Daily Archives: June 17, 2012

I thought I would only blog briefly this morning, but too much has come across my screen. I love the Mark Twain quote provided below the video. Both moms and dads do learn a lot more after their children are adults. Kathy and I do not get many chances for the boys, Marc, Yves, and Luc, and physically share with us due to distances, but on Friday we went for supper. It was a belated Mother’s Day and an early Father’s Day. Thank you Marie for the great reblog.

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.  – Mark Twain

Nick presents a perspective from around the world, Australia. This is not a story with a single question, let alone a single answer or two camps. It is a narrative needing multiple questions, new conversations, and new ways of engaging those in the classrooms in the conversations.

nickfalkner's avatarNick Falkner

You may have read about the Edmonton, Canada, teacher who expected to be sacked for handing out zeros. It’s been linked to sites as diverse as Metafilter, where a long and interesting debate ensued, and Cracked, where it was labelled one of the ongoing ‘pussifications’ of schools. (Seriously? I know you’re a humour site but was there some other way you could have put that? Very disappointed.)

Basically, the Edmonton Public School Board decided that, rather than just give a zero for a missed assignment, this would be used as a cue for follow-up work and additional classes at school or home. Their argument – you can’t mark work that hasn’t been submitted, let’s use this as a trigger to try and get submission, in case the source is external or behavioural. This, of course, puts the onus on the school to track the students, get the additional work…

View original post 843 more words

I meant to reblog this several days ago. It is topical with the suspension of a high school teacher in Edmonton for giving zeros. Marks are a currency and abstract, therefore when given do serious damage to children. Alberta has 1/4 of its students leave school. What role did marks play in there exodus? What about the students who stay? Who makes the decisions? It is certainly not the classroom teacher. It is bureaucrats, technocrats, and politicians who form committees. The last time God used a committee was to design the camel. That was a long time ago. If I am a professional, treat me like one. When you ask my opinion, I do not offer as an expert. I offer it as a classroom teacher who sees the impact of poor policies on students every day.

elketeaches's avatarelketeaches

Major debate regarding giving zeroes to students in Canada right now.  Joe Bower gives great reasons NOT to do this here….

View original post

ivonprefontaine's avatar

Father Day’s

I subscribe to a daily meditation written by Father Richard Rohr. a Franciscan priest.I talk and write about the concept of common sense, which I understand as local and global. Father Rohr cast it from a theological perspective, I think the explanation provides an insight gained without reading Gadamer’s Truth and Method. I believe there is a universal truth or common sense (Vico called this sensus communis), something that makes us all brothers and sisters bringing us together in community. I think Father Rohr offers an explanation though his meditation on Father’s Day helping us to live in community each day. Certainly, Rilke does.

“It is this sense that founds community” (Gadamer, 1989, p. 19).

Gadamer, H-G. (1989). Truth and method. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.).  New York: Continuum.

Catch only what you’ve thrown yourself, all is

mere skill and little gain;

but when you’re suddenly the catcher of a ball

thrown by an eternal partner

with accurate and measured swing

towards you, to your center, in an arch

from the great bridgebuilding of God;

why catching then becomes a power–

not yours, a world’s.

–Rainier Maria Rilke