Posted on February 19, 2025 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with no comments yet

Don’t judge a book by its cover

 

“Don’t know much about history,

Don’t know much biology,

Don’t know much about a science book,

Don’t know much about the French I took.”

Wonderful World – Sam Cooke

I wasn’t the worst student nor was I the best. I covered the middle ground quite nicely. I was better than average in high school but when I went to university, there were too many distractions and thus a life of scholarship slipped through my fingers. English was my favourite subject other than gym. I never cared much for the sciences and history filled me with ennui.

Lately, I have been trying to turn back the clock a bit. I am much more interested in history in light of what’s going on in our world today. “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” (George Santayana).

When the teacher becomes the student.

To my chagrin, I only took one philosophy course at university, so I am not well versed whatsoever in the writings of the great philosophers. I do know that pupils become teachers and teachers become pupils. Plato was a pupil of Socrates and later Plato became a teacher of Aristotle.

It seems that every day that I go to school to teach, I learn something new.

Last week during one of my substitution stints, I was teaching a class on self-compassion. Before presenting a video on the subject and an audio on meditation, I did my usual check-in with students to see how they were feeling. When asked, most students said that, on a scale of 1-10, they were somewhere between a 5 and an 8. A few indicated they were a 10. One student said he was a 1. I rarely pry but when a student says 1, alarm bells go off. With some gentle prodding, the student told me that a 3-day-old calf had died earlier that morning. I was very surprised to learn that 20% of beef cattle don’t survive their early days of life.

This led to a discussion about compassion which morphed into self-compassion.

Several students mentioned that their mood was altered that day because they had anticipated a storm day. This was on a Thursday. I launched into a discussion about reframing a situation. I suggested that maybe the storm might come later, and that school could be cancelled on Friday, giving them a 4-day weekend, Monday being Family Day in Nova Scotia.

Out of the mouths of babes.

Earlier that same day, I was working in the resource center where students come for remedial work and support. Many of the students face a variety of challenges and this one-on-one and small group work is both necessary and beneficial.

Students are creatures of routine and when their teacher is absent for several days due to illness, things are a bit off. For most, this is mildly unsettling but for one young student in this class, any deviation from the norm was a major issue.

I picked him up from his class and we made our way to the Resource Center. I had worked once before with this 10-year-old individual. There were some family connections which made things a bit easier for him. His teacher had given me a handout that he was to complete, with me pitching in to help when necessary.

While he toiled away, I sat near to him. It was obvious that he was very bright and didn’t need my help. What he needed most was a quiet place to work without distractions. I decided to pass the time by reading and hauled out a 1250-page tome: Les Miserables. He happened to look up and spotted the cover.

“Mr. MacDonald. That story took place after the French Revolution.”*

My head spun as if it was on a swivel. Without coming up for air, he proceeded to give me a brief history of the French Revolution for the next 10 minutes. He was an encyclopedia of information. He spoke of the peasantry, the aristocracy, the comings and goings of Napoleon and the infamous guillotine which he referred to as “The Widow.”

I was absolutely astonished. He went on to tell me that he watches historical videos when he is home.

I listened intently.

The teacher was now the student.

Have a great weekend.

P.S. School was cancelled on Friday!

*Les Miserable was written long after The French Revolution.

 

 

 

 

Posted on February 12, 2025 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 2 comments

This website contains cookies. “Dad’s Cookies”

3M.

Cookies.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. It is a time to acknowledge those people who are special to us. When we were children, we laboriously made Valentine’s Day cards hoping that that 8-year-old sitting in the next desk might take a shining to you. They never did. Later in life when the serious courting began, we would often go all out to impress someone with whom we were infatuated. Emptying one’s bank account to take your date to a high-end restaurant was both romantic and often foolhardy.

This is not a story about infatuation, chocolates, roses or fancy dining.

This is a story about someone who continues to inspire me. My mother. She has been gone now for 7 years but certainly not forgotten.

Just before the Christmas break, I was teaching a grade 7 class and, in the lead up to Christmas, they were understandably jacked up. In order to keep my sanity, I bribed them. “Work quietly and diligently and I will make a batch of homemade cookies for you.” The bribe worked.

In the words of Robert Service from his classic poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee, “a promise made is a debt unpaid.”

January came and went and more than once, a student would stop me in the hallway to remind me of my promise.

Last week, on a rare day off from subbing, I decided to buckle down and make the cookies.

Mom is never far away. I’m sure that there are many of you reading this who experience the same thing. Something triggers a memory, and your mom is centre stage once again.

Mom taught me many things including how to bake, do dishes, polish my shoes on Saturday night, and clean French door windows, the most frustrating task known to mankind.

We rarely think about the process of making cookies. It’s deeply ingrained. It’s a process but someone had to first show us how to do it right. Mom was always a stickler for “detail”. All of the ingredients first had to be assembled on the counter. The recipe had to be followed step by step. No cutting corners. (One of life’s valuable lessons). Wet ingredients, Dry ingredients. As you use each ingredient, put it back on the shelf. Mix. Assemble. Bake.

I loved the testing part the best. Quality control.

While the cookies were baking, mom always insisted on doing the dishes. It was the first (and not last) of life’s lesson in cleaning up one’s messes.

With 8 children, mom wasn’t always around so inevitably, there were baking fails which often rendered tears when we were youngsters. Mom simply made us get back on the horse. Learning from failure – another important lesson.

Mom was tenacious and rarely gave up or gave in. When I went to the north to teach in 2019 and was finding the going next to impossible, mom was lurking on my shoulder. “Don’t you dare quit.”

After making the cookies and while they were still fresh, I delivered them to the students in that grade 7 class. I told them that keeping your promises is important. Before handing out the cookies, I went to the whiteboard. I wanted to use this time as a teachable moment. I told the students that if they could follow four simple things, then they would have a chance at a happy life.

Say please and thank you.

Show up on time.

Do what you say you are going to do.

Finish what you start.

My Mother’s Mantra – 3M

This bouquet is for you, mom.

Have a great weekend.

P.S. This website doesn’t use cookies. We eat them!

 

 

 

Posted on February 5, 2025 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 2 comments

 

All The Money (ATM)

 

WARNING. Cranky old senior’s rant.

“What we’ve got here, is a failure to communicate.”

From “Cool Hand Luke” – 1967

I am a patient man… until I’m not.

I have long prided myself in “keeping my powder dry.” I generally react well in stressful situations unless it has something to do with a computer malfunction and then I want to stand on the tallest building and toss it out the window. I’m pretty good at going with the flow. I rarely lose my temper. I am equanimity personified… until I’m not.

Client service.

Surely many of you old-timers remember a time when businesses giving good service was a given. All transactions were face to face. In all likelihood, you knew the person on the other side of the counter. Our local grocery stores at the time like the IGA and the Co-op had friendly staff who would go out of their way to make your shopping experience pleasant.

Oxymoron. Noun. A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. Example. Client service in 2025. Heavy emphasis on the second syllable.

I tried to place a call to a bank last week. Let that sink in. Have you tried calling a bank lately?

“We’re Making Banking Easier.”

Fake news. False advertising. Sorry. Banking was easier when we could call our local financial institution, have a live human answer the phone and have our question answered within minutes. I tried calling a bank last week to make an inquiry. In the time it took to get to speak to an actual “client service representative” (there’s that damn old oxymoron again), I could have walked back and forth across Spain a few times. It’s bad enough to have to wait an eternity to get to speak to someone going through the litany of options. “If you are running out of patience, please press 6”.

I propose a new tagline for this bank: “Making Cranking Easier.”

I tried repeatedly to give the CSR my name. I spelled it out in agonizing detail. “How can I help you, Raymond”? What we have here is failure to communicate.

“You’re Richer Than You Think.”

Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor, suffering from a fit of hysterics.

I wonder if the folks in their ivory towers on Bay Street have spoken to anyone in the middle class lately as we sink further and further into the abyss. The gap between the rich and the poor widens daily and with the new tariffs in place, that should drive down the prices of groceries, fuel and household goods. That’s not a typo. It’s sarcasm in disguise.

New tagline: “You’re Poorer Than You Can Possibly Imagine.”

Here’s another dandy.

“Let’s Make Someday Happen.”

Sadly, this will not happen until long after we have “slipped the surly bonds of earth”.

“Ambitions Made Real.”

You get the picture. I’m not a big fan of slogans and taglines. (I watched Mad Men and quite liked it). These platitudes are meant to obfuscate and keep us scratching our heads. Instead of paying ad agencies to come up with clever come-ons, why don’t the billionaires who run these enterprises take some of their massive profits and re-invest in client service. Being able to call your local financial institution and speaking immediately with a human being would be an excellent starting place.

Banks are not the only offenders.

Have you tried to get a hold of an airline lately? The only thing worse is having a migraine, a toothache and kidney stones simultaneously. I spent most of last weekend trying to book a flight. I had both a credit and a promo from two different trips and needed to speak to a live human being. What made the waiting time (“Your estimated waiting time is 3 months”) even worse was their choice of muzak. I thought I would go mad listening to interminable loops of the worst music imaginable. Of course, there is a method to their madness. They really don’t want to talk to you and want you to hang up. Which is precisely what I did.

Ah! That feels much better getting this off my chest.

“You’re Richer Than You Think.”

Don’t bank on it.

Have a great weekend.