A right to MAID may bypass a rite of blessings in the Art of Dying

Centre Plan for peaceful consultative development

Ponder problem of perception

Challenge to the Wisdom of Surrender and Humility

Economist shows how to find wealth to fund health care reform

Economics and Ethics

Troublesome Patterns in Public Discourse

Offense as guide to control of pornography

Identity community and a sense of purpose

Youth learning to build the economy of their province

Insight into low election participation

George your blog post presents some explanations for low voter turnout that are worthy of deeper study. A disturbing thought crossed my mind while reading your comments that there is really no incentive for political parties who benefit from low turnout to change the system.

Part of the propaganda that has gone along with our system of electing representatives is that we need to resist, by force in war if necessary, any attempts to remove our “right” to vote. I get a thread in your discussion that the public in large measure and through common sense wisdom has concluded that the process of electing governments has not brought any change to their lives. In Nova Scotia health, education, homelessness and poverty are problems which persist with little attempt to ”engineer solutions” from one government to the next. The candidates go door to door and are told of the problems and the ‘elected government’ probably concerned mostly with becoming the ‘re-elected government’ makes little or no change to the root causes of the social economic problems. Is there an process outside of government to engineer and create social and economic change? Your blog ideas over the years have highlighted the “myth of scarcity”, the extra value available in a resource based economy and the use of the existing expertise to “engineer” solutions.

Perhaps a commune (maybe a ‘loaded’ word) of people donating time and skill weekly to projects that provide housing, feed people, diagnose medical conditions and create infrastructure to enable participation and engagement with others and in counselling may be the evidence that people can get their needs addressed. The entrenched privileged classes may rave about the loss of freedom and the rights that our parents and grandparents died for. Lets try to feed, clothe, house, and care for the pathology of people who can then address political freedom after they have gained some relief from social and economic slavery.

Losing the new teachers and our BHAG to reform education

I am wrapping up a quarter century as an instructor in Trades and Technology and NSCC and NSIT.

I heard a piece on CBC recently where Premier MacNeil was addressing the Chamber of Commerce as an apostle of the Ray Ivany report to improve economic conditions in Nova Scotia. I was struck by the need for some continued conversion on the part of the Premier as he comes to understand that a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the NS Education System, as described by teachers commenting on Bill 75, show it to be poorly positioned to participate in A Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) such as that proposed by Ivany.

The most distressing element of Bill 75 to me is the way in which it  “kicks the can down the road” to delay the necessary reform of education to serve the partisan political goal of re-election. Ray Ivany, with whom the Premier aligned in speaking to the Chamber of Commerce,  stressed the importance of putting the need for long term decisions to change before partisan political concerns.

I wonder if the delay in completing practicums for new teachers graduating with education degrees as a result of the NSTU WTR might not be a blessing in disguise. As the badly as the education system needs the energy and enthusiasm of new teachers to lead the transformation, I am concerned that the testimony of teachers in the system before the Law Amendments Committee might cause these new teachers to consider starting their career elsewhere. The new teachers are well educated but most are bearing a considerable education debt. The long period of probation with Nova Scotia schools, a salary increase plan that is less than cost of living, loss of a service award that helps with retirement concerns, an environment where personal safety is at risk, a learning preparation and documentation load which steals family time and an employer who turns a deaf ear and arrogantly declares how thankful they should be to work in these conditions will discourage them from working in the NS education system.

New Impetus for Reform in Education

Alternate approaches to the Big Questions