Telus What You Have For Brains

 So before I go to sleep I click on the YouTube video of hockey highlights from last night's Canucks game and I get, "DAVE AND ADAM'S IS THE LARGEST DEALER OF SPORTS CARDS AND UNOPENED BOXES IN THE WORLD..." at 3 or 4 times the volume of what I was trying to watch. It comes with the message, "Video will play after ads." I hit refresh before I hear the entire Dave and Adam's spiel. Another ad comes on with the message, "Ad will end in 5 seconds." I guess I can wait fi ---" "DAVE AND ADAM'S IS THE LARGEST DEALER OF SPORTS CARDS AND UNOPENED BOXES IN THE WORLD!!!!" Of course! "Ad will end" doesn't mean it won't be followed by ANOTHER ad. In fact it usually means it WILL on today's YouTube. So I keep hitting refresh. I see the first five seconds of about 20 ads because, of course, you can't refresh until you've seen at least 5 seconds of an ad for whatever YouTube's data mining team has discovered you might be interested in buying. FINALLY after 5 minutes of retail shitfuckery I can watch the 3-minute video I was trying to watch! Except at the 2 and a half minute mark, "DAVE AND ADAM'S IS THE LARGEST DEALER OF SPORTS CARDS AND UNOPENED BOXES IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!" This is punishment for skipping 20 ads and I am pretty sure the volume is now TEN times louder than the video I was trying to watch. I just end the video. I know what the score was and I've seen half the highlights. Fuck YouTube! I'm not listening to another ad! So I turn off my phone and I swear on the fake degrees of Steve Jobs I hear, "DAVE AND ADAM'S IS THE LARGEST DEALER OF SPORTS CARDS AND UNOPENED BOXES IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!" I am not kidding! I'm exaggerating but only a little. My phone sometimes someHOW comes back to life after I shut it off and it's always with a YouTube ad! 

We've all been through some or all of this. Some of you do what YouTube Chinese water tortures you into doing and buy ad-free YouTube but is it worth it? What does it cost 11.99 a month? You know what makes this another in a long line-up of examples of capitalism run amok in North America? You pay $102.00 a month for internet. So you pay 102 mafuckers a month so you can pay 12 sumbitches a month to not get ads on YouTube! I'm sorry when I talk about THIS kind of chicanery I can't use the word "dollars" because it seems much dirtier than that. For one hundred and two shitpubes a month we should be getting exactly ZERO ads on YouTube. We ALL know this to be true. Telus should be called "Sellus." They aren't DOing anything for all the customers that are forced to buy internet from them (or from Rogers but they're collaborating to suck up Bell and Shaw and price fixing together because of their illegal monopoly the government allows them to have on something we all NEED (don't quote me on this. Maybe Bell is doing better than I think. Maybe there's a secret internet provider. Who knows the level of scumbaggery they've stooped to?)). 

All I know is these companies always have HUGE buildings in downtown areas of Canadian cities. Do you know what Telus does to buy these big phallic skyscrapers? They flip a switch, that's what they do. I know there is infrastructure, but they don't give you any tangible product. In fact the only work they do now that they've got their lines in every home in Canada is make sure nobody in Canada can mess with their signal blocking. So really what we are buying from Telus is their hard work BLOCKING TV and internet signals we'd all have for free if they didn't block them. And this is not even counting the "in-ap purchases" like YouTube ad blocking that you can spend your hard-earned buttfuckers on to stretch Telus' signal jamming cocksucker for them. 

Have you ever lined all that assholery up in your head and thought about it? Really thought about it? Well here's another little tidbit to add to the lineup: They pay 34 bucks a month in the UK and in the Sudan it's $2.30 a month. Then again it's $383.79 in Barundi. How can there be such a range? It's the Emperor's new clothes. They are selling air to us. Do you know how they come up with prices for internet? They pull them out of their asses. I wish I was kidding but it's true! They just "determine" what it should cost for the wholesalers, that's right, there are wholesalers. Why? Because EVERYTHING has to have a middleman nowadays. Job creation! These superfluous wholesalers or ISP's (internet service providers) get internet cheaper than us then add a "reasonable" markup and sell it to the monopolies like Telus, who adds ANOTHER "reasonable" markup before selling it to us. But not for long. Telus/Rogers is buying up all the ISP's too. Seems that's the only way to get rid of the superfluous middlemen in business.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "If only there was a way I could block the world's air supply, become an ASP (air service provider), pull a price for air out of my ass - and it'd be pretty expensive with all the people running out and dying - sell it at a "reasonable" markup to some monopoly-holding air company in Canada like "Canadair" or "Maple Leaf Breathing Inc." "Then maybe someday they'll buy me out. Yeah THEN I'd be on Easy Street!"

Well these fuckholes DID IT! And the CRTC allowed them! That's the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Well, I'm absolutely positive they didn't just "allow" them. The CRTC individual politicians who blather about their dedication to assuring Canadians have access to the best internet in the world at "fair and reasonable" prices are MODEL politicians! They probably use the same logic that a former Bell bigwig did when he wrote an article stating that Canadians have cheap internet because we use the lowest percentage of our income to buy it. They sell us that shit while being well paid by the telecommunication giants and probably the ISP's as well. The CRTC is nothing more than a subsidiary of Telus/Rogers if you want to use business lingo. 

Have you ever seen Vacation? Well if you haven't:

We all musta got manure for our brains! Chevy Chase is us, the desperate customer paying for something we absolutely must have. The ISP's and Telus/Rogers are the mechanics. We COULD ask these Shylocks what the CRTC thinks of their business practices but they ARE the CRTC. And that's how things work in a cuntry that has allowed capitalism to get off the rails. 

It seems to me that Canada used to be a place where you could get a fair deal from somebody even if they could see you really needed what you were purchasing. Maybe I just had too much manure on the brain back then. Here's what happened to me when I bought Telus internet for my place in Trail:

I went to the Telus office just down the street from me and tried to get hooked up there. One of their employees worked with me as a security guard at Teck and he was going to do it for me. But I went there right after work and for some reason I forgot some information and couldn't complete the application. But when I got home I got a call from the Philippines from some friendly sounding gal named Miranda working at a call center selling Telus to people with manure for brains like me. The very first thing I did, and I needed to interrupt her spiel to do so, was ask if this was a long term plan because I was only interested in month to month payment. I didn't know what I'd be doing two months down the road let alone two years. She assured me it was month to month. Then she went on about how we could get a home phone for free and the monthly rate was fairly decent (although much higher than Korea and lower speed but they say that's because of Korea being a small country - now I KNOW that's bullshit) and we could bundle it with this and that and get a special cash back offer applied to our first month's bill and yada yada yada. I told her I'd have to get back to her after I talked to my roommate Fred about it. He agreed and we were told it would be hooked up on Thursday.

Thursday was the first day of my online master's. So, like Clarke W. Griswold needed repairs at the garage, I NEEDED internet. The internet has become an essential service in our world and I don't think it should be hawked by Filipinas in call centers in Manila. Thursday rolled around - no internet. Not even a call from Miranda explaining why. My favourite play of Shakespeare's is the Tempest so I had a soft spot for Miranda. I also like the orange pop they have in the Philippines that bears the name. How could she leave me hanging like this? 

Whatever. I had to get internet so I went to the Telus shop, bought a used router and got hooked up to month to month internet. The deal was not as sweet but I had to get started with the course. The next day Miranda called. I told her what had happened and she gave me some shit about "switches" that needed to be dealt with. She also slipped up and mentioned that the offer was for two years. I said she had told me it wasn't and she mealy mouthed about how I would PAY month to month and that's what she had said, not that it wasn't a two-year contract. Also if there was a "switch" issue, why the fuck had they just left me waiting for hook-up the whole day? They KNEW I needed it that day because I had told them about the course and Miranda had guaranteed me hookup on Thursday. She tried to backpedal out of THAT too and I told her she was getting a bad report. The sales tactics she used are dishonest and discourteous. 

I used the modem and paid month to month while in Trail. When I left I returned the modem and asked them to disconnect me. I was told that they couldn't do it at the office. Why? They had hooked me up. Nope. "No reason, we just can't do it from here." I call bullshit again because I found out the reason. It has to be done online where they make it as hard as Bell made it to cancel their service. I have tried online, I've tried calling, I've tried replying to their calls to hook me up again, (I am SURE at least one of those calls was from Miranda too!) and it seems impossible to cancel my Telus service. I got a bill a month and a half after cancelling and moving and it said if the bill is not paid by such and such a time, my service would be cancelled. Okay, I'll do it THAT way I suppose. Well now I've received ANOTHER bill from them. This is two months after cancelling and a month after they said they'd cut my service! But they can get away with this because why? That's right, they are a government sanctioned monopoly and they can do whatever the fuck they want!

Why do ANY of us do business with Telus? Oh yeah, because we have manure for brains. I forgot. I have manure for brains. We all do I guess. Why else would they think THIS would work?

First of all, I get it!!! They're talking about washing dishes! It sure sounded like sex. Boy that's clever and original! Almost as original as sarcasm! You know like when you say something was funny but it really wasn't? Or when you overexplain something everybody definitely knows? 

Second of all, a dishwasher uses LESS water? LESS??? Oh that's supposed to be a joke too. OOOHH 

Yes! They are serious! They are flogging dishwashers as water saving devices! I mean I've seen a lot of people, including some of my family who stand at a sink and have the water running while washing one dish at a time. They'll go to the fridge leaving the water running. Get a beverage. Maybe a snack... I lived with my grandmother for a year and she did the dishes in a tub in the sink. All the dishes in one tub. Then when the dishes were done she emptied the tub of dishwater onto her flowers. Nowadays we just leave water running for the background noise but STILL do they think we're THAT DUMB? Do they think we have manure for brains? Well, we ARE watching their ad on TV or internet so...

The Standardizors Part III

 Still not finished with this. Take a look at this video:

You get the TED forum where you KNOW you're gonna get some good shit! You have a pleasant looking, well spoken, attractive, bright jacket wearing person telling you of something super exciting in the world of education along with an emotional, touching personal anecdote and you've hooked almost everyone. I believe this lady genuinely believes the idea of blended technology CAN democratize education, and I wish I could just jump on this bandwagon, but it's not a new bandwagon and it has the same flaws that caused many old bandwagons to lose a wheel or two. 

You tell a story of a teacher with a name NOBODY will forget (she said Wendy Fuck right?) and you tell of some astonishing success like teaching a one-year curriculum in 6 months and build up the hopes of the audience. Then you give an example you hope the audience won't see the flaws in, and you move back to the personal emotional anecdote and you're done.

I don't want to poke too many holes in this vid because I agree with Jessie Woolley-Wilson in almost everything she says. I too believe we could blend technology into classrooms to improve education. I also like the fact that she wants to make Grace more creative and she wants to pursue "learning how to learn" or cognitive learning theory because YEAH things are developing so fast, maybe Grace's future job doesn't even exist yet. I am just not as comfortable yet with the idea that adaptive technology will be used for good, not evil by the bean counters and cost cutters that find their ways to the administrative leadership of so many schools that ARE businesses nowadays. I would like some assurance from Jessie that this sort of technology won't be used to replace teachers like grocery baggers at Walmart or people who used to work the tills at McDonalds. Can she assure me that technology and humanity will be blended and we won't end up just depending on this technology and removing the humanity? Because that would diminish the quality of the education. 

Let me show you how Wendy Fuck got so much done in such a short time. I'm here to tell you that maybe Wendy Fuck got a lot FINISHED in a short time, but her work was probably just about half as good as her co-teachers. But I don't want to fall into the trap of measuring teaching quality like it is math. That's the very problem I see here. Let me illustrate: Go to about the 7 minute mark in the vid. There is an illustration of a math game in which one student comes up with the number 48 by using 4 groups of 10 and one group of 8 while another student comes up with the same number just by using groups of 1. Jessie says this demonstrates a different level of understanding of mathematics and where these two students should progress to should not be the same. With the help of blended learning she says, (though I don't see enough blending here) we can give the first student a lesson in subtraction. Come up with 48 starting with 100. But the second student who is struggling (here's where the blending should have but didn't come in) should get a lesson in 5's or 10's. This is what the computer sees from keystrokes and UN-intuitively adapts. This is where Wendy Fuck (I love typing that name) saved so much time. However, Wendy Fuck really should have asked the second student why she/he did the exercise that way. There could be many more reasons than mathematical deficiency. In fact the second student could be an advanced student who will (because of the decision of a machine) be given remedial treatment. 

What if to use a group of 10 the program required you to simultaneously press the ctrl key and the space bar to build groups of 10 then the enter key to copy those groups. That's what the first student did. The second student could have been bored by the simplicity of the mathematics that were much too easy for her/him and just used the space bar 48 times out of boredom. Or maybe she was chatting on her cellphone in her other hand and didn't want to do it the first way. Or maybe he was eating an apple with his other hand. Or maybe she wasn't paying attention when the formation of groups was illustrated in the previous class. Or maybe keyboarding skills are lacking. Or maybe the ctrl key doesn't work. Or maybe he has a sore left hand from playing rugby. Or maybe maybe maybe... THIS is where the blending comes in. Wendy Fuck should have asked the second student why he/she chose to just enter 48 groups of one rather than trust the machine approximation of adaptive intelligence. Maybe this missing step was what saved Wendy Fuck so much time and her results really aren't "nothing but astounding," they're really nothing but ordinary. Maybe even a little bit lazy? Wendy Fuck is winning teacher of the year while another teacher is asking why students are doing things the ways they are and finding that there are flaws in the artificial approximation of intelligence and human intuition, instinct, reason, and HUMAN adaptability is still far superior.

But that won't stop the promotion of Wendy Fuck and this "adaptive" math program and the pushing of computers and technology in general onto the teachers, even the good ones who haven't put all of their faith into a machine like Wendy Fuck has. Those good teachers will be viewed as naysayers and people who fear technology and they will be forced into "professional development" rather than given a forum where they can voice their reasons for not using the technology and illustrate its flaws. This is what needs to happen. The forum and the blending. THEN technology can be mixed with far superior human attributes and we will not have to settle for computer approximations. But this is not what I see happening. Computers have been hailed as the next educational revolution for a few decades and because of good teachers recognizing their limitations - not because of the limitations of good teachers - that revolution hasn't been as revolutionary.

Now let's get back to the Standardizors. THEY are doing much the same thing only worse. They are trying to push mathematical, mechanical, machine-like thinking onto teachers who possess instincts, compassion, sensitivity, intuition, logic, critical thinking, problem solving, abstract emotions and many other superior abilities that computers can only approximate. Here is one example. This is real folks. I saw at one of my "professional development" meetings for LINC an illustration of how to evaluate a CLB (Canadian Language Benchmarks) level 1 vs a CLB level 4 student in speaking. I am paraphrasing but the example I will give is very similar. Ask the question, "How was your vacation to Florida?" If the student's answer includes 4-5 adjectives it is a CLB 4 answer. If the answer includes 1 adjective it is a CLB 1 answer. So imagine if you will... 

The first student badly wants Canadian citizenship which can be obtained if she gets a CLB 4 certificate. She has no interest in learning English because she lives very comfortably in a community made up of mostly people who speak her first language. She just wants to pass. She knows how to beat the test and she knows she just needs to list some adjectives so she says, "It was hot, humid, rainy, wet, muggy." BAM! CLB 4.

A second student is asked the same question and his answer is, "It was like spending 2 weeks in Cardi B's wet ass pussy." BAM! CLB 1. I only see one adjective. Wet. Or wet-ass I guess. But this student has used a simile. He has used creativity and humour. His answer shows cultural awareness and a fairly high degree of currency although maybe not by the time I post this. Any good teacher could tell that this student has a much better English level than the first student and he knows WAP so it shows he has some interest in the culture here, but with the limitations imposed by the CLB's strictly mandated rules and regulations he will languish in level 1 for awhile where he will be bored speaking with students who are probably lower level than he is. He will need to produce 8 "artifacts" or tests (which he will ace if he puts any effort at all into them) in order to get to level 2. This will take him months and months and probably years to get his citizenship whereas the first student will already have hers. I ask you, which of the two would YOU rather have selling you siding, checking you through immigration at the airport, answering your call to set up a doctor's appointment or whatever???

I would place the first girl in a lower level and the second student in CLB 4 or 5 but given the overzealously pedantic CLB Bootcamp and PBLA training I have received, I think I would be fired. Every place where I have done level testing overseas, and there have been quite a few of them, I could place these two students into the levels that are appropriate for them based on standards, maybe computer scoring, AND my human judgment. That is the way it should be but for some cockamamie reason it seems we are reverting to deep in the past before we realized the humanity of teachers is irreplaceable. Back when teachers had classes of 100 students with mixed levels and ages and the teacher had to teach them several different subjects. Okay, then it helps to standardize. But nowadays we have the ability to differentiate, to get to know students and tailor lessons to their interests and learning needs. I sometimes wonder if maybe all this retrograde standardization and mechanization might be a way to revert to the classes of 100. That, disturbingly, IS a trend in education. 

Things that make you go, "Hmmmmm....."

The Standardizors Part II

 I suppose I need a part two to my previous post. I think this will have an even darker mood to it but it really shouldn't. Everyone who is not American repeat after me: I am not American though I watch them on TV and social media and may try to play one in my life... I am not American. We should be glad of that in a lot of ways.

I find that it's not just the people of the US projecting their values and the results of their culture onto others that makes some believe things in our countries and lives are just the same as they are in America, it's US. Not the US, US. Our own selves. We convince ourselves that we live in societies as (sorry my American friends but) fucked up as America. It helps that we are bombarded 24/7 with Americana but that's by choice. Isn't it? I am not immune to it. I see TV shows and without the makers of the shows putting on the hard sell I am convinced that I should have a new car, a big apartment, new clothes, holidays off, good looks, straight and glisteningly white teeth, and what's more, I should be able to go to a bar and order a beer, just a "beer" and not get a look of any kind from the bartender. I should also be able to leave the bar before that beer is half finished, maybe even 100% undrunk. That's what Americans DO! Well it's what TV Americans do. There's a difference. I live in Canada and was raised here and although it is common knowledge that US and Canadian cultures are very similar, there are some huge differences. I think sometimes Canadians give ourselves credit for exaggerated differences like kindness and super healthcare - we're not really much nicer and our healthcare is less and less super - but sometimes we also don't give ourselves credit for very real differences like not having the same level of problematic extremism that the American culture cultivates.

Our government and owners try their best to make us like Americans but ours is a muted Americanism. We have a two party system but it's not just straight contradictory tribalism like the American system. Our capitalism isn't as extreme yet either. We still have some remnants of a social safety net here. We have bigotry and prejudice (and as I previously blogged about the government is vehemently encouraging and enabling it) but it's more subtle and better hidden. More like discriminatory microaggression. 

Buuut then again...

Yeah, we're pretty fucked up too. Just not on the same level... yet.

Another such example is what I was talking about last post: education. Where to begin... I was recently told by my American professor teaching my American master's degree, citing a TED talk given by an American educator that "children won't learn to be accepting of other cultures and ethnicities unless we teach them to be." You go to about the 5 and a half minute point of this vid after she finishes her self-congratulatory applause baiting about how she tells her students to try new things and how she does so all the time too, you will get to the heart of the message.

Teaching is the only way to make kids diverse and inclusive. "If we want children to interact with each other and be friendly towards each other, we need to teach it." REALLY?

But what about

... and also

Are things so messed up in America that by the time kids get to school they're full of hate that needs to be de-programmed by teachers? Well...

But I'm sure these are the extremest examples of the extreme that are thereby most newsworthy, aren't they? Unfortunately it may not be. I might be wrong here. Do you suppose this is WHY, as John Oliver and so many others say, teachers are superheroes that should make a million dollars a year (16:20), yet they never seem to get raises? Is this by design? If it is, this might surprise you coming from a teacher but... GOOD! I don't want any greedy scumbags, people who got into teaching for the money, teaching my kids to be like them. Only one way to prevent that isn't there? And, I'm just brainstorming here, do you suppose this same strategy could be applied to people who have even more influence on the collective values of the country like lawmakers and politicians? And do you suppose if that were the case, maybe the kids wouldn't arrive at kindergarten in need of deprogramming. That really shouldn't be the responsibility of the teacher. The teachers don't know your kids and certainly don't love them. What I'm saying is the education system is not the problem here, it's the culture. What specifically about the culture? We all know it's the extreme capitalism and greed that is not only accepted but applauded in the American culture.

One more video:

You've seen this vid here before. There is a part (7:09) where one of the teachers talks about teacher training in the US and how the kids are all taught that they can be anything they want to be but that just isn't the case. In Finland it doesn't feel so false to say that. Louis Katz, (the best comedian you've never heard of they call him) says school in America was like being prepared for the Special Olympics then when you get out of school you are competing in the REAL Olympics. I'd say it's like that in Canada too but again to a lesser extent. And many other countries!

I guess what I'm saying in these two posts is that standardization is just plain bad and that has been exhibited and documented all over the world. But what most of the world tends to get are American stats and stories and we have a habit of jumping to the conclusions (the inaccurate conclusions) that our situation mirrors that of the US. I think John Oliver is probably right and the US needs a little bit of standardization to fight the horrific things their culture does to kids. Maybe Ilene Schwartz is right too but we shouldn't assume that we are in the same situation as they are in America. We also should have the common sense and wherewithal to realize that this is one of the side effects of dog-eat-dog capitalism where most of us are destined for wage slavery (not to be what we want to be) and school is just preparing kids for it while convincing them that isn't their destiny. The US is not ready to do anything yet to change the real heart of the problem. Band-aids on the education system will suffice until the country (if ever) realizes they are just too greedy and starts fixing that problem the proper way. I don't think Canada, and many other nations, are as far gone and we have the ability and the actual influence and freedom to attack the problem at the cultural level in combination with the educational level to really have an effect. 

But you all know how I have a bad habit of thinking positively. 

The Standardizors

 Why did the fly stop flying? a) Because she lost her passport. b) Because she ran out of air miles. c) Because she discovered the low cost comfort of rail. d) Because she was dead.

Which of these is funnier? Why? Would it be less funny if "because she was dead were the a, b, or c option? Is it funnier that the fly is referred to as a female? Would it be less funny if the pronoun used was the genderless "it?" Is this observational, anecdotal, situational, irony, farce? In my opinion the best answer to all these questions is the best question of all: WHO CARES???

I am a firm believer in the idea that analyzing humour is the work of soulless pedants and busybodies. The kind of people that force us to wear helmets on motorbikes, bicycles, skateboards, roller blades, and they're coming for us pedestrians mark my words! I think of Rainman memorizing the Who's On First routine and repeating it in humorless monotone cursed with the mystery of what makes it funny. I think of comedians who have written thousands of jokes and know the mechanics so well that there are few unexpected punchlines and humour has truly become work for them. Is this why so many funny people die tragically? 

I find myself wondering something similar almost every day about my chosen profession, teaching English, since I've begun my master's in education and much more so since I began the CLB PBLA training course for the acronym loving people at the Canadian Language Benchmark offices learning portfolio based language assessment. I even think I know what those good people who are attempting to standardize ESL teaching across Canada would like even better: pointing out the fact that I erroneously referred to CLB and PBLA as acronyms and they are NOT! I am WRONG! They are but abbreviations having no acronymity based on the fact that we do not read them as words, we just recite the letters. I'm pretty sure the word acronymity would stick in their collective craws as well. It's not a word. I am in error having used it. Period. But I kinda like it. I kinda like authors like Tom Robbins or Douglas Adams who have made the English language their lover, not their bitch and understand that it is a living being and it only grows through creativity and is stifled by standardization. But this sentiment is rife with inaccuracy and needs to be excised like the cancer it is! At least that's the message I'm getting.

Let me illustrate. This week we studied how to test for and evaluate comprehension of "receptive skills" which just means reading and listening but sounds more scientific and impressive and that is why the term is used and was invented I'm betting. We learned that studies show three levels of comprehension - literal which is understanding specific information, interpretive which is integrating information and making inferences, and applied which is using information from text to express opinions. This week we were assigned two tasks, one of which was creating 6 comprehension testing questions and specifying which of the three levels of comprehension they are designed to assess. The questions were all about a report card that the student was supposed to read and understand. One of my questions was "Which subject is Sabrina better at, Mathematics or English? Explain your answer." The level of comprehension I randomly chose was "applied" but it's really all three. Sabrina got two B's and an A in English. Numerically the B's are worth 3 points in that they place Sabrina in the category of meeting the standards of the provincial standardization organization mandates and the A is worth 4 points and puts Sabrina in the category of having exceeded the provincial standardization organization's expectations. 10 points for English. Whereas Sabrina got two A's and a B in Mathematics which works out to a score of 11. Hence, using literal understanding of specific information, Sabrina is better at Math than English. However, there were comments made by Mr. Cardinal - Sabrina's teacher in both Math and English, and the test taker might comprehend her superior skills in Math through inference based on Mr. Cardinal's comments in which case interpretive comprehension is exhibited. Conversely, it might just be the opinion of the test taker that two B's and one A is not as strong as two A's and one B. I think most of us might draw that conclusion and share that opinion, no? And that would show "applied" comprehension, right? As sister Mary Elephant said, "Class, class, class, cla - WAKE UP!!!"

Who does this? Who CARES about this? I'll tell you who - Lisa the standardization soldier and my "teacher" in the PBLA training I am currently plodding my way through. Each week we the students are tasked with assignments that are really just exercises in alignment with the CLB standardization rules and regulations. Every week Lisa finds things that are "wrong" with my assignments, gives me what is called "action-oriented feedback" but which is nothing more than she is right and I am wrong and I need to take action, which means I need to correct my "mistakes." I know next week she will say that example question was either literal or interpretive level of comprehension testing and she won't be wrong. It IS both of those. What pedants who want to standardize English and turn it into Math or Science don't seem to realize is it is an unquantifiable art, not math or science. We are talking about the mind and how people comprehend things. This is not an exact science but Lisa will force me to pretend like it is and correct my erroneous teaching like she does every week. 

What is Lisa doing? She's taking the fun out of funny. She's analyzing that which is rendered ineffective through analyzation. She is measuring teaching, learning, understanding, thought like they are conducive to measurement. They aren't. And every time she tells me I'M the one who's wrong she gets wronger and wronger in her wrongness. But Lisa has urged us students individually and as a class to understand the necessity of keeping our ESL teaching standard across Canada. Strictly standard. Like virtual lock step one with another standard. The most hilarious part of all this is that after talking about how important uniformity of curriculum is nation-wide, the CLB compliant standardizers and overlords assure you that they value learner-centered education because, as we all know, students are all different. THAT is the funniest joke in this post. Funnier by far than all the fly jokes put together in my opinion. Students are all different and for that reason we teachers should all be the same and our lessons should all be the same. 

Last week was week 6 of my 8th course out of 12 in my master's of education course. As part of my portfolio assignment in which I commented on the readings of the week I wrote this: 

The Lloyd article provided insight into teachers’ learning while developing curriculum adaptation skills. Again, I have significant experience in the use of various curriculums that have been provided for me and/or written by me so this information was not novel to me. However, it was particularly interesting to trace my own personal journey from “thorough piloting” as a new teacher and “offloading” curriculum materials unchanged in any significant way to “adopting and adapting” and using the curriculum as a guide using my own strategies and personal lessons to augment the curriculum more heavily as my experience and expertise grew to my current state in which, if allowed the autonomy by my employer, I take the “intermittent and narrow” approach “improvising” and using the curriculum suggested by the employer for “seed” ideas while relying almost entirely on my own resources and strategies (Lloyd, 2008). Unfortunately, my current employer, Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) does not afford me the autonomy I would like, and I have enjoyed in the majority of my overseas teaching positions. I am learning how lucky I was to have such freedom and that my personal satisfaction is greatly decreased when my job must be done in a highly structured, standards-based manner and not in the artistic, creative way to which I have grown accustomed. I may not work for LINC much longer. They provide a good curriculum with plenty of options a teacher can use to suit his/her personal teaching style and the learning styles of the students, but there is little to no room for improvisation or creativity. If I have a “duckweed” moment and an unexpected conversation captures the attention of my students, I am used to having the autonomy to ride that wave and save the scheduled lesson for another day. With LINC I would have to justify it against the strict oversight of the Canadian Language Benchmark expectations and mandates for acceptable lessons. This severely limits my freedom in planning and implementing my own lessons as well. I can see how teacher burnout might be a problem working for LINC, at least for me.

However, I am hopeful that LINC (which IS an acronym!) (that was what humourists call a "call-back." It was funny because it called your attention back to an earlier joke and you are "in" on that joke because you read the original joke that this new joke references) ppppppttttthhhhhhbbbbbbbtttttt!!!!! As I was saying, I remain hopeful that LINC won't be as overzealous as the erstwhile Lisa has been in finding fault with my half-hearted attempts at taking my quality teaching materials and watering them down by standardizing them and weakening them to align with CLB expectations. It's really not that important. REALLY. Canadian education is not standard. Never has been. It's provincial as Sabrina's report card illustrated. I went from province to province during my education finding out that what was being taught was drastically changed by something so abstract as a provincial border. Although I must have frustrated many a teacher's attempts to maintain standardization throughout my Canadian education, I turned out okay. I'm no dummy. I am living proof that standardization is useless. 

I'll go further and say that standardization is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to education. It's not bad enough in Asia that 18-year-olds suffer the traumatic stress of university entrance exams Suneung in Korea, EJU in Japan, the Gaokao in China, these are all words closely associated with high stakes and teen suicide in these countries. Now the 14 and 15-year-olds get a glimpse of the stress of do or die, hero or zero, success or utter failure, school closures, teacher firings, and it's all your fault, with the PISA tests. THIS is a nice evaluation of PISA tests and even it evaluates the whole experiment as a failure. THIS is not so nice but more accurate. Standardization leads to teaching to the test, cheating, stress, and horrible educational practices. It's not a secret. Why the hell it's being implemented in Canada by the ESL racket is anyone's guess.

However, it is on the decline. Hopefully the folks at LINC can recognize the error of using CLB standardization and do what most places I've worked (with the massive exception of the last place I taught in Korea - another abbreviation loving business called SPEP where they mistakenly refer to their name as an acronym all the time (if you are an ESL teacher and YOU have standards don't work for these jagovs)) do: they use a text or curriculum as "seed" material and allow teachers to teach. Some places let the teacher create his/her own curriculum. They actually TRUST the teachers! Hopefully LINC can develop this virtue and make me more comfortable in my new job. Otherwise, it may be yet another short lived position. 

Having said all this, I am finished week 4 (except for the inevitable corrections I will be forced to do to the assignment I've turned in to Lisa) and week 5 is the last week. Hopefully I will never have to deal with Lisa and the CLB standardizors ever after. We've been watching horror movies this month and if I were to make one I think that would be the title - The Standardizors. They would absolutely HATE that title! lol I will be starting a new semester with LINC November 15 and still have one class. Hopefully after the semester ends in March I will be more used to the LINC method and I will acquire more classes, more pay and maybe even some sweet benefits. I sure hope so! Wish me luck.

Having a Taxing Time of It

 It has been too long. But let me get you caught up: I moved to Calgary and have started a new job with LINC. That stands for language instruction for newcomers to Canada. And in my case FROM newcomers to Canada. Ar ar. I do feel like a newcomer again. In many ways. Today we are off work to honour September 30th's new holiday known as "National Day for Truth and Reconciliation." I had not heard of this before last week. 

Truth and reconciliation eh? How many ways can the Canadian government tell its citizens to just keep forking over the money and smile? There's temporary income tax that's well over 100 years old and getting larger every year that we stupidly pay. I've covered that thoroughly here. There's inflation that we just acquiesce to like the good little chattel we are. There are so many other bullshit taxes! And aside from these taxes, what do we non-native Canadians do for the natives we are being asked to reconcile with? Well they pay no tax on items purchased on reserves; they don't have to get fishing or hunting licenses; there is other funding provided by the Canadian government (That's the tax payers. Governments don't give away their own money.) such as direct payments, grants, revenue sharing for businesses that operate on "their" land (quotation marks because  of the absence of ownership so many tribes have as part of their heritage), treaty payments, access for status card holders to programs (our money) related to education, health care, housing, and social assistance; and it may have changed but flash a status card and taxes are dropped on purchases OFF the reservations as well. Every Canadian knows or knows of a native or two who has received some pretty awesome monetary bonuses from the government - our taxes. 

It's nice to have a day off, hopefully with pay, but I'm not sure this reconciles the Canadian government's unequal treatment of the natives with me. If the government wants us to treat them like everyone else, they should be treated by the government like everyone else, and they aren't. They get 1.75 times what the rest of us get from the government. And that's excluding non-monetary privileges and other payments our government who is so good at finding ways for Canadians to pay for guilt we probably shouldn't feel, has come up with. I'm not saying there was no discrimination, I'm asking how the Canadian tax payers getting shaken down for over 20 bill equates to "proper" or "fair" payment. We're not the ones who underfunded those kids. If this holiday were anything about TRUTH, we'd find out that these sorts of things are just government attempts to create discord, not reconciliation between natives and non-natives in this country. That's Truth and Reconciliation. So it would be nice to see the government working on that instead of just pulling a holiday out of their asses. I'm sure Canadians will agree wi----

This was at the Blue Jays game on Sept. 30th. Lots of orange shirts in the crowd. The broadcasters were all wearing them too. Chalk up another example of the Canadian public bending over and telling the government, "YEAH! Hit me again and this time put some STANK on it!"

But anyhoo, I walked to my bank today because my bank charged me money for not having enough money. Could there possibly have been a more capitalism run amok statement ever made? I have a payment coming out of my account because it's the beginning of the month. I left enough in the account to cover it, but when I checked the account balance yesterday, there wasn't enough in there. Of course! The fee for not having enough in my account. I forgot about that. So I walked to the bank to put in an extra ten bucks or whatever. It was closed For national Truth and Reconciliation Day. 

I sometimes feel like a stranger in a strange land back here in Canada! I still haven't paid a nickel in income tax, that won't be till April of next year, but I already miss the tax-freedom of Korea. Prices are absolutely insane here and with the high prices comes higher taxes (because goods and services (GST) and provincial sales taxes (PST) and do we still have harmonious sales tax? (HST) are all calculated as a percentage of the flimflamorious prices we regularly pay) which works out to 5%, 13%, or 15% depending on the province you're in. How could it depend on the province we're in? It's just some asshole in some province gauging us for more! There is no justification for saying that this bowl of poutine should cost $10.50 here and if I put my foot over the border between Alberta and BC it now costs $11.50 - BUT WE STILL PAY! We're phenomenal creatures us Canadians in our acceptance-after-surfeiture when it comes to tax! We've been past surfeit levels for decades! And you should see some of the hidden taxes our products have on them BEFORE we pay the 5-15% tax! Go to the reservation 7-11 and buy a pack of smokes or a tank of gas and you'll think you've gone back to the 80's. If I buy alcohol I could pay up to 31% tax on it! Not in good old Korea!

As I mentioned, and have written about before, the high prices are unnecessarily high due to nothing more than greed, but then when you go out for a meal with some friends or relatives, or when you order a pizza, or in MORE places than ever now, you HAVE to tip! So if you have a beer at a restaurant you pay 31% extra in tax, whatever percent the restaurant chooses to jack that price up AGAIN (usually they aim for 80%) and if it's wine... you might have to take out another mortgage, and then tip on TOP of that! These food and beverage mavens at your local Pizza Hut or Denny's expect us to then add another 15-18% but that was before Covid. Now it's over 20%!!! And as you know if you've done your homework, that is just the owner of the restaurant, the same person who is already massively overcharging you, making you pay the majority of his servers' salaries too. 

I remember Canada being a fun place where people, even before we had good jobs, went out and socialized. I initially thought, when I got home, that Covid had killed the restaurant and bar industry, but was it that or are we just getting overcharged? 

I kinda feel like just crawling into a bottle right now and sucking up some tax. Sheesh!