Floyd McNeill* farmed near the banks of the Moose Jaw River, one of those prairie rivers consisting of a deep, wide valley with a little creek meandering its way along a narrow channel on the bottom. Being near the river bank, there were stones scattered through the fields, some small enough that a man could … Continue reading Weeds and stones in our writing
Learning
Lowering the basket
A cartoon appeared in the Québec City daily le Soleil a couple of weeks ago depicting a gangly young student on the basketball court attempting to make a basket. The basket was placed at waist level and the coach was saying, “We have an excellent success rate.” There would be cries of outrage from students … Continue reading Lowering the basket
The living word
N.F.S. Grundtvig was a Danish Lutheran minister who proposed a new form of adult education. His teachings eventually led to the Danish folk high schools, outside of the mainstream Danish education system. These schools are open to all over the age of eighteen, noncompetitive and confer no diplomas. There are no exams or marks given. … Continue reading The living word
Food for thought
It is a high German notion that life is explainable before it is experienced, and that it must submit itself to change according to the dictum of the learned. Wherever this fanciful idea is incorporated into the educational structure, all such schools become workshops for dissolution and death where the worms live high at the … Continue reading Food for thought
Not as easy as it looked
There is a little Christian bookstore in Sherbrooke, Québec that we used to visit when we lived in that province. I would buy a book or two and we would visit with Priscille, the lady who managed the store. I'm not sure if she worked there full time, occasionally there would be someone else there. … Continue reading Not as easy as it looked
Love, motherhood, joy
Anne Cloutier has a doctorate in socialogy, but chose to be a stay at home mom to her three children. She has recently published a book about her choice, entitled Aimer, Materner, Jubiler. The title of this post is a rough translation of the book title. Anne Cloutier is not an all-out anti-feminist, but in … Continue reading Love, motherhood, joy
A tale of two nations
How Children Have Taken Power is the title of a book recently published by Swedish psychiatrist David Eberhard. I am going by a story in a French language newspaper so the title is my English translation of the French translation of the Swedish title of the book. An English edition will be out later this … Continue reading A tale of two nations
The joys of English
Earlier this week, the sisters of our congregation had their last sewing day of the winter season. Why is sewing pronounced so-ing and not soo-ing? There is a word in the AV (KJV) Bible that is spelled shew. A lot of people pronounce it shoo, when it really should be sho; it’s just an old-fashioned … Continue reading The joys of English
Where is Ottawa?
Judith Adler teaches a course on families and the cultural traditions of families the world over at Memorial University of Newfoundland. A few years ago she began to suspect that her students had no idea where some of the places she was talking about actually were. So she gave them a quiz. The quiz consisted … Continue reading Where is Ottawa?
Discovery learning
The Province of Alberta recently announced a complete transformation of their teaching methods. The new model is based on the wonderfully naive expectation that a classroom of 30 children of the same age will learn much better if the teacher is relegated to the background and not allowed to teach. Where does this dewy-eyed credulity … Continue reading Discovery learning
Flatlander Faith 