Jet-Lagged in a Paradigm Shift

From the archives...

Moot Points

Jet-lagged in a paradigm shift

Marty Rempel

During the summer I rarely wore a watch. Instead, I navigated by the stars and rarely reached my destination. I read escapist literature, watched late night movies and barbecued my breakfast. Now I synchronize, coordinate, schedule and grab a morning coffee at Tim's place. I like both patterns. I enjoy the newness of September as I struggle over learning students' names, getting things out of central printing and establishing my teaching routines.

Our district started the year by gathering custodial staff, maintenance people, teachers, teaching assistants, administrators and central office staff for a presentation on Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Our speaker, a former superintendent with the Peel Board of Education, helped us to understand the nirvana of time management in quadrant two . . . the tranquil, not urgent, matrix cell of pedagogical inner peace. It was time well spent as I made my perilous leap from sandaled feet upon Tofino sand to sensible shoes on classroom floors.

Adjusting from the vacation mode to the workday mode is always a tough transition—one that teachers deal with in their own ways as they enter their classrooms in late August. We prepare ourselves, our lessons and resources, and we collect our thoughts. I still find that the job is interfering with my sleep pattern; adjusting to early mornings is like being jet-lagged. From pulp fiction to curriculum, Bart Simpson to Survivor (but without the million dollars), we teachers gear up, as do students, to a new academic year. Now it's October . . . Are you a survivor?

By the end of September I think my mind and body were finally one with the matrix, yet I continue to experience recurring dreams of beachcombing and wake up in a sweat repeating the mantra of paradigm shifts.

Marty Rempel is a Local ATA Communications Officer and a teacher of social studies at Westwood Community High School in Fort McMurray.

Charlie Hebdo: In the History of the Future

In The History of the Future

My cable-disconnected.

Newspaper subscriptions-cancelled.

Out of touch.

I get all the news I need.

The trends, lines, projections and extrapolations

that overlay the intricate themes of human interaction,

the etches in the shadows of history,

traces of the past,

the unswerving trajectory to the culminating

tragic events in future places, in the dead of night,

in broad daylight,

at a bus station with a knife, or a bomb,

at a war memorial, in a town square,

a Jewish grocery shop,

a printing press.

It has all happened before and again and again.

Is it the inevitable and unstoppable history of the future?

Should I be sad plodding at my inventory like some 

Walter Mitty while a young man from a “free” country dies

in a Sunni conflict sadly disillusioned, or enlightened

in a firm belief women should not be educated

and journalist beheaded?

I get all the news I need.

A few details have changed.

The themes stay the same

in the history of the future.

Fairy Tale: Tea Time/Visit from the Grandkids

Tea Time

Once upon a time in a far away kingdom a prince and a princess came to visit their grandparents, who although aging still had a youthful life style.  On this visit, according to the Gregorian Calendar, they were to celebrate New Years Eve and to do so in royal style. 

 Their grandmother, the Queen, a lovely and gracious woman had planned and prepared for their coming, while the King, now retired, acted more as sous chef, maintained the stables, the grounds, the hot tub and passed the time sharpening his many swords.  Together, preparation made, they waited in great anticipation, for Prince Ryan and Princess Aurora’s arrival at the country palace.

Princess Jasmin had been practicing etiquette with her royal children so they knew not to throw their coats on the floor for servants to pick up and to greet their grand parents in the proper and courteous fashion as she herself had been taught as a child.

We sat together in the Great room next to a roaring Dimplex fire and fashioned snowflakes from paper, a ginger bread house grew from the foundation to the roofline despite tiny royal fingers eating much of the building materials.  Ryan created a beautiful orange paper crown as a gift for his beloved grandmother.  Together they painted festive holiday ornaments as the season fast approached and the children were excited and full of anticipation for what Saint Nicklaus would bring them for the remaining 12 days of Christmas.

In the magnificent, well appointed playroom Princess Aurora was entertaining with a Royal Dalton Tea set acquired from a distant realm.  I believe it was China. Grandmother jokingly asked the children, “What is the most important thing in the entire world?”

Aurora and Ryan answered in unison, Why coffee of course!”

Princess Aurora then delicately proceeded to pour each of us tea and served us biscuits and scones with delicious raspberry jam and various honeys produced within 100 km of the castle.

Prince Ryan ever vigilant and never far from his trusted sword Ex-caliber leapt to his feet as he saw a dragon fly across the moat and over the northern parapet straight for the royal playroom.  Sword in hand he prepared to bravely meet his fearsome enemy.  As a gigantic flame roared through the open window the dragon was about to claw its way into the room when with a single powerful slice of his sword mighty Prince Ryan lopped off first the dragons leg and then the dragons head.  

The pitiful dragon did not finish its fearful, painful death shriek before plunging to its death in the black oily moat far below.  After a half pike it landed with a giant splash amid cheers from the many towns people who had witnessed the battle from court side and now hailed Prince Ryan a national hero.  The crowds joyously proclaimed and chanted, “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.  Never again would the horrible dragon ruin the farmers crops and disrupt tea.

Prince Ryan coyly smiled from above the castle walls as the wind parted his thick blond royal hair, he paused and smiled at his many subjects and gave a princely wave to the crowd. 

 “ Now, I think it is time for tea.”  he said to us.

“But grandmother, please no more jokes about coffee, or it will be off with your head.”  

We all gave a small nervous laugh.