Here are a few pics I threw together in a slideshow to celebrate the first snow of the year.
“Celebrate” might sound like the wrong word but for me, the first snow of the year is always exciting and, as the song says, “I know that by February/My thoughts on snow will be contrary/But this is now and then is then!”
The Guardian recently published an edited version of Neil Gaiman‘s lecture for the Reading Agency.
The Reading Agency’s annual lecture series was initiated in 2012 as a platform for leading writers and thinkers to share original, challenging ideas about reading and libraries.
The lecture is amazingly good.
On the purposes of reading (and specifically reading fiction)…
Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it’s a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it’s hard, because someone’s in trouble and you have to know how it’s all going to end … that’s a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you’re on the road to reading everything…And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed.
On what children should read…
I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children’s books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading…It’s tosh. It’s snobbery and it’s foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories. A hackneyed, worn-out idea isn’t hackneyed and worn out to them. This is the first time the child has encountered it. Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you.
On why the Chinese have relaxed their ban on science fiction…
It’s simple, [the Chinese official] told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.
Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.
On the librarians he encountered as a child…
They were good librarians. They liked books and they liked the books being read. They taught me how to order books from other libraries on inter-library loans. They had no snobbery about anything I read. They just seemed to like that there was this wide-eyed little boy who loved to read, and would talk to me about the books I was reading, they would find me other books in a series, they would help. They treated me as another reader – nothing less or more – which meant they treated me with respect. I was not used to being treated with respect as an eight-year-old.
I know I’m close to quoting the whole article but again, it’s got so many great points and insights (“Books are how we communicate with the dead.”) I’ll just leave off with one more extended quote…
But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.
…then encourage you to go read the entire article yourself.
I don’t post a lot of pictures of food on my blog but I couldn’t let this one go by.
After Pace’s swimming lessons today, we decided to check out a new restaurant called Coney Island Cafe which was rumoured to have a few varieties of poutine rather than the traditional fries/gravy/cheese curds version you get in most places in Saskatchewan.
Well, they didn’t have the 22 varieties we were faced with in Montreal but it had a solid six or so that ranged from Mexican to Cheeseburger to a quinnessential Saskatchewan version, Perogy Poutine, which is the version I chose of course.
We saw a group of three EMT’s pull up just before we did and once we realised they weren’t there on an official call, I thought “How unhealthy can it be if the EMT’s eat here? Or even if it is, how lucky to know a defibrillator is nearby?” 😉
Yep, that looks like “heart attack on a plate” to me…
Recently read an article about up & coming Canadian start-ups which mentioned Pebble and these guys whose product looks amazing!
…who’s chubbier? 😉
I’m not too interested in policing how people use Facebook – I have my share of Facebook friends who vaguebook, overshare, “envy post” and so on and either enjoy or ignore their posts as required.
Plus I probably do these things myself too on occasion but at the same time, when I post a cute picture of Sasha, is my subliminal intention to tell the world “I’m better than you because I have a cute kid” or just “I have a cute kid”?
Either way, this article calling out some of the worst offences is interesting. By their stated criteria, I think my baby pics, unless posted with the intention of making people jealous of my life – and if you are, come change a diaper anytime! – would qualify as “unannoying” to most people viewing them. (Now if I posted dozens of pictures a day like some new parents do…) 😉
To be unannoying, a Facebook status typically has to be one of two things:
1) Interesting/Informative
2) Funny/Amusing/EntertainingYou know why these are unannoying? Because things in those two categories do something for me, the reader. They make my day a little better.
Ideally, interesting statuses would be fascinating and original (or a link to something that is), and funny ones would be hilarious. But I’ll happily take mildly amusing—at least we’re still dealing with the good guys.
A graphical representation of different phases of Reddit’s evolution over time. I joined in January 2007 (and probably was a lurker for a bit of time before that) so that’s a few years before Reddit exploded around 2010, roughly around the time that Digg, which I was never a big fan of, went into freefall.
(via r/dataisbeautiful)
Pace’s grade one class has access to a site called IXL.ca. This site has a series of modules on various aspects of math that kids can work through to learn concepts including counting, addition, shapes and so on.
There are dozens of modules under various headings, each with escalating levels of difficulty – for example, under “Addition”, the first module might be “Adding by 1” then “Adding by 2” then “Adding by 5” and so on.
We worked through Pace’s first five modules this weekend (the teacher gives a small prize for every five modules a student completes) and I had a few random thoughts as we did them…
– there’s some debate in Regina right now because some elementary schools in wealthier areas are encouraging students to bring iPads to school as another “school supply” provided at the parent’s expense, just as they do with pencils and crayons and glue sticks.
Not every student has their own idevice, and [Grade 1/2 Teacher] Maley admits some parents have (completely understandable) misgivings about sending their Grade 1 child to school with an extremely breakable piece of $500 equipment — that’s why the class has a few general use iPads and access to laptops to blog and tweet.
Personally, I’m not opposed to the use of modern technology in the classroom or for homework such as the IXL site (would I buy Pace an iPad and send it with him if he went to this school? Hmm…interesting question.) But my concern comes from a place of equality – shouldn’t kids in the poorer areas of the city have access to the same tools as kids in the wealthier or else do we just reinforce existing class divisions by giving upper class kids an instant leg up? Even within the same school, you have to wonder if every kid in our working class neighbourhood, which has a relatively high percentage of new immigrants and low income folks, will have access to the Internet in their home to take advantage of this site? And then, when Pace gets some Dollar Store trinket tomorrow, how does the kid who doesn’t have Internet at home feel? I mean, sure, if you’re extremely dedicated as a parent, you can always get Internet at the library or elsewhere but even something as simple as the fact that Pace and I could multi-task to complete his fifth and final module tonight while he was in the tub and I was perched beside him with the iPad showing him the questions, is a lot easier than going to the library or wherever to help your child.
– On that same note, the use of iPads by children in general was also a story on the supper hour news tonight and the experts all reiterated the fairly standard guideline: “we recommend no screen time before age 2 and heavily moderated use after that.” I’m sitting there thinking “Pace has been using our iPhones since he was younger than two and one app he loved about how to identify shapes made one of these modules sail by in five minutes!” (On average, they’re supposed to take 10 to 15 minutes each.)
– I showed Pace a couple things that probably aren’t part of the purpose of the IXL site but that can be useful skills for life in different ways nonetheless. For example, I taught him about using “the process of elimination” in that in the first two of three answers in a multiple choice question weren’t correct, he could be reasonably sure the third answer was the right one and didn’t have to bother counting it. Then, after noticing that the first answer of three choices was rarely the correct one (the program obviously wants kids to use repetition for their learning), I suggested he start by counting the third option first then the second as those were more likely to be the correct one as a time saver. (I wouldn’t have done this if I was sure he was doing fine and getting the concepts. But I’ve also never liked busy work – going back to my own elementary school experiences!)
– I also showed him how to do calculator races which can be a lifesaver during boring classes when you’re older. (If you’ve never done one, you and a friend hit “1” then “+” then the equals sign repeatedly as fast as you can until someone hits 100.)
– Recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, “David and Goliath” and he’s got some interesting thoughts on whether it’s better to be a “big fish in a small pond” or a “small fish in a big pond.” Shea and I debate this ourselves – for a variety of reasons, we’ve purposely chosen to live in a neighbourhood that’s probably not as reflective of our socio-economic status as the neighbourhoods of many of our peers. Is this a disadvantage to our children or could it be, as Gladwell claims, an advantage (see Slide 6 in that last link)? Time will tell…
– Anyhow, we must be doing something right as this is one of Pace’s favourite songs of all-time and there’s been many a car trip where we’ve had to listen to it on repeat over and over and over again! 😉
“7 8 9” – Barenaked Ladies
I get to regularly witness scenes like this (I especially love how he leans in to hug her after making her giggle!)
