[This is an article I wrote a year ago for The Business Bulletin.] A few weeks ago I went into a small town branch of the Royal Bank of Canada with a cheque received for some translation work. The cheque was in US dollars and I asked the teller to convert it to Canadian dollars, … Continue reading The right and wrong use of statistics
education
Tongue-tied no more
I was painfully shy in my younger days. The only child of older parents, I wandered the hills of our farm anddeveloped a lively imagination but felt inhibited in communicating with adults or in a large group. In high school we had to give speeches once a year. I was good at researching and preparing … Continue reading Tongue-tied no more
Not how it’s supposed to work
Someone once described education as a process whereby information gets from the teacher’s outline into the student’s notebook without passing through the mind of either. -Douglas Wilson
Refuge
Yesterday morning, one of our ministers preached on the subject of refuge. Before the children of Israel entered the promised land, God gave them detailed instructions for establishing cities of refuge. They were to be located throughout the land in such a manner that no one would be more than a half day’s journey from … Continue reading Refuge
School crisis in Québec
More than 50 congregations of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite in seven Canadian provinces are operating their own schools. These schools provide the foundational tools to enable their graduates to go on and continue learning whatever they need to make a living and be useful members of society. The schools are recognized as … Continue reading School crisis in Québec
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
Is this why today’s society seems so childish?
To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child. - Marcus Tullius Cicero Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana
Flatlander Faith 