Who's Making YOUR Bed?

 "Oh Canada we stand on guard for thee." If you are Canadian and our country commands true patriot love in you, then you should stand on guard. That's the basic point of the anthem of our country. It's a good anthem. The people of any country need to be on guard to make sure the bad people don't overcome the good. When one says, "En garde" in fencing, one is taking the ready position preparing to stab or be stabbed with a sword. By extension, and without, I think, taking too much license, standing on guard for Canada is meant to be both an offensive and defensive position. My purpose today is to investigate and expand upon a personal sentiment that the only thing offensive in the average Canadian in regards to our patriotic duty of standing on guard, which we have all sung or heard sung about thousands of times, sometimes with hats off and hands on hearts, is how derelict we've been in its performance.

I've done this many times in many ways in many posts, but with the specter of moving back to Canada looming larger every day, I'm trying to collect my thoughts and prepare myself for the financial beating that entails. Let's look at some stats and see why the prospect of returning to my home and native land is so daunting, shall we? If I manage to hit the ground running and land a job at 15 bucks an hour, which is the minimum wage in the provinces I'm most interested in living, I'll be making $28,800 a year. It sounds like a lot, but when you look at expenses, which are out of control lately, it's not enough to get by. I used movingwaldo.com, admittedly not the most scientific of sources, and I found they vastly underestimated things like tax rates and the price of groceries ($53.50 a month? If I smoke a pack of cigs a week that puts me over budget ffs!), but it'll give you a rough idea. Rent for a 1 bedroom apt. between $1095 in Calgary and $1925 in Vancouver; utilities between $283 a month in Ontario and $362.50 a month in Alberta; Car insurance (cuz in Canada a guy needs a car) $1179 in AB to $1458 a year in Ont; gas for the car was left out but I calculated 2 tanks a month at 100 bucks a tank; Groceries for me I'm VERY lucky to keep it under $300 a month; internet/cell 75/50 a month; and this is not including entertainment or purchases of clothes, furniture, electronics, vehicle maintenance, etc. I averaged out some things and improvised a little and it works out to $30,640 a year. That's what I need just to get by.

The average income of a full time employee in Canada is a little more than $54,630 according to this page. The average is not really the average because it includes the super rich, who, like many "developed" nations nowadays, are the only people getting richer in Canada. The biggest lie repeatedly told to and accepted by vigilantly "on guard" Canadians is that of the 15% tax rate. Read my previous blog post called "A Taxing Endeavor" and you'll see that in the real world Canadians pay closer to 100% tax than 15%. But only the middle class and poor Canadians. The rich pay nothing. 

That said, if you calculate that ludicrous statistic into the salary I will most likely be getting when I return to Canada, it works out to $24,480. So I'll be working 40 hours a week all year long with no vacation and making -$6,160 a year. If I land the job of my dreams - the "average" job in Canada, don't buy anything, don't drink or smoke, live essentially as a hermit, I can look forward to $15,796 a year. According to this site, the average person needs $800,000 to retire in Canada. So that means I'll need to find the best job I've ever had, do absolutely nothing but work, and do that work for a little over 50 years. Then when I'm 105 I'll have enough to retire. 

I can't even dream of a 54 thousand a year job in the field of ESL even with my masters degree, even though the field of education may be the best example of inflation there is. Little to none of that windfall profit has gone into increasing teachers' salaries. 

So if I use my savings from working outside of Canada, cash in all my valuable hockey cards, and invest in a house, which has been the surest way of making a profit in Canada in its history, I still might be in trouble. Even though experts are calling for a(n) historic correction in the major housing markets of Canada, that correction will not make up for the fairly recent skyrocketing of real estate prices virtually across the board in the areas I'm considering settling in. I once actually had enough money to make a down payment on a house in Calgary. I was looking at duplex prices. Now a oneplex is too expensive for me. In order to counter the huge price hikes in real estate, the central bank of Canada has raised interest rates.  According to this website, we've had two historic interest rate hikes in two months and are due for more. The Bank of Canada rate went from practically nothing to 2.5% and is projected not to stop until it hits 5% or so. Add that to the price explosions that have recently happened in all the places I'm looking to settle and it is the absolute worst time in history to buy a house in Canada.

Same exact shit going on in Korea.

What has happened to Canada? And who are these liars that keep telling me before hockey games that they are standing on guard for Canada? I can think of two entire political parties every member of which should have been symbolically or literally stabbed with swords since long ago for selling out to big business and bringing about the mugging of the middle and lower classes of Canada. Who was "on guard" while this was happening? And what has caused the drastic price hikes in real estate? Largely people from other countries (mostly China) creating feeding frenzies on newly built, or yet to be built properties that artificially increase the prices enabling buyers to "flip" the properties at huge profit for the real estate speculator and huge expense to the person (usually Canadian) who eventually buys the property to live in, not just play money games. It's how a lot of the rich Chinese people became rich. It's also how a lot of Chinese people are now losing money because corrupt Chinese real estate companies (which is redundant) like Evergrande have started building lots of speculation properties and don't have enough money to complete them. People are stuck with just the frames of condos/apartments that they can't live in or flip. Ask me if I feel sorry for them. You can read about it here. 

But forget about the house, what can I do for work in Canada? I've tried going back a few times and it's like starting in the work force fresh out of high school. I have the advantage of many years in the workforce, but if I can't get a good ESL job (and they're not easy to find) I'll have the disadvantages of age like physical problems, general disenchantment with all workplaces, and an all but defeated optimism in humankind. Who wants to hire a grumpy old man like me? 

My one saving grace might turn out to be online ESL teaching and ironically, the largest and most lucrative spots are mostly Chinese based. I could make a decent wage teaching online while finishing my masters. Then with the masters, I could have an expanded job market to search that includes non-teaching positions in education. That's the dream, but even if that all falls into place, Canada is the worst place to do that from because it's the most expensive. I'd be much better off finding an apartment in the Philippines. I'm going there at the end of the month to look around. I spent a few days in Seoul visiting with friends who were enjoying the end of their vacations. For one night (Saturday) it would have cost me 150,000 Korean won to stay in a hotel with just bed and bathroom. I've priced out some bigger rooms in Manila where I have bed, bathroom and kitchen for the same price. Oh yeah, and it's for a MONTH, not just a day. I would imagine rates in Canada are even worse than the Seoul prices for most cities. The clear choice here is to get my arse out of Korea and not to go back to Canada, but try to find something in the Philippines that I can do while finishing my masters degree without paying such huge monthly expenses.

So that's what I'm going to try to do. The Korean system of paying out pension has contributed to this decision somewhat. I can't collect my pension, or at least they cannot deposit it into any bank account, including my Korean back account, while I'm in Korea. It is about a thousand times easier, but that's not the way they do it. So I'll have to go to the Philippines and hang out there while my pension is "processed" and keep checking my Korean bank account until I see that it's been deposited. Then I return to Korea and either stay, or with a little luck I will have found a job that I can do from the Philippines and I will move there. I already have contacted some schools and offered to interview in person while visiting the Philippines. If I don't have to interview in person, I can always do so online. The places I've looked at all have free wifi and if it's not fast enough, I can go to a cafe.

Waiting for my pension money to drop is also something more enjoyably done in the Philippines. I don't want to spend too much money while I'm there, but I've always wanted to go to Palawan, particularly El Nido where a guy can kayak like 5 km. into a mountain cave. Even around Manila there are lots of fun things to do. Plus I have some friends there I haven't seen for a while. Manila will be a fun place to wait for my pension money. El Nido - even more fun!

Doesn't that look cool?

But back to Canada and the reason I'm trying to avoid a return there. The French word for goalie is "gardien de but." It means guardian of the goal. Here's a goalie who reminds me of how well we Canadians stand on guard of our country:

Is it the fault of the average Canadian? I don't think that would be fair to say. In fact if the Canadian people have exhibited one tragic flaw in all of this inflation and greed run amok, it's their kindness, and I just hate to think of that as a flaw. Adam Smith (yes the "father of capitalism who has been built into something he clearly was NOT) said that when people of trade meet together, their conversation ends in conspiracy against the public(k), or in some contrivance to raise prices. We have been more than accommodating to these contrivances and conspiracies as a nation. In fact, we have developed clichés and aphorisms that contain what our bosses want us to believe are general truths the worst of which is undoubtedly, "It's just business." I can't tell you what I hate worse, that saying or the person who has been socialized to believe that business (meaning cheating) is something we have to accept and not complain about because it's nothing personal. Taking a person's money is personal. Taking too much of it, i.e. cheating or charging too much, which is 99% of business in Canada, is intensely personal, it's not "just business," it's people fucking over other people. 

What are some others? "Fair market value." If there is anything patently unfair in Canada, it is market value. All the data I can find shows that for many years the increase in inflation has outpaced the increase in average wage about 2-1. And let's not forget that inflation IS an average that is believable, but wage increases include the rich and very rich, who are responsible for a huge majority of wage increase in Canada (not to say all of it) so wage increase is a very misleading stat. Still a country that knowingly allows prices to aggressively outpace wages brings us to another word we like to use that may not be as accurate as we think: "civilized." Am I really saying Canada is not a civilized country? Well, you tell me. Is pricing people out of an increasing number of things, including necessities like housing and food, year after year the behaviour of a civilized country?

"If you can't find a job, yer not lookin' hard enough." This one is true. There are jobs. The ones that make you negative 6 grand a year minus lots of tax. Sorry for not falling all over myself to line up for those jobs! Older people tend to believe this, especially older people who haven't looked for a job lately. Those who last looked when there WERE good jobs out there. Along the same lines we have the old and pithy "You made your bed, now you have to lie in it." Do you want to make a capitalist orgasm? Just blame his greed on the victims like you are doing when you say this. We've watched those greed-addled industrialists make our beds and we've wanted to intervene as we saw them putting the pillow cases on inside-out and putting the sheet on before the fitted sheet - in other words, we watched as they fucked our beds up but we felt helpless to stop them most likely because of these sayings of ours and other effective and efficient brain washing that made us feel like that asshole was the guy who should be making our beds and not us. 

It was this "bed making" that drew me to overseas work in the first place and since Canada has been so lousy at stopping the makers of its beds, it's what is keeping me here. I think one concept I've learned to be more prevalent over here applies. In business and in life a lot of folks equate kindness with stupidity. I think Canadians have been too kind and allowed our nation to develop the massive gap between Have-too-muches and Have-too-littles and I don't see it slowing down any. So before - WHOOPS - all our pension money disappears and the whole country says, "Oh well, that's business I guess...," I will collect mine and hopefully not have to use it while living, studying and working in either Korea or the Philippines. Canada is still not out, but it's highly doubtful. That's my new plan anyway. Wish me luck.

At the Quarter Pole

 I finished my third course recently. I started two courses this semester, but half way through I realized I had to drop one of them. The teacher of my Creating a Positive Classroom Environment was inventing her own ways to take marks off my assignments and it was probably partly to do with the fact that the course was all about selling what I call crowd control in a lot of different, but similar, packages. It's all hogwash. Kids should not be at school even the 7 hours a day they go for in N. America let alone the 10-14-hour days they put in over here in Asia. All the professionally titled, philosophically explained theories on classroom management, each with their own lists, acronyms or other mnemonic devices won't get you more quality, high-value time in the Zone of Proximal Development than a reasonable school day. But that's a simple solution we're not supposed to talk about or the industrial powers that control education might get upset. Expressing this as I did, may have belittled her class and most likely her opinions no matter how true it was. So I was glad to be rid of her and that class. I have signed up to take it next semester in hopes it will be taught by a different teacher. If not, I'll drop it again.

At any rate, the bigger reason for dropping the course was that I started a 40-day adventure we've been calling KD Camp. KD is for Kelly and Dave and we've spent every waking hour together for the past 38 days. We're almost done and I think it will be a welcome break for both of us. Like every kid camp I do, it starts out with high spirits and positivity and ends with overfamiliarity and exhaustion. We're both burnt out. The longest camp I've done previous to this was 3 weeks too so we're really spent. We've been exercising every day walking the dogs or riding the stationary bike, but Kelly told me today he's done with that. I didn't argue. I like walking the dogs, but it's a battle every time. I won't miss it. 

You may wonder how I did on my other class - the one I didn't drop. Well, I could not have done much better. I got 99.33%. That's a perfect CGPA for the semester. I'll be on the Dean's list. So now I've finished 3/12 of my courses (and half finished one other) and my grades are 90, 94, and 99. Not too shabby. 

As I said, I've signed up for two more. I may end up just taking the one. I am hoping to get some online work for the next little while. Once I can establish that, I will probably make a move to either a country that is much cheaper like Thailand, Philippines, or the like, or if I can find a way to pay the bills in Canada, I might go home. It sure would be nice to end my days in my home country teaching online. I'd even teach in person if I could find the right place. 

Eventually, I'm hoping that my M. Ed. will get me a position in education that might pay better, like maybe in administration or curriculum development, but we'll see what happens. Gotta get the thing first. I am now 1/4 finished the courses and already have a clear idea and plenty of resources and writing for my thesis. That'll be a snap.

Well Kelly is stirring up the dogs making them bark, howl, cry, hoot, and holler. Just one of the pleasures of KD Camp. I better go. Just wanted to brag a little about my grades.

The Reverend John Dewey

This week was a bit hectic. I went to visit the Fam for the Canada Day/Anniversary/Independence Day long weekend and when I got back home I had to really work my arse off to get everything finished. I almost did it too, but because of computer trouble I missed two of the marking assignments for one class. I was finished the one and tried to submit it, but time ran out. It won't hurt my grade a lot though. This week I'm going to their place for KD camp! That's Kelly and Dave, not Kraft Dinner. I'll be there just over a month and by the time I'm finished a lot of things will be different. I'll either find a new job and get a work visa, or extend my D-10 looking for work visa and stay in Gongju, or there could be other options. We'll see what happens... Anyway, here is the writing assignment from this week that I liked best:

The Reverend John Dewey

John Dewey was a religious man. He taught Bible classes and lectured on living a proper, Christian life (Murray, 2017). When I was reading his chapters about experience in education, I didn’t hear him teaching, I heard him preaching and I felt like standing up in my chair as if from a church pew and shouting, “Amen,” or “Preach it Grandpa Dewey!” Just as Reverend Martin Luther King Junior got fired up repeating many of his hopes for America starting with that familiar phrase, “I have a dream,” to the building applause of the marchers for freedom on that day in Washington in the summer of 1963, I could almost see Dewey imagining a similar crowd and growing waves of applause and accord as he listed off some examples of miseducative experiences common to traditional schools each beginning with the phrase, “How many (students)?” (Dewey, 1938).

It was hard not to feel his passion even in his somewhat stilted, formal style of an era in which academic writing that Pinar referred to as “journalistic” (Pinar, 1978) was not taken very seriously. It is an emotional experience to see students’ impetus to learn being lost; their senses being dulled by rote learning; their association of school to boredom developing; their love of reading wasted; and their collective realization of the irrelevance of their school experiences (Dewey, 1938). It is especially difficult for a teacher who cares. These were some of the “miseducative” experiences Dewey believed distorted or arrested the growth of further experience and he sought, through progressive methodology, to replace them with experiences that were informed by the past, enlightened the present and encouraged similarly educative experiences in the future (Dewey, 1938). He felt that teachers should not only employ experiential learning that was shaped by past learning in order to shape future learning in their students, Dewey believed on moral grounds that teachers had no right to withhold this essential, informative experience from their students (Dewey, 1938).

Cheryl Craig’s mention of Li, Conle, and Elbbaz-Lewisch’s “pedagogy of narrative shifting” struck a nerve for me as well in that I believe academic environments of today might be more polarized than ever and making the standoffish atmosphere more malleable through narrative inquiry can be an invaluable classroom resource (Craig, 2011). As an ESL educator in Korea, I see a developing dissonance between modern ideas and traditionally held concepts, not just in education, but in politics, religion, economics, and social arenas, so in my opinion, contextualizing current student experiences with similar examples from history as well as my personal experiences serves to make class more relevant and engaging.

This may conflict with the prevailing traditionalism in Korean education, which has had a longstanding symbiosis with industry and social customs here, but Korean educators are warming up to progressive techniques such as experiential education as they see positive learning outcomes. I have personally witnessed the evolution of the Korean student from the passive vessels into which knowledge is poured then poured out of and onto exam papers (Yi, 2016), to a more inquisitive, active, and creative bunch, and it has been encouraging.

 

References

Craig, C. J. (2011). Narrative inquiry in teaching and teacher education. Advances in research on teaching, 13, 19–36. Retrieved July 1, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235282657_Narrative_inquiry_in_teaching_and_teacher_education

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Touchstone. https://doi.org/http://ruby.fgcu.edu/Courses/ndemers/Colloquium/ExperiencEducationDewey.pdf

Murray, W. R. (2017). John Dewey, God and the religious education of the American people. Theology Today. Retrieved July 1, 2022, from https://doi.org/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0040573616688732?journalCode=ttja#:~:text=In%20Michigan%2C%20Dewey%20%E2%80%9Cwas%20active,The%20Place%20of%20Religious%20Emotion.

Pinar, W. F. (1978). The reconceptualisation of curriculum studies. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 10(3), 205–214. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://doi.org/http://daneshnamehicsa.ir/userfiles/file/Resources/8-2%29%20Ideologies/ARTICLE_William%20Pinar.pdf

Yi, C. (2016). Investigation of Chinese students' passive learning in EAP classroom. US-China Foreign Language, 14(5), 357–363. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311630790_Investigation_of_Chinese_Students'_Passive_Learning_in_EAP_Classroom

 

 

Alfie and Jack

 Another week has been completed in my 3rd and 4th courses of my master's. Summer has set in. It's now just as important to have the air conditioner going to de-humidify as it is to cool. Laundry is about 40 minutes to wash and three or four days to dry. I went to the farther away grocery store today to get some things that are cheaper than the Ass Mart. It's only a 40-minute walk, but in the heat and humidity (28 degree Celsius and raining) it was a full on sweat. Here is what I have chosen to be the best thing I wrote this week. I'm not sure I'll get the best grade on it because it's basically slagging most of the crap I read in the course this week. But it deserved to be slagged. Read and see...

                                                              Alfie and Jack

“The whole field of classroom management amounts to techniques for manipulating students’ behavior. This takes for granted that the fault lies with the children” (Kohn, 1995). Reading theory on classroom management through the clarification the above quotation provides could save a lot of teachers a lot of time experimenting with methodology endowed with impressive titles like “control theory,” “internal motivation,” “differential reinforcement,” “positive discipline,” “win-win discipline,” “cooperative discipline,” and “love and logic” all of which seem to have their lists like “9 essential skills for teachers,” “7 roads to trouble,” “3 types of teacher,” “4 goals of misbehavior,” “7 positions,” “5 P’s,” “4 mistaken beliefs,” “3 tiers of behavior management,” “5 basic needs written into our genetic structure,” and so on. Just looking at that sentence could overwhelm a teacher. However, armed with the Kohn quote and one from Aldous Huxley about a “really efficient totalitarian state,” a teacher can get a good indication of what they are up against in regard to classroom management, a field Henry & Abowitz write is ever “vulnerable to the novelty and appeal of ‘the latest thing’” (Henry & Knight Abowitz, n.d./1997). The quote from Huxley states that a “population of slaves who do not need to be coerced because they love their servitude (Huxley, 2010) would make the best totalitarian state. Huxley goes on to say that the task falls to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors, and teachers (Huxley, 2010).

If one thinks of the classroom as a totalitarian state in which the teacher’s classroom management responsibilities include making the students love their servitude, you will understand why it is “an especially fertile terrain for any technique or plan which promises effective ways to make the classroom a peaceful and productive place” (Henry & Knight Abowitz, n.d./1997). If you then consider the fact that if students were to spend the same amount of time doing anything else that they spend in the classroom, it would be considered deviant, unhealthy, addictive, even crisis behavior (Carney, 2015), you might get an inkling that maybe the number one stressor for teachers – misbehavior (Nelsen & Gfroerer, 2017) is not necessarily the fault of the kids. It enables the sagacious reader to see through some of the logical and promising sounding terminology of classroom management theory by taking the perspective of the student. As Alfie Kohn wrote, try not to focus on the child who doesn’t do what he’s told, but on what he’s being told to do and how reasonable it is (Kohn, 1995).

One of the best examples of classroom management theory that is practicing totalitarian coercion and not considering the student’s point of view is the hypothetical example of “Jack” given in the writings of Spencer Kagan creator of “win-win discipline” and the list of “7 positions” from which a student’s misbehavior originates (Kagan, 2002). In the scenario, Mrs. Johnson announces a homework assignment and Jack slams his book on the floor and yells, “I’m not going to do those stupid problems and you can’t make me.” Mrs. Johnson assumes Jack’s disruptive behavior comes from position 4 on the list, the control-seeking position. Mrs. Johnson then tells Jack that it is his choice to do the homework, she can’t force him. He will not receive the homework points, but he is in control of that (Kagan, 2002). If Jack is misbehaving from position 2, avoiding embarrassment, then Mrs. Johnson will meet with him privately and relate to Jack’s needs to practice more and this will give him a higher chance of success. (Kagan, 2002). Of course, none of this is true. Jack is under the control of a totalitarian education system, not to mention parents, and the goal of it all seems to be this arbitrarily created objective of passing the class, which he neither understands, nor buys into. He’s upset because he sees his teachers more than his parents and then when he gets home, he has even more schoolwork to do. Besides, homework doesn’t help. Alfie Kohn wrote a whole book on that (Kohn, 2006). Jack is right, but there is no “position” on the list of 7 for what to do when a student is correctly exposing problems with the education system.

Admittedly, the revolutionary change the Kohn theories support would not be welcomed by everyone. There are reasons why some countries have kids in schools for long hours and unsurprisingly, in countries where parents tend to work longer hours, children spend longer hours in the classroom. Also unsurprisingly, a lot of the same countries have education systems that are highly influenced by very strong industrial lobbies.  Most of these countries have expensive daycare as well. As much as a teacher hates to hear it, part of the job is taking care of kids while parents (more and more often both parents) are working. Revolutionary thinking like addressing the real reasons there are so many behavioral problems in schools is possible, take Finland for example (Loveless, 2022), but few countries are willing or able to make the commitment Finland has made. Despite its unquestionable success, their education system frightens people.

For industry and people with strong political commitments or who are fearful of the costs of educational revolution, the Kagan system is a positive alternative to doing what Finland did and what Kohn would like to see in America, and that is understandable. This author would love to see such an educational revolution in Canada and is a huge Alfie Kohn fan. There is hope that industry’s changing needs due to automation could finally open other countries to more Finnish-like education systems, but that is only likely to happen when industry is good and ready. Until then, teachers will have to plate spin the many classroom management theories instead of addressing the actual sources of the behavior problems. “Changing your behavior and strategies is often the most efficient and effective means of improving all types of classroom behaviors… The building block of emotions and behavior likely contains the largest and most diverse set of problems encountered in the classroom. By first understanding these problems and seeing the world through the eyes of your students, and, by then developing and using a set of intervention strategies on a regular basis, problems of emotions and behavior can be effectively managed and changed in the classroom” (Mather & Goldstein, n.d.). That should take 20-25 years of experience or so.

 

                                                                   References

Carney, M. (2015). Internet-addicted South Korean children sent to digital detox boot camp. ABC News Australia. Retrieved June 18, 2022, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-13/south-korean-children-seek-help-at-digital-detox-boot-camp/6769766

Henry, S. E., & Knight Abowitz, K. (1997). Interpreting Glasser's control theory: problems that emerge from innate needs and predetermined ends. In R. E. Butchart & B. E. McEwen (Eds.), Classroom discipline in American schools: problems and possibilities for democratic education (pp. 157–163). State University of New York Press. (Reprinted from n.d.)

Huxley, A. (2010). Brave New World (11th ed.). Vintage.

Kagan, S. (2002). What is win-win discipline? Kagan Online Magazine. Retrieved June 27, 2022, from https://www.kaganonline.com/free_articles/dr_spencer_kagan/ASK15.php

Kohn, A. (1995). Discipline is the problem - not the solution. Learning Magazine. Retrieved June 27, 2022, from https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/discipline-problem-solution/

Kohn, A. (2006). The homework myth: Why our kids get too much of a bad thing. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Life Long. https://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-improve-learning/

Loveless, B. (2022). 27 surprising Finnish education system facts and statistics. Education Corner. Retrieved June 27, 2022, from https://www.educationcorner.com/finland-education-system/

Mather, N., & Goldstein, S. (n.d.). Behavior modification in the classroom. LD online. https://www.ldonline.org/ld-topics/classroom-management/behavior-modification-classroom

Nelsen, J., & Gfroerer, K. (2017). Positive discipline tools for teachers: Effective classroom management for social, emotional, and academic success. Harmony Books. https://doi.org/https://books.google.co.in/books?id=GgEQDQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=positive+discipline&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=positive%20discipline&f=false

 

 

My Homework

 Since I'm writing so much for the course I'm taking, this blog is being neglected. It's not like I'm not writing, I'm just not blogging. But then I thought about my purposes for this blog and one of the largest is for me to read it in future and remind myself of what I was doing and thinking about at this time. So I chose one of the six things I wrote this week and will use it as a blog post. This'll be different, but see if you like it...

                                       Three Unanswered Questions in Eisner's Article

The first unanswered question in Elliot Eisner’s article entitled “What Does it Mean to Say a School is Doing Well?” is the title. School efficacy is something elusive and exceedingly difficult to quantify in any consistent way and that, I think, is the point of the paper. One unanswered question I wanted Eisner to ask was “Is this such a bad thing?” I don’t think it is and as you will see from the three unanswered questions from the article I have chosen, I think Eisner is fine with abandoning attempts at standardizing and quantifying school efficacy and leaving the titular question an unanswered one as well.

Unanswered question 1: Are test scores the best criteria to reward professional educator performance (Eisner, 2001)? More specifically, are standardized test scores valid proxies for education quality and how authentic are our criteria for judging educational success? The answer to that should be abundantly clear by now. Payments and penalties for performance based on test scores create unhealthy high-stakes competition all the way up to international levels and this, Eisner states, is likening schools to businesses and the business world in which the strong survive and the weak go out of business (Eisner, 2001). I say the competition is “unhealthy” because, like in the business world, it leads to things like cheating, (by teachers as well as students) (Eisner, 2001) longer school days, higher stress on students particularly in areas of highest competition which are mostly in Asia, and even student suicide (Zeng & Le Tendre, 1998). It also creates a focus on core subjects like math and science, undermining important subjects like the arts (Eisner, 2001).

Unanswered question number 2: Eisner wrote that regarding test scores as valid proxies for education quality has given the U.S. three feckless education revolutions in the past 20 years, are we going to have another (Eisner, 2001)? About a year later, starting in 2002, that question was answered with the No Child Left Behind Act, which was more of the same fecklessness. While surveying the wreckage after its effects, Alfie Kohn wrote, “Talented teachers have abandoned the profession after having been turned into glorified test prep technicians. Low-income teenagers have been forced out of school by do-or-die graduation exams. Countless inventive learning activities have been eliminated in favor of prefabricated lessons pegged to numbingly specific state standards” (Kohn, 2011).

Unanswered question number 3: What is the intellectual significance of the ideas that youngsters encounter (Eisner, 2001)? Kids are naturally endowed with curiosity. Way back in 1938, John Dewey asked a rather Biblical question about education, “What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win the ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul” (Wolk, 2008)? How is that for an unanswered question? If long school hours, high-stakes testing, and turning education into a competitive sport sacrifices the learning spirit, the natural curiosity of the child, is it worth it? The answer is obvious, but what may not be so well known is that this self-defeating educational style is not as old as we might think. 

Dr. Peter Gray wrote about a place called Sudbury Valley School where for 40 years children had been educating themselves in a setting opposite to what we erroneously consider to be “traditional” schooling (Gray, 2008). Kids there became educated through their own play and exploration just as self-directed play and exploration for millennia before had led to effective adults in hunter-gatherer cultures (Gray, 2008). Long ago, there was little distinction between work and play for kids. What ended this? People settled down and began accumulating property (Gray, 2008). Farming required long hours and repetitive work a lot like factories in the industrial revolution. Kids were “educated” from that time on to work long hours doing boring learning and doing as they were told. Suddenly, childhood was not fun anymore. The joy was removed from schools along with a great deal of the healthy wonder and fascination with explorative learning. This is what Eisner describes as “inquiry” a large part of intellect that is not measured in standardized tests (Eisner, 2001) and both Eisner and I believe we are doing our children and our world a massive disservice by suppressing it.

There may, however, be good news in the form of yet another educational revolution, but this one might be different. With the rapid onset of automation, kids no longer need to be groomed in schools as apprentice factory workers, office workers, or participants in the long hours of drudgery a lot of jobs require. It won’t be long until machines can do all of that. Ironically, it will be uniquely human skills, many of which education has suppressed for decades, that will be most highly prized in industry, along with, of course, tech savvy. At long last, the progressiveness that progressive educators have longed to implement may be allowed to progress  (Brady, 2018).     

                                                                    References

Brady, W. (2018). What would John Dewey do about automation? Action Commentary. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2018/01/31/what-would-john-dewey-do-about-automation

Eisner, E. W. (2001). What does it mean to say a school is doing well? Phi delta kappan, 82(5). Retrieved June 18, 2022, from https://doi.org/https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/1588978/mod_book/chapter/348972/Eisner%20What_Does_It_Mean_To_Say_a_Sch.pdf

Gray, P. (2008). A brief history of education. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/freedom-learn/200808/brief-history-education

Kohn, A. (2011). Feel bad education and other contrarian essays on children and schooling. Beacon Press.

Wolk, S. (2008). The positive classroom. Educational Leadership, 66(1), 8–15. Retrieved June 17, 2022, from https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/joy-in-school

Zeng, K., & Le Tendre, G. (1998). Adolescent suicide and academic competition in East Asia. Comparative education review, 42(4). Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/447526

 

Baseball's Back!

 First things first: 

My grades are now official. I have a 3.84 CGPA. Whatever that means. It's an A. I think it's about 92 cuz I got 94 in one class and 90 in the other. Second term starts in three days. I think it might even be better now that I'm familiar with the process. 

As for the present, I have been reacquainting myself with Korean baseball after a two-season Covid hiatus. There are a lot of players on the Kia Tigers that I don't know. I don't know their names or their songs or their cheers. So I thought I'd better get out to see them on the two-week break between my school sessions. Also, I have this relative in Korea named Michelle who got here back in March or April when I was just starting my school, so I hadn't yet met her. We agreed to go to a ballgame together on Saturday. I got to Gwangju Friday night on the last train. About 10 minutes after midnight and there were no taxis picking people up at the train station in Gwangju. I stood in the taxi line-up of 8 people for about half an hour feeding the Chollanam-do mosquitos, who had clearly missed dining on my succulent blood. Ethnic eating for them. ONE whole person caught a taxi in that time. So I just started walking in the direction of Moodeung Stadium. Actually it's called Champions Field now. The street signs still call it Moodeung, and so do I. I passed by a seedy, sketchy, sleazy looking neighbourhood with lots of little drinking places and singing and dancing and shenaniganning places as well. I looked into a couple of the "love hotels" there with names like "Butterfly," "Paradise," "V," "Harem," and my all-time favourite - are you ready for this? - "Banana and Donut." Ha ha ha! Some of them weren't even lit up. I talked to one clerk whose English was really good and he said I could get a room for 70,000 won. I think he assumed I'd be bringing a girl, well, not necessarily a girl, but a guest, plus it was Friday night/Saturday morning so the rate was a bit high. I thanked him and told him I'd come back if I couldn't find anything better.

I know what these hotels are mostly used for, but I've found when travelling around Korea, they are clean, convenient places to stay for reasonable prices. I was pretty sure I could get something cheaper even on the weekend. I came out of the neighbourhood and onto the main road and saw another hotel neon sign from there. I was walking toward it when I saw an available taxi coming toward me. I ran out to the middle of the road and flagged it down. I told the driver I wanted to go to the Prince Hotel in Unnam Dong. It's the area where I used to live. He said there is no more Prince Hotel, but he knew the area I meant. As we drove, I saw the stadium so I asked if he knew any hotels near it, he pulled over a minute later and told me there were lots of hotels and most of them were new. I had walked to Mudeung Stadium and back easily 40 or 50 times and I never noticed this neighbourhood. So I thanked the driver and paid him less than 5 bucks! What a deal! I walked into the So Poong Boutique Hotel, the nearest one, and they gave me a price of 95,000 won for two nights. That's 100 bucks for the weekend. A 10-15-minute walk from the stadium. SOLD! The savings on taxi fare and not having to catch one after the games (which is impossible) made this deal even better! 

Next day I went on a walk around the area and some of it is still the same, like the market area, but most is different. There are lots of new apartment complexes that I don't remember being there before. Anyway, I made my way over to the stadium and along the way I noticed a lot of other changes. Gwangju has been changing while I've been away! Even the stadium is set up different. We don't go in the main gate then walk 10 minutes to get in any more, we go right in gate 7 and - we're IN! So that's better. I asked a fan with a Tiger jersey on when tickets went on sale and he said 2 o'clock. It was around 1. So I wandered around to see if the old batting cages and souvenir/Tiger gear shops were still where they used to be. They weren't. But I found a new right in front of the stadium and browsed. It was a hot, sunny day so I also went to the 7/11 and got a beverage. I also asked Michelle if I should buy tickets and she said yes. So I went back at 2, but the ticket windows were still closed. I waited 15 mins or so, then went back to my hotel to put on my Tiger gear and get ready for the game. My friend Sam Shik wanted to meet up for a coffee before the game, but by the time I went back to the stadium and got the tickets, there wasn't enough time. I got the tickets and went to the seats. They were not very good.

Right beside home plate, but 15 stories up. But the tickets were only 9 bucks each so it was worth it. 

Eventually Michelle and her friend Joey showed up. Michelle is my first cousin once removed. Daughter of a cousin. First family I've seen in many years though, so it was nice. Here's a pic of us getting pizza after the game. Tigers won. Highlight of the game was Choi Hyung Woo, a big, slow homerun hitter, bunting for a base hit. The other team, the Kiwoon Heroes, were shifting way right because he's a pull hitter. The third baseman was practically on second base, so he bunted and it worked! Then next at bat he got a homer. Michelle says she had a good time so that's good. I hope she catches a few more games while she's here. It's my favourite thing about Korea. Tigers won 5-2. 

Michelle and me. Pic taken by Joey. 

Next day I did laundry in the morning. Right beside Dominos Pizza where we got our pies the night before. It was expensive but it's so nice to have clothes that have been dried in a dryer! They're rare in Korea. Then a bit after 11, I walked to the bus station, U-Square, to meet Amber. We had coffee together and walked back to the So Poong to get her a room. But on the way, we took advantage of the 4 tallboy for 10,000 won deal at a conweenie with picnic tables out front. You can't drink the beers inside, but we had a couple pre-game bevvies outside on the picnic tables. For some reason there were better seats available for Sunday's game. Here's where we sat:

Ground level just beside first base. We got there early and "warmed up" with the players. 

Sunday's game was a banger! I said to Amber early on that I thought the two pitchers would give up lots of runs, which I like. I predicted the final score to be 10-9 and she told me to bite my tongue. But I said 10-9 for the Tigers of course! 

Now, you will notice my number 7 Kia Tigers jersey. That's Lee Jong Beom. Amber has number 3 Kim Seon Bin, who still plays. He's her crush. Has been for ages. I like Jong Beom because he was a magnificent player in his prime! I mean he put up numbers that are eye-popping! Hit for average and power, won gold gloves and ran like the wind. Stole loads of bases. His nickname was Son of the Wind. I caught the end of his career and he was good then, but I wish I could have seen him as a Haitai Tiger. Look at these stats! He batted .393 in 1994 while hitting 19 homers, 77 RBI's and stealing 84 bases! '97 he hit 30 homers and stole 64 bases. Elite level numbers. Anyways, there's a pic of him on a bus stop in front of the stadium with the face missing. While I was there alone I took this pic:

But when Amber and I went to the game, I got her to take these:

I think this pic of Jong Beom was taken after he stole his 500th base or got his 1700th hit or something. Whatever it was, it was spectacular. 

I think if I were to play ball now, I could still hit, but running like the wind is not in my skill set. I might steal a base or two if the other team wasn't paying attention, but that'd be it. Other than that, we're pretty much the same Jong Beom and I. lol

Look how well his body matches my head!

I like this one because it looks like I'm flipping my lid. I'm so surprised my helmet is coming off. 

Anyhoo, Jong Beom's son is now playing in the KBO and he's on the Kiwoom Heroes. That's who was playing the Tigers. His name is Lee Jung Hoo and he's about the best player in the whole league right now. He's having a year like his dad had in his prime except he steals fewer bases and gets more RBI's. Here are his career stats. He added to them significantly on Sunday too. It's hard for me to cheer against Jung Hoo, but man, he single-handedly whooped us! He got two 3-run homeruns! He went 4/5 and got 7 RBI's! Even at that, the Tigers made a game of it. Bottom of the 9th inning when it was 10-5 the Tigers started hitting. It was super exciting! I thought they were going to complete the 5-run comeback or even WIN the thing, but with two men on base, the potential winning run at the plate, the batter hit into a game-ending double play. 

At any rate, I'm happy to be a fan again. Here's proof:

Done My Two Spring Courses

 

This is the waterfront park where I do my walking. This part of the park has a track where lots of people walk and you can get a bike for free and just ride if you want. A couple times I went with Aminur and some other friends on single bikes, two seaters and even the huge ones built for six. The river is the Geum Gang and on the other side is the Gong San Seong Fortress. It's an old wall that's a UNESCO heritage site and it's been featured on my blog before I think. There was a huge festival last summer when they filled the river with boats and the park with decorations and they built a temporary bridge across to the wall and it was all lit up. It was cool. But on Dec. 19, 2021, the day I took this pic, it was still cool, but mostly cool temperature-wise.

The top pic is down on ground level in the park, but away from the walking track and the people. These were the first flowers I saw down there. Tiny blue ones. Meanwhile on the same day, up on the side of the highway where I took the pic of the track and wall from, there were some flowering trees and shrubbery. This was March 22nd. The bottom pic is a weird one. There are deer in the part of the riverside where I do most of my walking. The week before March 22nd, I went for a walk and saw these trees they had gnawed the bark off. There was fur and poop all around so I put a few hunks of apple in the tree. I KNOW deer in Canada love apples. The deer here just ignored it for at least a week. I put up 4 pieces and none were disturbed and I know this is a high traffic area for the deer. Weird.

By the end of April we had more flowers on the ground in the deer area. I go there because I can take off my mask and smell the fresh air and the flowers of the tree in picture 2 are about the best smell of spring. I think they might be Catalpa trees. They have what look like beans growing in them. 

By May 17th this is what we had in the walking/biking track area of the park. The city workers of Gongju plant different flowers throughout the year. The last ones that will be where the yellow ones are now will be the big sunflowers. At least that's what they had last year in the fall when they stopped with the flowers. I can't say I don't like the flowers of summer, but I'd rather just skip right to the sunflowers and be done with Korean hot, humid, yucky summer. It's the only season here I don't like. 

In this above video I say I was at the park two days ago, but it turns out it was a week and two days ago. So this was May 26th. I usually go to the park at least once a week. I'm hoping this works. I have tried to upload vids of the deer to the blog and failed because they're too big, but I'm trying a free site called Kapwing. Hopefully it worked. Anyhoo, it's summer now and I'm battling mosquitos, humidity and heat. I hate it. But the pics are nice, eh? So are the vids. Yay! It worked! BTW, the truck that passed was turning on the pumps for the sprinklers that keep these flowers watered. They suck water right from the Geumgang. Otherwise, it'd be pretty brown. It's not even summer yet and we're in a drought! I'm SO glad I'm not working in this heat!

Here's what the wall looks like now. Compare that to the very first pic. I think I might go tomorrow and take some pics. I thought I would go today (June 3), but it was just too hot. I've actually started going in the late evening/night time. It won't last long, but right now it gets a bit cooler at night. Soon though, it'll be just as hot and muggy all night long. Last week, in the last week of my first term of study, I exercised almost every day. I've noticed being at the computer for so many hours a week (I'd say 50 or more) hasn't helped my health, so I have determined to use the two weeks off between terms to try to undo what the first term has done. Twice that week I went night hiking. It was great, but the deer are braver because they know nobody will be in the areas where sometimes people go. Twice I surprised deer right beside the trail I was on. I almost walked on one of them! At night it spooked me almost as much as the deer! At the end of the hike another freaky thing happened. I was out of the deer area and back onto the walking/biking track where there were a few people even though it was dark, and I thought I heard, "David!" At first I thought I misheard, but as I got closer and closer, I became sure someone was calling me. Then I saw the people and they said, "Let's wait for David. Hey David, come here." and one guy waved. So I hesitantly waved back. As I got close, it became apparent to me that there was a little boy named David near a piece of exercise equipment that the family was calling. The mother appeared to be Korean and the father was a foreigner. I said as I reached them, "Is your boy's name David? My name is David too. I thought you were calling me just in case you were wondering why I waved." He said something in English like, "Oh, your name is David. I see, that is strange. Two Davids." I heard a European accent, maybe German, but couldn't place it. The family were more concerned with David than chatting so we just left it at that. 

So instead of hiking today, I went to the Ass Mart to get groceries and... have I explained the Ass Mart? It's called Top Mart, but I hate it. All the produce is packed in Styrofoam trays wrapped in cellophane, or just wrapped in cellophane. The trays are so they can sneak potatoes or tomatoes or strawberries or whatever, with bad spots on them in with others and put the spot side to the Styrofoam so you don't see it. Sometimes, like with the tomatoes, they ALL have bad sides to them. Things are just overpriced there too. I can get many things at 7-11 for cheaper so you know the kind of markup there is. I've just stopped buying their meat. A thin, kalby thickness pork chop is 4-5 bucks. I'm not paying that. Anyway, I call them the Bottom Mart because even in Gongju they're not the top. Bottom = Ass so... But I still shop there because it's a 2-minute walk from my apartment. 

Today I'm in the Ass Mart and I get to the eggs. It's the end of my normal circuit, but even still after a 2-minute walk there and about 5 minutes of shopping, I'm sweating. Even with the air conditioning in the store. There's a Korean guy at the eggs who instantly intrigues me for two reasons: he's bigger than me and he's sweating more than I am. For those reasons I was hoping he'd spark up a convo. As if he read my mind he says, "This is a better price." He points to my 15-egg carton and refers to the 30-egg flat he's holding. He says, "Two times the eggs, but not two times the price." So I said, "Oh, you're right! But, I have a small fridge." Anyway, as we talk, he tells me he has studied in Australia and he's been to Canada in Ontario. He also says that the eggs we are both holding are from his father's farm. As we make small talk, I notice that this guy is MUCH sweatier than me! We're both wearing masks and his is absolutely soaking wet! I'm wondering if he hasn't just finished stocking the egg area to get so sweaty. I never did find out, but he told me his foreign nickname is Jay. Big Jay the egg man just made me feel better about not working right now. If I had continued to work instead of quitting Gongju Dae and studying for my master's, THAT is how I would look during my teaching day. I'd be covered with sweat and I'd have a soggy mask on. No thank you!

As for my courses, it got a little sketchy at the end, but I got through them okay. The "sketchiness" was just plain reading and writing too much. And, as you may have noticed, I haven't been doing my therapeutic writing here on the old blog, so what happens is my rage at the injustice of our fucked up world builds. It doesn't help when entire sections of both courses consist of injustices in our fucked up world that are barriers to education. Add to that things like human trafficking, refugees, organ harvesting, culturally discriminatory practices, and so on and so forth... It got so bad, I actually wrote a few of the writing assignments late in the session almost as if I were writing blog posts. I knew I'd lose marks, but I had to do some "chest cleansing" writing - writing about bad shit to get it off my chest. To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't drop an f-bomb or two in there. And, as always happens to me, when I work too much, I work even more at night when I'm supposed to be sleeping and regenerating, I'm dreaming of writing and reading the course for however long I'm able to sleep. This has been a clear sign for me on a number of occasions throughout my life that it was time to stop doing the job I was doing. Drilling for gold in my sleep, cooking chicken in my sleep, tree trimming in my sleep, I quit all of those jobs shortly after I was doing them in both waking and sleeping states. 

My dreams have been, well, not normal, but better since I finished the last of the studying. I have two weeks off and I intend to go to a few ball games during that time, maybe write a few more blog posts and dream of my usual whackadoo things, not writing for my master's. I even had trouble with my posts getting all re-formatted during submission and had dreams of assignments not being received and not being able to upload... this is the 55-year-old, online student's equivalent of the dream about going to school in your gotch I think. Or naked. But now I'm having normal underwear/naked dreams. Just last night I dreamed I was video chatting with a friend and there I was on the screen starkers. But that's my superpower. It's how I stay healthy. I guess.

So, June 16th the new term begins. I'll be studying two new courses, curriculum design and creating a positive classroom environment. Hopefully those will be easier. I've figured a few things out that will help me. I flat out missed a week of correcting writing assignments for both of my courses first term because I forgot, and there was a check-mark next to the assignments meaning they had been completed, so I didn't notice. That has since changed. This past week, we didn't get a check mark for completion until we had handed in our written assignments, graded three others and had ours graded. But I won't get any marks added and that's fine. My fault for forgetting. I guess this is one of the drawbacks to having no personal contact with prof or fellow students. In this case I'm sure one or the other would have reminded me. But live and learn. I also have a better idea of what the profs and fellow students are expecting. I have to be honest, there's a little bit of walking on eggshells trying not to offend involved, but I expected that. I'm now a bit more familiar with the best way to handle it. Hopefully it's going to make the second term easier. 

The grades, I still haven't figured out, but I've heard they'll be ready by Saturday. That'll be Sunday here. I won't be on the Dean's list, but I'll have a decent start. I'll let you know...