Vancouver Science World's 'Science of Sexuality' exhibit (and why it made me cry)

By Clay Nikiforuk

| August 23, 2013

(Below are excerpts, please read entire post at source)
Seeing that it was recommended for people as young as 12, I didn't have high hopes for Science World pushing the envelope in their Science of Sexuality exhibit this summer. How graphic, how detailed, how varied could it be?

Before I tear the whole endeavor to pieces, I want to be clear: I understand that its target audience was young people. I understand that it was supposed to be "science" and not some paradigm-shifting sociological analysis. In fact, this is why I want to tear the whole inaccurate, Freudian, phallocentric, heteronormative thing to pieces. Young people learn that crap from somewhere; dressing up tired values and calling them science gives them powerful, but false, legitimacy which should not be shielded from critique. Especially when that crap is being spoon-fed to eager-to-learn children.

Let's start in the first room. The first display shockingly establishes that sex and gender are the same thing, that there are only two gender/sexes, and those are determined by chromosomes. This is later followed up by the statement that as one matures, one realizes that one's gender "does not change." Huh. I guess right off the bat we're leaving out intersex folk, and that sex and gender are not the same thing -- this has been established for over twenty years.

Next room. "Just like the colour of my eyes, I have no control over my sexual orientation." It's really nice that tolerance of anything other than heterosexuality sometimes successfully follows the whole "they can't help it" argument. What about those who can "help it" but are so audacious as to make choices about their sexuality? And nothing like the colour of one's irises, what about when orientation changes, is explored, is fluid, is complex? This not on the table, apparently.


Read more: http://rabble.ca/news/2013/08/vancouver-science-worlds-science-sexuality-exhibit-and-why-it-made-me-cry

Classroom Ideas: Voice O Meter

I love this idea. I have used Red/Yellow/Green lights to indicate volume, but this cute homemade poster is clear on the expectations.

How might you adapt this as a TTOC? Maybe a small size that you can take with you to each class? Drawing it on the board in a classroom?

http://pinterest.com/pin/61431982390432623/

#BCTF2013 Summer Conference

I just got home from an amazing few days in Kamloops, B.C. for the BCTF Summer Leadership Conference for teachers.

This is my 5th year attending and my 2nd as a facilitator.

I went up early for Facilitator's Institute Training where I had the opportunity to review TTOC workshops with new and experienced TTOC facilitators as well as share the NEW SURT (for New Teachers) with experienced SURT facilitators.

It was an amazing few days working with incredible teachers and then even more teachers arrived for Summer Conference.

We had Linda McQuaig as our opening plenary keynote speaker, 3 elective sessions for workshops of our choice (I presented during one of those electives) and closing plenary from Joel Bakan.

We also had core sessions where we worked with our own locals and others to discuss the keynote, strengthening our union, and brainstormed ideas to help meet our Leadership Priorities for the year. One I am most interested in is New teachers/member engagement. I am hoping many locals will book the New Teachers' SURT and get their new members involved to help build capacity in our union.

My most favourite activity was the Drum Cafe where all the teachers gathered in a room with drums. It was a fantastic way to wrap up the conference.

 I really enjoy Summer Conference because it allows me to have a slow start back to school. It's a great way to be inspired and motivated for the upcoming school year.

Speaking of the upcoming school year, I am still on the "recall" list, and haven't been given an assignment for September yet, but hopeful something will come soon.

Drum Cafe Introduction

LTA posted this video of the Drum Cafe opening. As we entered the conference hall we were welcomed by this drumming. It was incredible!

The Tyee: To Grow BC's Economy, First Grow Schools

Educators must have listened to Christy Clark during the May election campaign with mixed emotions. She couldn't get through a 30-second sound bite without chirping "Grow the economy!" at least twice. Sure, it's a good idea to grow the economy. In fact, educators do it well, and could do it even better.  

But despite being a teacher's daughter, Clark has never shown much appreciation for that fact, starting with her long-ago stint as education minister presiding over Gordon Campbell's first assault on B.C. teachers. With September approaching, the premier would do well to heed this reminder: underfunding schools only short-changes the economy. 

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has plenty of evidence to prove it. For example, last June, its education blog compared employment statistics for a number of OECD countries, including Canada. 

It showed young Canadians with less than high school graduation had only a 59 per cent employment rate in 2011. The same age group, with tertiary (or post-secondary) education, had 84 per cent. 

When it came to tertiary education spending, the OECD average in 2010 was 20 per cent above that of 2005, and such spending took up an average of 1.6 per cent of GDP. 

The OECD's Country Notes for Canada throw some encouraging light on how we're doing: 51 per cent of Canadian adults held a tertiary qualification in 2011, up 11 per cent over 2000. That makes us the best-educated nation in the OECD, where the average in 2011 was 32 per cent.

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/08/17/Grow-BC-Economy-With-Schools/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=170813

The obesity era

As the American people got fatter, so did marmosets, vervet monkeys and mice. The problem may be bigger than any of us

Years ago, after a plane trip spent reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Weight Watchers magazine, Woody Allen melded the two experiences into a single essay. ‘I am fat,’ it began. ‘I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are fat. (Can you imagine fat eyes?).’ It was 1968, when most of the world’s people were more or less ‘height-weight proportional’ and millions of the rest were starving. Weight Watchers was a new organisation for an exotic new problem. The notion that being fat could spur Russian-novel anguish was good for a laugh.
That, as we used to say during my Californian adolescence, was then. Now, 1968’s joke has become 2013’s truism. For the first time in human history, overweight people outnumber the underfed, and obesity is widespread in wealthy and poor nations alike. The diseases that obesity makes more likely — diabetes, heart ailments, strokes, kidney failure — are rising fast across the world, and the World Health Organisation predicts that they will be the leading causes of death in all countries, even the poorest, within a couple of years.

Read the whole article here: http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/david-berreby-obesity-era/

Source: 1.bp.blogspot.com via Amanda on Pinterest