike.  It looked cool because it still had the baby seat on the back. 

Slowly I rode over to the clinic.  The dentist shared this building with a swarm of doctors (not all had left to the States for more pay and fewer hours), a physiotherapist, a pharmacist and a Jewish deli.  I parked my bike in the rack in front of the pharmacy.  Perhaps because of my high level of apprehension about seeing the dentist, I struggled with getting the bike to fit in the bike rack. It was like that round peg in a square hole syndrome, and for some reason that earned me a dirty look from the pharmacist.  I was not feeling the love as I walked toward Dr Rosel’s office.  (1000 words about half way)

Piped in soft rock music and the muted pastel-peach colours soothed my tensions as I entered the reception room.  Two kids played on the floor with their dolls oblivious of the danger they were in.  They looked up at me as I entered and awkwardly sat down.  I grabbed a magazine and started reading a Cosmopolitan article entitled, “Fifty Ways to Please your Man.”  Having only read to point 47 I quickly put the magazine down realizing I should check in with the receptionist at the desk as a little plastic sign instructed me to do.  

I dutifully identified myself and stated the obvious as to why I was there.  She briskly handed me a clipboard with a pen attached with a dirty string and quickly showed me the four places I was to sign.  She did not strike me as the kind of women who was aware of the fifty ways to please her man.  I was guessing maybe three, four tops.

After filling in the form and signing it I concluded that not one single male worked in this clinic, not one.  I was in a female, Amazon bastion.  But my over active mind was racing and I told myself that women for example see male gynecologists all the time.  What could be so bad about being semi conscious lying in a comfortable reclining chair while being attended to by a group of clinically trained professional women?  Refer to point 27 on the Cosmopolitan list.

With the exception of the receptionist I found that the staff were all rather attractive. I also concluded that to even get a job in this clinic you had to be at least and eight if not a nine.  That idea alone soothed my nervousness substantially, which was a good thing because at that moment my name was called by one of the eight’s. I do believe this was the first time I thought a white clinical jacket looked sexy.

The lengthy hallway led from the waiting area to several well equipped examination rooms.  I was made comfortable in room number 3. With precision movements a dental technician placed a bib around my neck covering my chest which had an immediate emasculating effect, somewhat like riding a bicycle with a baby seat; so I was familiar with the feeling.  The dental tech also handed me three magazines, one on body building (passive aggressive?), Sports Illustrated (stereotypical) and the same Cosmo I had been reading in the waiting room (score!).  

The muted pastel colouring scheme of the waiting room extended into the examining rooms.  The sign of female ownership reflected itself in the splendid interior decorating.  I had to concede that a male dentist would not have a facility that looked quite so attractive. (1500 words)

Dr Harley had his office in a renovated brick house on a tree lined street in the old section of the city.  It was decorated with more traditional institutionalized colours.  I don’t think he had heard of the word pastel.  Dr Harley was also a male and was my dentist when I was a kid.  Over the years he filled my mouth with lead.  Heavy metals were much more popular back then.  

I still carry a vivid image of Dr Harley bending over me with his thick dark eyebrows and narrow Neanderthal-like forehead as he was about to poke and prod the inner recesses of my gaping and drooling mouth.

Naturally, I couldn’t help make comparisons between dentistry in Dr Harley’s day and with my present dentist Dr Rosel.

With Dr Harley you knew you were in for a bit of pain; but after all wasn’t dentistry simply our nemesis for not brushing regularly, flossing or eating the right foods?  Dentists are just living proof that there is justice in the world, at least in a Biblical sense.  The verse “…an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth kept flashing across my retina as I pondered the intricacies of my dental past.

I was startled from my thoughts as Dr Rosel silently swept into the room from behind and out of my line of vision.  She was good!  She immediately took the high ground and had the element of surprise. 

Dr Rosel held the skull close to her body with a certain degree of familiarity, as if it were a past lover.  My suspicions were confirmed when the dental technician, also entering in my blind spot quipped, “Yes. It use to be her boy friend.”

We all laughed nervously and my nervousness remained as Dr Rosel asked me if I could tell the difference between a male and a female skull.

I confessed that I couldn’t and began to wonder where this conversation was heading.

“A male skull,” she went on oblivious to my unease, “has an enlarged sub-orbital ridge which is absent in females.”

Rosel subtly moved the conversation over to what might be the real purpose of the skull and that was to demonstrate my particular dental ailment.  She expertly explained, using the skull, why my jaw clicked when I opened my mouth and why I was suffering from headaches.

“TMJ,” Dr Rosel said under her surgical mask.  She explained that this meant, “Transverse Manibular Jaw Dysfunction.”  Having said this she swiftly departed on nimble feet.

On cue the technician was back.  Part of my treatment that day was to have impressions made for some manner of appliance to be manufactured for me in some distant laboratory and which I would be expected to wear in perpetuity.  As the young tech slapped the revolting pink gelatinous substance into the molds she began to casually relate her week end experiences at a reincarnation seminar she had attended.

“Have you ever had an out-of-body-experience?”  I think she was serious.

Before I had a chance to process her statement she told me about the key note address at her seminar.  The speaker was actually a former Nazi who had been reincarnated as a Jew with a horrific appetite for holocaust literature.

I meekly replied, “Oh really,” as she inserted one of the cold dripping castings into my mouth thereby effectively cutting off all hopes of future conversation in a two way sense.  At that moment I also fervently hoped for an out-of-body-experience to escape my treatment as my gag reflex violently kicked in and I found breathing and rational thought difficult. (2000 words)

The technician massaged my temples in order to calm me down and kick start my breathing.  She went on about her Nazi seminar leader.  I was simultaneously wondering if she was a Nazi in the present life. Before coming to any positive conclusions she began removing the fast hardening mold from my mouth.  The same process then began on my upper jaw as my ordeal was nearing an end.

Swiftly, I left Dr Rosel’s office and escaped into the bright sunshine.  I retrieved my bicycle under the hateful stare of the pharmacist’s cashier and as I peddled home I pondered the skull in Dr Rosel’s office with its narrow Neanderthal forehead just like…I stopped peddling and my thoughts chilled.  Where do male dentists go when they retire?

My word count is at 2408 so I have to make a hasty conclusion now.  As for all the dirt on the Men’s Book club as mentioned in the title, I’m afraid that just isn’t going to happen.  In the words of Captain Rick these guys would be on my back and down my throat like Jack the Bear if I betrayed their trust.  The truth will fade into urban myth because “What’s said in the Men’s Book Club stays in the Men’s Book Club.”  

Nice Try! (2611)

Marty Rempel