Something on my Mind: What's that Again? (1)

Have you ever picked up on the mixed messages we get in the media? In other words, you may encounter a statement here, meaning one thing, but somewhere else, it means something else. You see it in radio, television, or print; they all seem to be the same.

A word picture may help here. Let's take the print medium as an example: On Page 1, a statement will say one thing, but on Page 10 the same statement will mean something else—not merely different, but actually the opposite. It may be intentional or an oversight, I'm not sure.

Here are a few samples:

1. "It's my body," is one of the best ones. This is a common mantra in the abortion narrative, although it ignores every other key factor. A woman's body is a woman's body, no question about that, but it's a little more complicated than that.

What about the body within in her body (ie., the human life of her baby). What about his/her body? Is there any consideration there?

But the abortion argument aside, why can't we use that argument when we're discussing vaccinations? If we hold to the "it's my body" position, why doesn't that apply to whether we choose to be vaccinated or not? If there are body rights for some things, shouldn't we have body rights in everything? (The answer is Yes, by the way.)

2. Another one is "tolerance," and its cousin, "diversity." Tolerance and diversity are wonderful attributes (and I actually mean it), so long as they are genuine diversity and tolerance—which they're not. Both have a short shelf life.

In other words, tolerance and diversity seem to be embraced only up to certain point, and as soon as there is a truly "diverse" viewpoint, that form of tolerance gets thrown out the window. It then morphs into intolerance, which becomes bigotry, exposing its real self.

It's a clash of worldviews, to be sure, but if we espouse tolerance and diversity, let's practice them. Any selective version is a sham.

3. Free speech" clearly fits into this conversation. Apart from obvious hate and heckling, along with vulgarity or vitriol, which are wrong, do we really have free speech? Can we write or speak with measured civility, or are there a myriad strings attached? We need to define the "free" part of free speech.

Am I free to slander the likes of Michael Moore, David Suzuki, Justin Trudeau, and others of their ilk? (Maybe even commenting like is considered wrong.) The answer is "No," of course. (I never have and never will, by the way.) But it works both ways.

Mindless snowflakes can diss President Trump, the late Billy Graham, Jordan Peterson, et al, and get away with it. That strikes me as a double standard of the highest order.

4. Here's another zinger of the inconsistent mindset: "evolution." We're taught that we came from nothing, are composite, meaningless molecules and heading nowhere fast. If that's the case, there's nothing to plan for, hope for, or work for. There are massive issues with that view.

But then in the next breath we read or hear how we are to build up our self-esteem. So now we're a "nothing" that needs to be a "something"? Go figure. There is no need for self-esteem, if we have no purpose or worth.

We are taught, on one hand, that we came came from primordial soup, but on the other hand, we are taught how to boost our self-worth. Strange.

To be continued.

Something on my Mind: If I Were Young Again

There doesn't seem to be any shortcut to learning life's difficult lessons. It often takes time, age, and mess-up after mess-up to learn a thing or two. I speak from bittersweet experience.

How many times have you said (or heard someone else say), "Boy, if I only knew then what I know now")? I cannot recall how many times I have heard that over the years, and I think I rolled my eyes every time someone it.

Well, I no linger roll my eyes when I hear it, because I'm usually the one that's saying it.

I'm 63 now, so let's take a stroll back forty years. I was just fresh out of the University of British Columbia (UBC), with a receipt, er, degree, in hand that showed that I was "qualified" to teach school somewhere, somehow.

Qualified, smallified. I knew nothing about teaching or classroom management, and at that point, the last thing I wanted to do was...teach . That opinion lasted for approximately another twenty years, before I finally plunged into the profession, in Kamloops, BC.

Over the years I have had mostly good experiences, with most of them right here at Bow Island's Cherry Coulee Christian Academy.

This is actually more of a "what if" issue, as I reflect on those "missing" twenty years, as in, What if I had started my teaching career right when I graduated from UBC? And, What if I put in 30 to 40 years in the classroom, maybe even in the principal's office (on the other side of the desk, by the way)? Think of the early retirement and pension, the experiences of influencing lives, and living in various posts around the province.

Well, I didn't, so muttering "shoulda, coulda, woulda" doesn't get it done. Yet, though I didn't, my life has been fulfilling in many other areas. There's no turning the clock back, no parking on the side of the road called Dreams Lost, and no lamenting lost wages.

Please allow me to ask what would have happened, in concrete terms, if I had chosen to get into teaching right away? Maybe this can spur someone else on to think about maybe doing what I didn't do.

A key factor to all this is that I married a public school teacher, so that would have added some significant factors to this discussion.

Simply put, we would have moved way up north, to some out-of-the way place, and both of us would have taught in a local school for a few years.

Back then, teachers could live in teacherages quite inexpensively. That could have helped us save money. All things being equal, we would have lived off one salary and salted the other one away in a high-yielding, locked-in savings account.

That's the theory anyway.

Even at an annual income of $50,000, multiplied by five years, we would would have built up a nest egg of $250,000, plus interest. (Bear with me: I might be off in my base rate; after all, it was more than 35 years ago.)

At any given point, we could have stayed put or moved elsewhere, continued this very wise way of saving for the future. After ten years of living this way, we would have accumulated quite a nest egg.

Teaching is only one option, and I cited it as an example because that's what I did. Chooseany profession or trade that pays well, where both husband and wife can be employed full-time, and the rest follows suit. The North is one option; overseas is another.

This can be done as a husband and wife team or as a single person. I see greater financial advantages with the married couple option, as there is more money to go around. It's a matter of determining to live well but frugally enough and salting away your spouse's income.

So here is my simple advice: If you're young enough and just starting out on a career, look for somewhere to go away for a few years and save your money.

But please, don't roll your eyes at me.

Something on my Mind: If I Were the Education Minister (2)

You couldn't pay me enough to be a politician, let alone an education minister. The following is a genuine proposal. I guess it will be stuck at the idea stage, at least until the UCP gets in...

To recap last week's column: We looked at the importance of teaching economics in school (or the home, the best place where teaching happens), beginning at young a grade as possible.

General financial principles and practical lessons should form the foundation, to be intensified as the kids get older. Work experience could be included as the kids got older, in order to put book work into the context of life skills (to be developed in another column).

Or, in the home education context, in addition to seat work, add garage sales, neighbourhood chores, and seasonal jobs.

In addition to "Economics 101," then, I suggest that "Nutrition 101" be taught with both an economical and preparation angle to it, no matter where teaching takes place. "Nutrition 101" would not be a mere Home Economic class, though the label is really good. It would have to include more than good food, but that is a "healthy" place to start.

Again, this should be taught primarily at home by parents (usually moms), and I know it is in many cases. It's more than "eat your veggies," and "finish your food"; and it goes well beyond "think of all the starving kids in China," and "too much dessert is bad for you."

In the olden days, both money management and food management were, in fact, taught in the home and then reinforced by the school. However, as family dynamics have shifted noticeably over the decades, that is rarely the case any longer.

In the world that I spend most of my time , namely, traditional marriage, large families, conservative worldview. However, I am not so naive to think that all kids from that community, by the time they reach their teen years, are competent enough to prepare a healthy, nutritious meal, to minimize a junk food diet, to shop for groceries wisely, and be prepared to eat balanced snacks.

If I had any control over the curriculum, then, I would teach how to shop wisely at a supermarket, what foods are really bad for you, just okay for you, and good for you, and creative ways to make simple ingredients taste delicious.

I would also teach that too much of one type of food leads to this particular ailment, and too much of another type leads to other life-changing and life-threatening problems. And I would teach the best way to prepare a well-balanced diet, which produces healthy results.

It's no secret that we have an obesity problem on our hands, Granted, there are more factors than eating the wrong food here, our sedentary lifestyle being one of them. High blood pressure and the real potential killer, diabetes, are diseases that are increasing big time, due to very poor eating habits.

Making wise choices at every level would be one of the primary goals of those courses.

Combined with our economics theme, there would be a unit or two on cost-savings when it comes to planning and cooking meals, along with shopping economically.

This one is touchy: How can we avoid eating out a lot? Eating out is clearly non-economical, but it is fun and convenient, isn't it? Sometimes we simply have to do it.

It's the junk food at a fast food place that's the real stickler. Occasionally? Sure, do it when absolutely necessary. Regularly? I don't think so. It messes up the gut, the palate, and the wallet. And it puts an unnecessary burden on our health care system.

I'll drink (my avocado slush) to that.

Something on my Mind: If I Were the Minister of Education (1)

Over the next two columns I would like to offer my help to the schools of Alberta. I have four suggestions to make, but I'll just tackle two for now (this week and next) and another two some other time...maybe.

This week's column may appear to be a totally different subject from last week's, but you'll see it is related. Just hang on for one more paragraph.

This is a curriculum narrative, so it begs the question: What are we teaching our kids about economics? Better stated: How are we teaching our kids about money management?

As one involved for the past thirty years or more in the home education community at many levels, I see a lot of success, and some failure. I am familiar with a lot of good books on finances, and they would be great for every school curriculum, no matter what the model.

I'm just not as familiar with what's happening in day schools. What I do know, in a broad stroke sense, is that I see a lot of money mismanagement out there with our young people—poor shopping habits, growing debt loads, impulsive buying, and abuse of credit cards. I see where both parents and teachers need to pull up their socks and teach the kids better economic skills.

Ultimately, money management and economics training should come from the home, not the school. Parents need to instill in their kids the value of a dollar, the need for honest labour, and the value between initiative, money, and a good work ethic.

If those things are not well understood, then children develop a sense of entitlement, limited appreciation of holding down a job and doing it well, a warped view of minimum wage, and the danger of credit card use, and bank  overdrafts--much like we have in our culture already.

It is not the schools' direct responsibility to teach these skills—that comes from the home. But as most kids in this province are in some form of day school for over 35 hours a week, forty weeks a year, I wonder if there could be some initiative in making economics more foundational in the curriculum.

And foundational means more of a core subject than an elective.

You've all heard of the "Three R's" (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic); economics clearly fits into the third "R." That is, start teaching financial rules and principles as early as possible. Maybe that's where "econometrics" comes into play.

The four basic mathematical orders (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication) are essential for basic economics—whether we're discussing interest, profit margin, mark-up, debt, and investment. Get those orders down pat, and you're set for life; and if you don't, oh boy.

Money does not grow on trees, and borrowing needlessly is a shortsighted and ineffective way to spur the economy on. That's why a free market economy is the only way to succeed.

On that note, I wonder if the socialist model has been embraced because people just don't understand how sound economics works.

One reason why so many embrace such a deficient framework is they have a warped view that big government must take care of its people. Economically-speaking, if the so-called little people understood more of economic principles and strategies, we would have a sounder economy and a stronger society. And less government dependency.

Is it that simple? Pretty well; it does flow along towards a better way of doing things. Sound economic principles taught and embraced through the family and at the classroom level will bode well for the future.

You can bet on that (just an expression, of course).

Something on my Mind: Reverse Racism (2)

I will be the first to acknowledge that there are serious obstacles that certain peoples of colour face, and that some of that has been caused by people of other colours. Sometimes that "other" colour is white, sometimes it's not.

I would quickly add to what I said last week, that solving the problem is not done by plastering posters all over a school division, denouncing white privilege. What must be done calls for constructive, pro-active, and balance strategies to correct what is wrong.

I trust cooler heads will prevail, and that you yourself agree with that approach. We should utilize wise plans along the lines of education, economics, and family life.

And it must be as broad as the many colours and cultures that exist. Those that come to the table must include all colours and cultures--not just a select few.

As I have stated here before, in the main, the greatest threat to Muslims are Muslims themselves; to the First Nations, First Nations themselves; to the blacks, blacks themselves. I believe I can safely say that without a racist bone in my body. The facts back me up.

There should be no wholesale attempt to change to another culture by destroying it. Rather, each culture should be strengthened and celebrated. We need not go so far as multiculturalism, of course. That has become an unmitigated disaster.

So the Gold Trail School Division (in BC) took the wrong approach. One would think that if any group could get this right, the education community could--but they didn't.

Here are my few passing observations:

1. Parents in that division were not consulted at all. Would that be school privilege, whereby only the "educated elite" have the say? I see some inconsistency there.

2. Are we looking at some healthy cross-representation of the district? No, the agitators all appear to be middle-age professional women. That should raise the hackles of some, I am sorry to say. I don't mean to raise hackles, people; you should know me after twelve years of writing this column. I just simply say that if you want a balanced, credible approach to a hot button issue, maybe try a different tactic. Get a nice balanced, credible cross-section of "victims" and "guilty parties."

3. People like me are always on egg shells, as we wonder if any comment will be construed as sexist or racist, intolerant or ignorant, misogynistic or bigoted. It's a tragedy beyond words that we can no longer talk things out, agree to disagree, and clear up misunderstandings.

Since there is a genuine issue here, maybe a genuine approach would be in order. If I am in the cross-hairs of a race issue (as a white person), I would ask that those fomenting the issue further to stop, think, maybe even dialogue.

I had no say in my skin colour. I wasn't around for the sins, so-called, of the white guys. Some were not innocent, I agree, but certainly not all.

I know they invented those reserves. I have significant concerns about the way the First

Nations people were relegated to these cultural ghettos, and of the economic, educational, and emotional damage that has been done because of that. They're not working out at all.

I have many creative ideas how to solve that problem. But, in today's context, these ideas might construed as racist.

But at least I think my solutions merit discussing in some sort of forum, though I would likely be excluded because of my skin colour. And I sincerely believe a forum would have a more merit than cheeky posters on a telephone p0le.

And a whole less racist.