Oh The Tedium!

 I guess I'll start this post with a few updates. After being GUARANTEED that my Telus account has a balance of zero and I should not be getting billed, I'm still getting billed. The latest email begins with, "Do you want to keep your phone number?" It goes on to say, "Hi David allen. 😒 Your account is scheduled for cancellation Dec. 14, 2023. You need to act now! If we do not receive payment, your account will be cancelled and you will lose your phone number. The current balance owing is $213.22..." blah blah blah "We're here to help! If you want to speak with an agent, click below..." and we'll send you down an Olympian rabbit hole of telephone gymnastics Nadia Comaneci couldn't navigate. 

My phone number is with Koodo, not Telus. I never HAD a phone number with Telus, Only internet. But does THAT stop the scumbaggiest companies in the nation - the Telecommunists? Why, no, it doesn't. 

In fact, my original phone account was with Bell back when I got off the plane from Korea at the Vancouver airport in early March. Yeah, nine month ago. Guess who ELSE shot me off an email this past week. "Dear David Maccannell 😒(can NOBODY get my name right? Reminds me of Ernestine calling General Motors. "Hello, General? How is Mrs. Motors?" What's that? You don't know Ernestine?), Thank you for choosing Bell." I chose long ago to CANCEL Bell and that took me a couple months because they have the same non-existent cancellation policy as Telus. It goes on to say, "This email contains the details of the order you placed on Dec. 4. Please keep a copy for your records." The "details" are my name as the "account owner" and a monthly bill payment method of "regular (invoice)." They've cleverly included a big, blue box I could click on that says, "Complete your registration." This, I suppose, would legally represent voluntary sign-up for whatever they're not telling me I'm signing up for. But, "We are not subject to city, province, or federal regulations... we are omnipotent. That's potent with an omni in front of it." I can't believe you don't know Ernestine!

This is from 1971! I had it on a cassette tape called "Comedy Classics" that also included "Who's on First," "Fat Albert's Car," "Wonderful Wino Radio," <------ George Carlin, and some other oldy and moldy bits. But, still relevant. "We may be the only telephone company in town but we screw everybody." 

So now I have THAT to look forward to... In other news computers still SUCK! Apps, IT, hardware, and software are continuing to WARE me out. I'll only cover one day of issues. Any more than that might give one the impression that computers are not worth entrusting with our entire lives the way we have. (see previous post) I use the Tim Horton's app. They have this game where you pick hockey players and if they score goals you get Timmy's points that you can use to get Timmy's merchandise. I've been playing for a month and a half. At one point I got goals 8 days in a row. I got a week of free coffee for that. Yesterday TWO of my picks, Daniel Sprong and Mikko Rantanen scored. Today I got the message from Tim Horton's that "None of your picks were correct. Play again."

ADP and Outlook Express, both of which SUUUCK but seem to be popular with Canadian employers, are glitching this week. Trying to upload a photo to ADP before the deadline. Nobody can do it. Deadline has passed. Let's manufacture even MORE stress for our workers! We got a calendar on Outlook Express that is supposed to have important dates at the "school" on it. This past week we had a meeting and the handout from that says we have Wednesday, Dec. 13th off. Mark everybody present and claim the hours as "teaching" for that. So that's what I did. My Outlook calendar doesn't have ANY of the important upcoming dates highlighted or marked in any way on it. Like the 3-week Christmas holidays, the Christmas party... I saw the day classes resume marked as Jan. 6 which is a Saturday so I told my students to come Jan. 4, but I'm just going by what I heard IN PERSON. Computer's gotta be better, right? Sigh...

Then I get to my classroom. I have a smartboard. I go to show something on it and the touch function is not working. So we waste 5-10 minutes randomly inserting HDMI, USB, DMI, VGI, LMNOP cables and unplugging them until it finally works. Minutes later I try to do a listening exercise and the audio is not working. Same routine ensues. If people would only leave things plugged in... But I can't tell anyone or ask for help because I've already been backhandedly accused of computer illiteracy. I just go by what is written on the meeting handouts or what I can find out from other teachers. Which... also isn't the best. Sigh...

I remember something being written on the last LAST meeting's handout about binder check. I have no idea what the hell that is and in a building chock-o-block full of teachers I would think one of them would INSTRUCT, EDUCATE, SCHOOL, TUTOR, COACH, TRAIN, EDIFY, ENLIGHTEN, ILLUMINATE, or PREP me, and all the other new teachers who have never done binder check before. Nope. So at the last meeting after it was mentioned again as something we need to do without the courtesy of telling us how to do it (an all too common occurrence) I asked one of the nicest teachers there what we are supposed to do. She told me to just collect one of the student binders and submit it to Michael. Michael will check if I've been instructing my students in the proper binder maintenance, something ELSE nobody has informed me on how to do. So I get a binder from my best student and label it and put it in a box Michael had left in the resource room. A few days later I get an email (on the erstwhile useless Outlook Express) from Michael saying that Rabia is in charge of my binder support group and then one from Rabia asking me to please leave my binder in our classroom. We both use room 204. Well I don't HAVE the binder so now I have to hunt down Michael. Eventually I found him and got my student's binder from him and left it in my classroom. All this while never being officially told what the hell binder check is or what the hell I should be telling my students to keep in their binders, where it goes, what to check, what to sign... Rabia is going to have a FIELD DAY criticizing my inability to do the stuff I haven't been shown how to do! I am wondering if SHE is the one who keeps switching cables around. I DID notice at one meeting a glare from one of the supervisors when she mentioned she had found a LOT of scissors in ONE room and that we should be sharing the supplies with other teachers. Just before that meeting I noticed the 20 or so pairs of scissors that had always been in Rabia and my classroom disappear. I can't be sure if I was blamed for that or if Rabia has been pulling plugs but I've been in "schools" before where teachers were in competition for jobs and I've seen worse.

I used to write on this blog about how Koreans seem to equate complicated with sophisticated. Like they haven't heard of the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle. That principle strongly implies that if you complicate things, you are stupid. I've been told it takes at least 2 years for a teacher to get used to doing things the way they want them to be done at this "school" and now I'm beginning to understand why. Everything is unnecessarily complicated. And we have meetings where it seems only ONE of the speakers is interested in uncomplicating some things while the others are stroking their egos and regaling us with their business acumen while enjoying the sounds of their own voices. Meanwhile there are legitimate issues that go uninvestigated. I'll give you an example: There are several part time teachers. Many of us work at night (7-9 PM). We have keys to our classrooms but have not been given fobs that allow us entry into the "school" after hours. There are people at the reception desk until 5 PM. I usually get there around that time and the main entrance doors are promptly locked at precisely 5 PM. People without fobs have to go to the side door and knock and wait for someone to answer. Usually it is the security guard, but he has other stuff to do I'm sure like rounds and is not always near the door. I have spent 15-20 minutes waiting a few times. It's getting cold. Employing the KISS principle here, maybe keep the doors of the place open while it's open? Now they have nametags for everyone and are super strict about the wearing of them ostensibly (because we are only told wear them or else, not why) due to some security threat. Maybe there are people who disagree with immigration laws and want to harm immigrants or refugees that get Canadian tax payer money or something like that. Okay, understandable. So have the friggin guard sit behind the desk where the receptionist sits. We show HIM the ID's instead of the receptionist. Is this rocket surgery? Brain science?

I talked to one of the receptionists, a nice Filipina who let me in while I was knocking a couple of times, and said it's getting too cold to keep this system up. We need to do something. Well, something was done. Now they have a little desk by the side door that the guard sits in and waits for someone to knock on it. Main doors are still locked so all the students and teachers at night have to use that side door. There was even something brought up at a meeting asking teachers to inform their students about the courtesy of not just letting the door go when exiting but keeping it from smashing the next exiter in the face. This, believe it or not, has become a problem. It seems the simple solution is being avoided here, and in so many other areas! Are there stupid people in charge or do they believe in the concept of complication being equivalent to sophistication? I'll just say it's too early to tell as yet. 

It does seem a lot like quasi-intellectualism focusing on appearance not substance. "So much style without substance! So much stuff without style. It's hard to recognize the real thing but it comes along once in a while." Good old Neal Peart! He nailed that one! Let's make things complicated so we can use a lot of jargon, big words, abbreviations, and acronyms so we can impress people. What? Teach? Educate? What on earth for? Eduardo Galeano the Uruguayan writer... I can forgive you if you don't know him, but Lily Tomlin's telephone operator... sheesh! Anyway, his famous quote was brought to mind by a colleague of mine in the ESL racket. 

“We live in a world where the funeral matters more than the dead, the wedding more than love and the physical rather than the intellect. We live in the container culture, which despises the content.”

Maybe I should just increase my hours at Richelieu, the warehouse I work in. Although, we've just moved everything from one huge warehouse to another even huger warehouse in town and those were some of the hardest shifts I've ever done. I've worked as a tree planter and a diamond driller and those are tough, but I was young then and had boots and clothes that fit properly. I'm using the work boots that I bought in Trail for the Teck security job. I did 12-hour shifts there too but it was mostly sitting down in a chair watching the cameras. I did some 8-hour shifts with Marty in Richelieu receiving and even that, not walking much but standing all day, was hard on the feet. Then I got two shifts on cleanup. Just wandering the warehouse picking up boxes, sweeping, emptying garbages, etc. That was even harder on the feet. But 12 hour shifts of lifting boxes from pallet to pallet is a killer! I was worried about my back, knees, hands, wrists, arms... no problem. But my dogs were barking! By the end of my second shift I had blisters on my blisters but you know what? In some ways I would rather do that than work at this highly regulated, micromanaged, and overcomplicated "school." Besides, it's a 2-hour bus/train trip there and an even longer train/bus/walk trip home so it has only been worth it to me for the exercise I'm getting. 

Ah but who knows? I just had a classroom observation done when a supervisor sat in; I am having my binder check done as I type this; I also have a monthly report due day after tomorrow (parenthetically and superfluously, I haven't been taught how to do THAT either); and I had an interview with the supervisor who observed me telling me I'm still on probation and asked how my class aligned with the CLB standardized curriculum and the mandate from on high... I'm not a big fan of this job to be honest and wouldn't mind getting sacked and working full time at the warehouse. At least until I find a GOOD teaching job though I've been trying for, what, 25 years? Sigh...

On the bright side I DID get extra hours at the warehouse and will be getting some more before Christmas that will allow me to pay for Christmas and another three-week-layoff from my teaching job. Honestly if I last till April and am offered more hours I will either have figured out a way around all the crap there or will be so sick of it I'll just refuse. I think Dec. 21 will give me a good indication of which way to go. That will be our Christmas party. Of course it's not on the Outlook Express calendar either and we've been informed that we'll be paid for three hours of work but have NOT been told how to enter that into ADP. Should we call it teaching or a meeting? There is no "party" designation on the program. Endless tedium and pedantry. 

I am SOOOO looking forward to Dec. 21 actually! That will be the start of Christmas for me. I will still be studying (course # 9 of 12 is halfway through and am nailing it) but I'll have time (and money) for Christmas shopping and a bit of celebration, not to mention the World Jr. Hockey Championships!!! I can't wait for that! It's in Sweden this year so I'll STILL be getting up at weird hours to watch but that's nothing new. I thought being home in Canada would change that, but it's not in N. America this year. 

Being home in Canada WILL have one big advantage though: I can visit family over the holidays. At least I hope... That hasn't been as easy to do as I'd hoped. STILL haven't seen brother Jeff. But I hope to spend some time with Mark and Sheri-Lynn and their giant clan, maybe a check-in with Rob and Terri, and some nice holiday spirit with Marty and Jenn and the two adolescents I am living with. Who knows, maybe a cameo by Mom and Art, Andy and Linda, Tyler, Dylan. That would be nice but it'll just be nice to have an actual Canadian Christmas! It's something I've been looking forward to since getting back and Jenn and Marty do a good Christmas. 

So there you have it. Social life: projection positive. Work: not so much. Canada: expensive and tedious. 

More news as events warrant.

COMPUTERS CAN'T BE WRONG!!!

 Well well well vindication is mine saith the Dave! Vengeance is certainly too much to ask for when battling the "Entity" that is in control of Canada right now, but I got me some vindication and that is about as sweet as it can get for a lowly worm like me. How did I get my vindication you probably didn't ask? Well let me tell you anyway...

Remember a few posts ago when I was bellyaching about the evil member of the Telecom Triumvirate, Telus (Telus What You Have For Brains)? I explained how they are continuing to harass me even though I turned in my router (and got money back for it) in the midst of month-to-month payments that were fully paid in the 2nd week of September when I left Trail and moved here to Calgary. They even sent a letter to my Mom and got her worried so she called me and asked what she should do about it. I told her to open it and it was a bill so I told her to please wipe her ass with it and throw it away. She said she'd do half of that. 

I have given up trying to cancel my internet. I tried going to the place I signed up and they said I couldn't do it there. I tried online and couldn't figure it out. I tried calling and there was no way to do it that way. I tried responding to the emails and texts they send and got an immediate message back saying I couldn't reply to the email/text. Today I got an email and I thoroughly checked it for some way to cancel my Telus internet which I haven't used for 2 1/2 months but for which I have accrued a bill for well over 200 bucks. I found a new number that started with 310 so called it expecting the usual telephone gymnastics that go nowhere. After a few questions asked by a computer I was told the earliest operator was an hour away but I was given an option of getting a call back so I took that. It took about an hour but I DID get a call back. I answered and it was ANOTHER computer. When I say that I mean a recorded message waiting for you to say something then use voice recognition tech to set up another recorded message in response to your response. I thought I was in for yet another dead end but shockingly I was asked by the recording if I wanted to speak to an operator. I said as snarkily as possible "Well DUH!!!!" No, I said yes. No point being snarky to a recording. And after a little waiting music LOW AND BEHOLD I got through to a human being!

I didn't allow myself to get excited though. Human beings at Telus had failed me (and lied to me) before. So I explained to the Filipina on the other end, I forget her name, the whole story. She didn't lie to me or cheat me or anything. She just looked at my account and told me it had a balance of zero. Well what is all this stuff I've been getting then? She said she didn't know either. So she asked all my ID information and made sure I was who I said I was. Then she asked the email address of the people who have been sending the emails. She didn't say anything but I am pretty sure this has happened before judging by the things she was saying. It reminded me of the time my TD bank account was hacked. They didn't act surprised either cuz it happens a lot. IT HAPPENS A LOT.

So, if you were, like everyone including my Mom who opened my fake bill, assuming that it was MY fault, it wasn't. This whole time everyone has been giving me the old skeptical agreement faces while I told this story. That's what we're trained to do! COMPUTERS ARE NEVER WRONG, are they? I was right, the computer was wrong. For the umpteenth time since coming back to Canada 8 months ago.

So I hang up the phone feeling like I'd won the lottery. I BEAT the omnipotent Telus! I wouldn't have to pay the 278 bucks, they wouldn't increase that bill, I wouldn't get any more emails or texts or.... BBBRRRIIIINNNNGGG! (That was my phone. It doesn't really ring. Most of our phones don't ring anymore. But the sound effect still works) "Hello how is your day going?" "Good." "Well I'm about to make it better. You have qualified for several discounts on your Telus service -" "I'm not interested." "But you haven't even heard the offers." "I'm not interested in Telus, thank you. Bye." Click. (My phone didn't really click, I just hit the red phone circle and ended the call. But the sound effect still works.)

Wait a minute, I'm just getting started. My teaching job had to set me up on their computer payment plan called ADP. I was on something similar with Tech in Trail and I had to walk in to work to submit my hours online cuz the computer pay program didn't work from my home. Security helping me out again. 😊 SO nice of them! Well the same thing happened with ADP. It wouldn't work on my home computer because I couldn't open up my company email from home and get the ADP invitation email. I went through a long ordeal with my boss practically begging her to just send the email to my normal email but she wouldn't budge. As it turns out, it didn't matter because not only does the company email have a problem, ADP has a problem. This, I'm told, is a payment platform used by thousands of employers across Canada. And since it's a computer program, IT CAN'T BE WRONG! It must be ME who is fucking things up. Well I went in to work and Dwayne the IT guy couldn't figure out the problem I had with email either so he used a workaround which worked. I had to access it through a different browser. Neither of us know why that worked but whatever. Then we logged onto ADP while at work on my work computer and it worked. Problem solved, right?

The other day Jia sent me a message that I hadn't specified my hours as "teaching" on my hours. I'm at home because it's Sunday. So I go to ADP and log on. It sends a secret code to my phone because, you know, security, my protection. I plug the code into the space for it and I get stuck in an infinite redirection loop saying, "This page isn't working. recruiting.adp,com has redirected you too many times. Try deleting your cookies." So I tell this to Jia and she says it might be because I am using my phone (which I wasn't) or because I need to clear my browser history (which I did a few times in the next two hours during which I was trying to unfuck the fucked up ADP site). I tried a pile of things. I even searched the problem and found out that IT HAPPENS A LOT. Different people have tried different things. Some say it's the Bing search toolbar, many called ADP and were told they had a virus, some used a registry hack... this I did not try because I don't like messing with my registry. I cleared cache, files, history, cookies, chocolate bars, and sleeves and sleeves of Fig Newtons but all it did was extend my computer time trying to refill my cache and browsing history so that I don't have to remember passwords and websites all the time. I still went to the ADP site and got stuck in the infinite redirection loop. The only diff was it stopped giving me the cellphone code, it just went straight to "Try fixing the problem originating on our end by messing with YOUR computer because... COMPUTERS ARE NEVER WRONG." 

The next day I logged on without incident, corrected my hours by adding "teaching" which is over 90% of most TEACHERS' hours yet it isn't an option on the dropdown menu. You have to start typing "teaching" before it becomes an option. Why not change this? BECAUSE COMPUTERS ARE NEVER WRONG. 

THEN after starting my new job at a warehouse in Calgary I was sent an email. "You need to register with ADP." Swell. So I did the whole shpeil again and again I got trapped in the infinite redirection loop. And again after waiting a day it worked. Now I find that if I log in through their website, it doesn't work, but if I log in through the link I got from them via email, both work. I am sure I'm not the only one! But we all just let these glitches slide and act like computers are this wonderful revolution! How long till we learn the hard way they aren't? Are you seeing a pattern to this post? As always I'm about a decade behind the Simpsons. They predicted this overdependence and complete surrender to computers a long time ago.

What follows the ominous ending to this vid is a visit to Itchy and Scratchy Land where the robots go haywire and start killing people. 

The worst part about the whole thing for me is that I get blamed for the problems. We had a meeting Monday and Jia brought up the fact that a lot of people have been doing the ADP wrong, forgetting to do it, or maybe having computer problems like me. She didn't specify exactly but she did say that if we don't do it right, we don't get paid. I'd say that's forced surrender, wouldn't you? But that wasn't the end of it. THEN Kerry pipes up and says, "I don't think you should need to be reminded that computer literacy is expected of you all. It was a prerequisite to your hiring." Okay so now, because COMPUTERS ARE NEVER WRONG, we're all computer illiterates. But hang on a sec, I TEACH 1L/2L. Those L's stand for literacy. Some of my students are unable to read and write in English or even their own languages. So what we do is we teach level 1 and 2 stuff but literacy students are given more help and more time on tests and anything you need to do to differentiate your teaching to accommodate them, go ahead. Because students are not the same. They're all unique. We must practice learner-centered education.

As for the teachers - fuck them! We'll standardize everything they do, treat them like they're identical robots, and blame them when anything goes wrong. We can't blame the infallible computers can we?

This is not a practice confined to my workplace. I am discovering that it is spreading across Canada like a Chinese manufactured immunodeficiency virus... might... if it ever happened. 😒 The US too? No surprise. It seems to me I have spent a long time in Asia watching their education systems go the opposite way. When I got there teachers were told to stick to the standardized curriculum. No autonomy. No creativity, No differentiation. Now there is almost complete autonomy for teachers to do what they feel the students will learn best from. Is it possible that with the massive influx of foreigners to Canada (many from Asia) they are bringing their old education habits with them? And weak educators across the country are just abandoning the years of hard work their predecessors did to get us beyond those bad habits? I think it may be possible. At least it seems a possible contributor. 

At any rate, my message today is more about computers and our premature dependence on them that is likely to bite us all in the arse. In the outset of this post I used the word "Entity." It was in reference to the latest in the Mission Impossible series. I recommend that movie. There is silly car chases and last second escapes like all action movies but the story is interesting. I think it is not only possible but likely to happen soon if it hasn't already. Check it out.

In conclusion, computers CAN be wrong and often ARE wrong. They're not better than people... yet. They certainly can't teach as well as humans and never will be able to. They are being pushed onto the human race for profit, more than technological advancement. As consumers we need to figure out how to slow the pace of this technological revolution so that profit keeps pace with advancement. In my opinion the profit has far outstripped the advancement and needs to be reigned WAAAAY the fuck in as do our well manufactured opinions of the infallibility of all technology.  

Or maybe I'm becoming an old fuddy duddy. What do you think?

Happy Forgetrance Day

 I'm sitting here with a pile of hockey cards every single one of which I have pulled from a pack and taken good care of, some since I was a kid. I'm sitting here feeling like I feel when I register for anything in Canada. I feel like I feel when I have to go to immigration outside of Canada. I feel like I feel when I have to get a superfluous certificate or license. I feel like I've been sodomized without the common courtesy of a reacharound. And I didn't even lose any money! This is a feeling a lot of strong booze tonight did nothing to overcome. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to pack my shit up and go overseas again. A scarring experience. See if you disagree...

I will not list the entire 35 cards I brought to the Eastridge Sports Cards and Games shop today because it would make for the most boring blog post ever. I'll just give you a few: Wayne Gretzky autograph in the Engrained set on a plastic card. Virtually indestructible. Auto is perfect, card is perfect and if it were run over by a truck it would still be perfect. I saw one online that was graded a PSA 8.5/10. I don't know how. I mean Gretzky might have spelled his name wrong? But that might raise the price, no? Anyway, the 8.5 was sold for $1035. I can't find that at the time of this post, but here's one going for 800 bucks. I dunno how long that link will last but I'll give you a pic of mine to compare:

The auto is better, the corners are better, I put this baby in protective sleeve and casing the moment I pulled it and I have the vid to prove it. It has not been exposed to the elements since. I have no doubt it would get higher than an 8.5. Probably a 10. It's not cardboard, it's plastic. Still pack fresh. I don't know what a 10 would go for but it would be in the thousands. Keep that in mind...

Here's another one of mine:

That's Stevie Y. and yes that's his rookie card from O Pee Chee 83/84. PSA 10 is over 4000 bucks. 9 is 5-700.  Keep that in mind.

Pierre Turgeon - Sneaky Pete - recent inductee to the hockey hall of fame. Rookie card. 

Jari Kurri, hall of famer, one of only 9 people to score 70 goals in a season. This card is MINT! Could be another 10.

Hall of famer Dale Hawerchuk. Scored 45 goals in his rookie season and 40 or over six more times in his career. Over 500 goals in the NHL. Hall of famer (first ballot). Rookie card and again immaculate! 

Here's a card with pieces of game used jersey from Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. 

Ovechkin jersey pieces, Jagr (a hunk of his stick for cryin' out loud! How cool is THAT?), Gretz super action from his second year in the league (80/81) and again -  zoom in on that card, it's almost perfect! Around here Kipper is a hero. I have a card with two pieces of patch from his game used jersey. It's one of only 15 in the world! I have no way of knowing how valuable it is because there are no comps. It's too rare! 

Marcel Dionne autographed card; Ed Giocomin card 19/100 with a piece of his goalie stick; Mike Bossy rookie; Brett Hull rookie; Brendan Shanahan rookie; some other good rookies in good condition; a card with Bobby Clarke, Bobby Orr and Guy Lafleur "Hockey Heroes of the 70's"; Gretzky record breaker from when he was 19 years old in 79/80 (in awesome condition); clear cut acetate card of Cam Neely17/100 to honour his membership in the HOF; and many more NONE of which are worth less than 30 bucks. 

This was what I brought to sell today because I'm in the midst of a 3-week layoff/holiday from work and am getting behind in the bills. I had planned on working security here somewhere to cover the down time but, as I explained last entry, it will take a long time to get all the paperwork and certification for me to do the job I did for several years last time I was here. I worked in the goddamned hospitals FFS! Every hospital in this city! That was less than 10 years ago. I need to get certified again? Even though I've RE-certified and worked in BC, the province next door? 

How could I be so stupid? 

OF COURSE! I went to the card shop with all these cards that I know I pulled from packs and are legitimate, but none of them are "slabbed" or certified or graded. This is the equivalent of certification in the country where you need a certificate to take a fucking shit! OF COURSE you need certificates to get what hockey cards are worth! What could I have been thinking? Business on a handshake? PPPtttthhhhbbbbttt! That's not possible any more.

Those 10 cards pictured above? 7 of the 10 of them are either definitely or most likely worth 500 bucks or more. Do you know what I was offered for those AND 25 more cards that were worth at least 30 dollars each? Remember this is Canada and I haven't certified any of them. Go lowball. Go beyond lowball. Give me your best FUCK YOU estimate and you STILL won't guess low enough. I was offered $440. CANADIAN! 

A lot of these cards I have babied and kept in climate controlled storage at over 100 bucks a month since the turn of the century. $440.00. That's not even a rent payment! That's not even enough to treat my sister and bro-in-law and two kids to a nice steak dinner. That's over 4 decades of collecting, preserving, and paying for storage. 440 bucks. I almost told the guy off when he gave me the news over the phone. I don't know how I controlled myself when I went back to the place where I had left the 35 cards and picked them back up again. I told the guy some shit about being sure I would have missed them and now I won't have to. But I wanted to consume him to keep myself from eating my own lips like the native monster that personifies greed called the Wendigo. 

This is what I see when I walk down the street here. I feel like Rowdy Roddy Piper in "They Live" being able to see the fucking hideousness that walks among us. But I still don't think, I refuse to think, they are the majority. They're just stronger than the downtrodden commoners of Canada who drink their beer, watch their hockey, spawn their babies, and voluntarily perform their wage slavery. It's very sad and I see good Canadians feeling the stress of it every day and I don't know how much longer they're going to bear it. I hope not much longer. 

If you haven't guessed this is my annual Remembrance Day blog post. It's almost 2 AM here and it's been Remembrance Day for almost 2 hours. I've been wearing my poppy for over a week now and we've been talking about watching some war movies this long weekend to observe the day. As always I think there are better things we could be doing. Re-read from the beginning till this point in the post but this time think of all those guys who charged up onto the beach when the door on the troop transport boat dropped. Think "Saving Private Ryan." They were pretty sure they were going to die but did it anyway. Why? So that capitalism could run amok like it has in their countries? I doubt a single one of the soldiers who died or survived the heavy fighting in any of the "great" wars would have included the word "capitalism" in any conversation of why they were fighting. Democracy, freedom, peace, equality, justice, and good words like that for the children they left behind would have been the words they used. I've heard them speak. We all have. So tell me honestly, do YOU think they'd be happy with what they see now? 

I think I've asked this every Remembrance Day and I have yet to get an answer. Are our "Greatest Generation" satisfied with our stewardship of our countries? Is this celebration of unabated greed what they fought, bled, and died for? What do we honour in these soldiers? Let's THINK about it for once on Remembrance Day! What exactly were they fighting for and why have we rewarded their heroism with the exact opposite? 

Okay, I'll readily admit things are not as bad in Canada as they are in some nations. But if things were the way they should be, the way they ought to be in order to properly honour our war heroes you can bet things elsewhere would not be as off the rails as they are. 

Canada used to be a country that set trends in the world. This is one I'd dearly love to see us set! Why can't we make our country into something the war heroes we perfunctorily observe every November 11th would be proud of? I don't mean just in empty words like "freedom," "democracy," and other words that the Eagles would say are "just some people talkin'," I mean reality. Are we free? You can't find a study anywhere that shows what the average Canadian thinks about that. I wonder why that is.... Do we feel that things are really democratic in Canada? Bitch please! We have exactly ZERO control over anything! 

This is Canadian democracy and we're constantly told, "What? Stop being so negative! You don't know how good you got it! Do you know how many countries WISH they had pepperoni pizza? Get back to work, procreate and stop your bellyaching." 

My readers this is not the way things were before or after any of the wars were fought by our greatest generation (at least not to this extent) and I would submit to you that the fighters would be horrified at what has become of the nation they fought for. Furthermore, I will propose, (as always) that we do something, ANYfuckingTHING, to stop our country from slipping into this madhouse of unchecked moral relativism and selfishness any further.

I'm too tired to list all the things we should/must do. But look at the above experience. When/how/why did our country get to the point that businesses charge UNreasonable markups? When/how/why did we get to the point where the customer is not always right but always screwed over? If the world (as quoted last post) has enough for the needs of everyone, a rich country like Canada has WAAAAY more than enough for the needs of everyone! How then are there so many people struggling, poor, on welfare, working paycheck to paycheck, unable to eek out an objectively prosperous existence? 

I'm sorry but for the umpteenth year in a row Canada is NOT honouring its soldiers and heroes, it giving them as big a fuck you as I got from the card dealers today. We need to give a shit about this! Otherwise let's change the name of this holiday to Forgetrance Day.

Canada is Certificately a Great Place to Live!

 Well, I finished course number 8 of 12 in the master's and got a 94. I also finished the PBLA certification for the job I'm already doing. It took as much as or more work than the master's course. It was a slog but got another piece of Canadian survival paper. Here are my two latest in the land of certification:

Not sure which of these is more legitimate. 

I still feel like a stranger in a strange land in my own country. I downloaded the Tim Horton's app so I could choose 3 players a night in the NHL games and if they score goals you get rewards. I went 7 straight days with at least one guy scoring a goal for me and got a week of free coffee for it. Nice. 

So I was walking to Timmy's to get my free coffee looking at all the shiny new nut storage holes (or "houses" we euphemistically call them), flashy new vehicles, and people scurrying around in them searching for more nuts to fill their homes. I just don't think I'll ever buy into this system. I will never feel like I NEED a beautiful new home or car. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I don't have a wife, kids, friends, co-workers, or much media hammering the idea into my head like a death of a thousand cuts. Well not a death per se, but certainly a slavery. And not a thousand cuts per se, more like a million. 

Everybody here NEEDS the house and car and all the trappings (and I DO mean things that trap you) that go along with them like insurance, gas, repairs, taxes, maintenance, and don't forget all the necessary documents and certificates for both. They are but a few of the many cuts that contribute to the average Canadian's wage slavery. 

I just watched an Indian movie that is really great! I wouldn't say it's that scary but it was suitable for our Halloween viewing. It's a really cool movie that starts with a Gandhi quote that I have paraphrased many times on this blog, "The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed." I would go so far as to say the world has MORE than enough for everyone's needs. We could probably all have the nice homes and cars if resources were divided in anything close to an equitable way. The movie is called Tumbbad and it's the first Indian movie I've seen without some choreographed dance scenes in it. Way to go India! But it also has a timely message about greed and its pitfalls. Not just in Canada but in most countries we grow up programmed to spawn workers and consumers for the overlords and we so often self-program ourselves to believe that we join the rat race for our families. We scheme and plan and save and even cheat hoping that we can trick the gods using greed to overcome them. But they're smart. Smarter than us. We can't do it. 

Then there are the folks who think they are even smarter and try to philosophize their ways past the gods using greed to get more than other folks because altruism just doesn't exist or something else the selfish halfwits' ingenious hero Ayn Rand might have said to describe objectivism. She was very educated and her ideas ring true to the tin ears of those who are looking to justify (or objectify) their greed, but they're not smart. They don't work the way they do in her books. Ever wonder what happened to Sears? I do! Especially around this time of year when I used to look forward to the Christmas Wishbook they put out. Well you can thank Ayn Rand almost as much as Eddie Lampert that kids can't do that any more. Despite what Ayn Rand and Gordon Gecko say, greed is not good. We did not stave off extinction because of ruthless, competitive self-interest, we cooperated and suvived as a species despite it.  At least that's what science shows us. It follows then that the almost religious pursuit of the self and the demise of social lives and human contact is probably the best way to run our species into extinction. I see it all over the place here. 

Just today my bro-in-law went into an alcohol-assisted rant about how he's just a paycheck. I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often. He IS. I believe life is about more than going to work and making money so you can pay the bills and maybe spend a few minutes with family on weekdays and possibly with friends on weekends. I already REALLY miss going out with friends, I mean friends who also have free time so they can talk about more than their jobs or the repairs or additions to their homes and yards. People who have time to go places, see things, and tell interesting stories about them. Where are all those people? They're not doing the dutiful Canadian thing. They're not living the lives they're supposed to be. A lot of them are overseas being forgotten by friends and begrudged by family. Maybe even envied by both. Friends and family like it when you come home for a visit but they can't go overseas to visit you, they don't have the time or freedom to leave their nut stashes.

I am really hopeful that I can make things work out with this job I have. It's a good opportunity for me. But it might require the kind of dedication and cult-like subscription to the standards and policies of people who are NOT educators. It might require a competitive self-interest and lust for money I am proud to have never acquired. It might require a re-emersion into a culture I don't want to be immersed in. It will most definitely require lots and lots more certificates!

Now that I'm off work till November 15th and not doing either course I have decided to get as many of the pieces of paper I need as I can. First I went to the nearby registry and asked what I needed to transfer my BC health coverage to Alberta health coverage. If I'm not mistaken it used to require nothing but a birth certificate. But our health coverage only USED to be good here. I also wanted to change my BC security guard license to an Alberta one. I brought my current BC license and my former Alberta one. Expired in 2014 but I thought, you know, since I had worked a couple months ago as a guard and had worked in Alberta 9 years ago in the hospitals all over Calgary, it might be more salient than a piece of paper. Nope.  

I needed proof of residence. You can't work a job unless you're chained to a home payment of some kind. Nice for the employer. No matter what garbage wage they choose to pay you, they KNOW you desperately need the money for shelter. I also needed two pieces of ID and my passport. As for the security guard license I needed to fill out an application that is not easy to find online (though they'll tell you it is), get a criminal record check (which could take 6 months), a passport photo taken within 60 days, my training certificate (which I couldn't have gotten my BC license without), and my BC license. I also had to pay $109.00. The CRC is getting very expensive too. Last one I got was hundreds of dollars. Now they MIGHT know here in Canada that the ones from Ottawa are identical to the ones from any local police dept., but I don't know if I can count on that. I'll probably have to phone them back. Oh, and, (of course) the number I got for the place to do all this was not working. I got a fax machine sound. The email address wasn't useful either. I sent an email a week ago and it still hasn't be responded to. 

So, if you did not understand the CDE (Canadian Defecation Etiquette) certificate at the beginning of this post, now you can understand it a little better.

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.