 
**Beyond the Horizon: Reflections of a Life-long Learner**

Michael G. Redfearn

Copyright 2012 by Michael G. Redfearn

Smashwords Edition

Editorials

Insidious Fun: Youth needs help to process messages - Dangerous Gifts: Beware of corporate gifts - Internet is really a Black Hole - Don't forget Teachers – Seductive Technology: We have more than technology to fight against violence on TV - News the bleeds sells - Daily Seductions: The V-Chip doesn't protect us from TV's constant soft sell - Out of Class: Education more than 3 R's - Senseless Violence is the offspring of freedom of choice over social responsibility – Gruesome release: now people can watch JFK be killed over and over again - We get the message - Who's the boss? The media . . . or us? – Complicity - Kennedy Tragedy - No laughing matter - Resolve to make more Snow Angels - The Poor and Dispossessed need our help - Reality television isolates us from reality - Transforming tragedies into triumphs inspires our communities - Literacy test a good idea but poorly designed - New code of conduct in schools - Bill 74 blatantly fails democratic test - We risk becoming hollow men - Succeeding despite tough odds - Teachers should be free to teach - Front line health workers keep system alive - Assault deflects real problems in education - Grim face of poverty enriches student learning - We'll miss the man in black - Provocative film has youth talking - Like political attack ads, film can backfire - NHL Lockout - Media savvy pope was a superstar - Film about evil may do some good - Step up to the 'cyber-learning' plate - Don't rush to judgement about killer - Responsibility lagging behind trendy technology - IWB's taking education giant step into the future - Media must shoulder blame for violence - New media hold opportunities for internet generation - Chinese use time-honored practice of image control - What would Jesus text?  
It's time to open schools to corporate deals

Insidious Fun: Youth needs help to process messages of sex and violence

August 18, 1993

What do scar-faced teen icon Freddy Krueger and rap performer Bobby Brown have in common? They have both been blamed for inciting a 13-year-old Kitchener boy to sexually assault his 10-year-old stepsister.

Horror hero Freddy Krueger slashed his way into the collective consciousness of thrill-seeking teens during the 1980's in the notorious Nightmare on Elm Street horror flicks. Every woman's worst nightmare, Freddy would enter his victims' (usually nubile young females) nightmares then kill them, often in a bloody, stylized manner. Bobby Brown's song Humping Around was also cited as a contributing factor in making the 13-year-old sexually aggressive.

These are the latest victims (Krueger/Brown) in a long line of teen cult heroes who have been slammed for a host of deviant behavior. Rock music has traditionally taken the most hits for allegedly causing everything from teen silliness to suicide. Various lawsuits have been launched (so far without much success) charging heavy metal rock groups with inciting teens to kill themselves. British rock singer Ozzy Osbourne's song Suicide Solution was linked to the suicide of a 19-year-old California youth in 1984.

Sex 'n violence in popular music, rock videos, films and most recently, video games and collector cards portraying serial killers, are the forbidden fruit for today's curious adolescents. The more adults threaten to censor, ban or restrict the availability of these items - the more alluring their appeal to youth. Yet we deny any connection between our society's fascination with media products containing sex n' violence and real sexual assault - at our peril.

Many of my students strongly resist the notion that they are adversely influenced by the glut of sex 'n violence they are exposed to. Yet when asked if their younger brothers or sisters would be negatively affected by a steady diet of so-called slasher films, most indicated they would.

One confident female student admitted to having recurring nightmares after covertly watching part of a slasher film her older siblings had rented. But the fact is, most of the teens I know tend to believe they are too sophisticated to be affected by make-believe violence. One of my male students laughed when describing the plot of the teen horror film Slumber Party Massacre in which a crazed killer stalks then skewers his female victims to death with a menacing drill.

The now famous amateur video of the Rodney King beating shows us that even real, graphic incidents of violence lose their visceral impact if viewed repeatedly. Chilling scenes of real violence on reality-type television programs such as Code 3 and I-Witness Video tend to evoke less of a response with each passing episode.

I have witnessed a kind of psychic and emotional numbing in the reactions of my students when discussing such programs. Being exposed to countless violent acts, real or manufactured, leaves all of us somewhat jaded. What will be the cumulative, long term effects of all this violence on society? Will we be able to react at all to real violent acts which may occur before our eyes? Or will we freeze and stare with eyes glazed as though viewing just another reality TV show?

Soon pizza-sized satellite dishes will serve up over 500 television channels for the public to choose from. Cable companies will also offer a comparable smorgasbord of visual delights. If present network scheduling is any indication, programs containing sex 'n violence will be even more enticing to impressionable young psyches. Some software programs for computers users now feature soft-core pornography for those who so wish to indulge. Clearly, communication technology has surpassed our ability to keep pace with the social and moral implications of such rapid change. The ever-expanding information highway threatens to deluge our youth with an increasing array of violent and sexually explicit images and lyrics.

Certainly our childrens' ability to cope with this onslaught will, as it always has, depend largely upon the internalization of sound parental values. As well, parents should take an active role in monitoring the amount and type of music, television programs, videos and computer games their children may have access to. Yet how we help our children process these potentially harmful messages will also be an important factor in their overall psychological and emotional well-being.

Hence parents and schools have a responsibility to ensure that students be given the opportunity to openly discuss and critically examine the issues surrounding violent or sexually explicit material. One way to lessen the impact of such material is to deconstruct it.

Studying slasher films or heavy metal rock videos in segments reduces them to the largely misogynistic, formulaic products that they are. Young people quickly learn that what appear to be seamless extensions of reality, are merely the result of carefully constructed camera shots and angles, soundtrack manipulation and special effects. They also begin to see the connections between the predominant "female as victim" motif in various forms of pop culture and the real problem of violence against women in society.

What will become even more essential for our children in the high-tech 90's will be their ability to distinguish between what - in this vast electronic field of dreams - is really important and what is not. It is imperative we help guide them along the way; otherwise Freddy's nightmare may very well become our reality.

Dangerous Gifts: Beware of corporate fixes for cash-strapped school boards

January 13, 1994

Picture a high school where teachers are measured not by the number of scholars they produce but by how efficiently their students can run a hamburger franchise. Where each day visions of candy bars, soft drinks and burgers dance in their heads.

Now imagine this same school charging tuition fees of $6,000 per student and, instead of finding itself in the red, managing to turn a healthy profit.

Ridiculous you say! Well, if current educational trends south of the border are any indication - this scenario may one day become a Canadian reality - perhaps sooner than we think. Burger King has opened 'Burger Academies' in 14 cities in the US. These fully accredited private high schools represent an emerging entrepreneurial model gaining momentum. IBM and Apple are also considering the idea of schools for profit.

Within the next ten years it is estimated that as many as 1000 profit-making schools will be operating in the US. This major initiative dubbed the 'Edison Project' is the brainchild of, Chris Whittle, founder and chair of Whittle Communications.

Whittle also spearheaded the sale of television news-and-advertising packages to public schools in the US and Canada from 1991 to 1993. Modeled on Channel One in the US, the Canadian operation is known as YNN (Youth News Network).

As a YNN subscriber - each participating school receives television monitors (one for every 25 students), 2 VCR's, a satellite receiving dish, a portable camera, and the wiring required to tie everything together within the school. Once the system is up and running - YNN would beam in a twelve minute daily broadcast including a mix of reporting on current world events, student produced news items and a mandatory two and a half minutes of commercials.

Commercials for Snickers, Burger King and other youth oriented products are shown in 12,000 schools to almost eight million students daily. Whittle Communications earns $630,000 a day from the commercials that accompany the broadcasts.

The contract between YNN and participating schools stipulate that: 90 per cent of the children in a school must watch the program 90 per cent of the time, each program must be watched in its entirety and programs cannot be interrupted. An electronic device also measures if the TV set in a classroom is turned on, the channel it's turned to, and the loudness of the volume control. Several boards of education located in six Canadian provinces have welcomed YNN into their schools this year.

Cash strapped school boards would be foolish not to look carefully at big business and its evolving role in education. Clearly, the onus is on schools and business to work together in the education and training of students. The current emphasis on career planning, cooperative education and partnerships in education should continue to be encouraged, promoted and expanded. But before swinging open our school doors to welcome our corporate friends we need to ask some important questions.

What kinds of values do we want to impart to our students? Do we want our young people to be primarily consumers or citizens? Which ideologies do we want them to buy into? These are the kinds of questions educators and business leaders need to grapple with before embarking on alluring ventures such as schools for profit and YNN, whose main goal is to sell our students to commercial sponsors.

It's worth noting that the Waterloo Region separate school board administrative body decided to turn down YNN's proposal - this was necessary to allow time for serious consideration of the moral implications such a decision would entail. The board has wisely chosen to try and assess corporate offers to its schools within the framework of its Catholic values.

Our schools already contain a plethora of young people who have been weaned on the gospel according to consumerism - where for many - the shopping mall is the altar of choice. I've taught my share of stressed out, bleary-eyed students exhausted from part time jobs and struggling to keep up with school work; so they can buy the latest designer clothes or shoes - the things they think they need.

The battle for the minds and hearts of our fashion/image conscious youth is fought every day in the boardrooms of corporations eager to win their allegiance for life. Some school boards may be unable to resist the temptation to jump at offers such as the one by YNN. After all - the seemingly bottomless well of funds from the 1980's has dried up. One way out of the fiscal mire would be the illusion of the corporate quick fix.

A popular advertising jingle for Burger King would like us to believe we can 'have it our way'. Before school boards become too enamored of enticing corporate offers, which would ultimately affect the students in their care, they should bear this slogan in mind.

Internet is really a Black Hole

March 27, 1995

Warning! The mindless pursuit of information for information sake may be hazardous to your health. Caution! The contents of this databank contain enough trivia to seriously harm someone.

When it comes to substances that can harm our bodies, tobacco or prescription drugs, we don't hesitate to post warning labels. Yet at the same time we virtually ignore the psychic damage incurred by logging countless hours, days and years in front of television and computer screens.

People can join smoking cessation programs and Alcoholics Anonymous for nicotine and alcohol dependency. Why not computer cessation programs and infogluttons anonymous for those who are informing themselves to death?

The recent NHL hockey lockout left a bit of a gap in my entertainment schedule this winter. The void has quickly been filled though by my PC and the behemoth of 30 million other computers known as the Internet.

Navigating the net is to many adults what Nintendo and Sega is to teenagers, an enthralling rush. It's the electronic equivalent of crack for the 90's. Its potential to completely revolutionize the way we do business and pleasure is astonishing.

At the touch of a finger, one can access a plethora of information on an expansive range of topics. One minute you can visit the Louvre in Paris and download a colourful reproduction of the Mona Lisa, the next - exchange ideas online with someone from a distant culture thousands of miles away. As my students so succinctly put it - this stuff is hype, eh?

But if the net holds so much promise and intrigue, how can I begin to rid myself of the guilt incurred during my frequent forays into cyberspace? Now don't get me wrong. I enjoy electronic surfing as much as any other red-blooded information-dependent Canadian. In fact, I'll level with you; I'm hooked - or at the very least, microchip and modem dependent.

Just when we were making inroads into the effects of television on viewers, along comes the mother of all black holes. Make no mistake, the net is titillating but it is also an insidious time sink devoid of regulations or conscience.

I have a loving wife and five beautiful children. There are diapers to change, brownies, guides and minor hockey to tend to. I teach on average up to 75 teenagers each school day, have assignments to grade and lessons to prepare. Yet like a junkie in search of a quick hit, I slink down to my lair in the basement at each opportunity to get my daily info-fix.

Technology always has unforeseen fallout. The Benedictine monks of the 12th and 13th centuries invented the mechanical clock to provide them with an exact method to measure the required seven periods of their devotion to God each day. Their invention served its purpose well.

What they did not realize is that the clock is also an efficient means of synchronizing and controlling the actions of people. By the middle of the14th century, the clock moved outside the monestary walls. Eventually, it brought regularity to the lives of laborers and merchants and helped make capitalism possible.

So what was originally intended to be an invention dedicated to worshiping God - ended as technology of greatest use by people devoting themselves to the acquisition of money.

Today the computer is king and the quest for and accumulation of information, a near sacred end in itself. Status is unofficially conferred on those who subscribe to the most electronic news journals or discussion groups.

I've noticed lately, among some of my own colleagues, a spirited enthusiasm to become wired to the net. Their eagerness is palpable as they too are lured by the siren call of technology.

We rush headlong into each new breakthrough in information technology, gorging ourselves on the latest megabytes and tidbits of information - some trivial, some truly useful. Along the way we sometimes foolishly delude ourselves by believing we are ultimately in control.

Many enthusiasts will argue that the beauty of the internet lies in its lack of any central authority or regulator. This argument may appear utopian in principle, but in reality there is also a resounding caveat.

There is no holding back the technology steamroller. The least we can hope to do is hang on tightly and help steer clear of some of the potholes; otherwise, we could unwittingly become road kill on this freshly-paved stretch of the information highway.

Don't Forget Teachers

July 18, 1995

It is the year 2010 and although teenagers still worry about what to wear and how they'll look at the year-end school dance - they now learn exclusively from the comfort of their own homes.

Paper, pencils, pens, notebooks and erasers have been replaced by computer screens, CD ROMS and voice recognition devices.

Teachers, textbooks, novels, chalkboards and maps have given way to the Internet.

Typical 21st-century teenagers are enrolled in cyberschool where they select and organize their own personal learning experiences. Every learner is equipped with the technology required to participate in this equitable, brave new wired world. Partnerships between computer companies and the Ministry of Education make this possible.

Students no longer sit in neat rows enduring archaic Socratic lectures delivered by burnt-out, autocratic teachers. Young people now are motivated by multimedia programs and learn at their own pace and level of understanding.

Does this scenario sound too far-fetched? Is this actually the future of education or merely a vision of things that might be?

Whatever the face of education will look like in the next century - one thing is certain: technology is dramatically changing the way our teachers will teach and our students will learn.

As part of an intensive study of the education system in Ontario, the Royal Commission on Learning recommended that computer literacy become one of the five foundation skills in the common curriculum. In a chapter entitled, Learning, Teaching and Information Technology, the commission's report also indicated that teacher in-service in computer technology and software in the classroom be a priority in Ontario's schools.

The commission was also careful to point out that, "adding new machines to classrooms does not buy instant learning." Teachers will need to learn how to integrate computers in meaningful ways into all areas of the curriculum. To a certain extent, this is already happening in a number of schools in the province. But lack of computer equipment and expertise is still largely preventing many schools from becoming the "wired communities" advocated by the royal commission.

Hence the opportunity for the full participation of the wider community in the information technology revolution going on in our schools. Business must do its share to form partnerships with schools, to help equip classrooms with the latest computer hardware and software and assist in training their future employees. Such a joint venture would increase the likelihood of producing graduates who are creative problem solvers and critical thinkers.

With a thoughtful plan of action, the whole community would benefit from the fruits of such a union. We're not talking about Sega and Nintendo here; the call is for Canadian computer companies which would have a stake in helping to produce a high-calibre graduate by supplying quality educational software and technical expertise.

In this wired school community, the teacher would become the students' partner in learning - not the traditional pez-like dispensers with all of the sugar-coated answers. More individual attention would be possibly, thereby accommodating different learning styles. For the real goal of education is to help create the conditions for learning and the organization for the learning process to occur.

For now only a select few will be able to leave the current educational model behind. They are the exceptionally self-motivated, self-directed learners. Their parents can afford the computer equipment and the access required to explore the Internet. They needn't fet about the dark, sinister images or documents their child could readily download form the net.

Neither will they have to concern themselves with the Ministry of Education's flavor-of-the-month policies and agendas.

For now, the vast majority of our young people need the things computer technology doesn't offer. They still require the social interaction with their peer group lest they become cyberhermits glued to their computer terminals. Effective teachers can inspire students and foster the love of learning; computers can't. They can moral and academic standards and help their students to try and achieve them; computers can't.

In the frenetic race to retool the education system, let's apply a little pressure on the brake. Yes, change is inevitable and, over time, all of us should learn to adapt to the new information technologies. But in our rush we should certainly try to harness this technology by never losing sight of the fact that people are infinitely more important than machines.

Our current education system may very well one day be replaced by some form of home schooling. Let's hope that tomorrow's learners never completely lose contact with real human beings who can both enlighten and inspire them to realize even greater heights.

Seductive Solutions: We have more than technology to fight against the violence on TV

August 23, 1995

It's being heralded by high profile politicians south of the border as the best thing since bullet proof vests and metal detectors. It could also be described as state-of-the-art armor for the mind. U.S. President Bill Clinton has advocated its use and lauded its potential merits. It may even have the creators of Beavis and Butt Head and the Power Rangers shaking in their collective boots.

Coming some day to an outlet near you is the V-chip or violence microchip. An electronic screening device, the V-chip can be programmed to lock out TV signals carrying programs containing violence into our homes.

Programs containing violence would be categorized into one of seven levels. Level one being the least violent and seven containing the most extreme and abundant examples of explicitly violent scenes.

This digital guardian angel of the 90's promises to do what many parents increasingly seem unable to - monitor the twenty-four-hour-a-day flow of gratuitous violence and sex into their homes via television.

Although, before V-chip devices are implanted in all new television sets, TV networks will be required to encode each of their violent programs with the appropriate V-signal; thereby, allowing our TV's to block out programs deemed too explicit for sensitive, young eyes.

To many parents with children, the V-chip appears to be a welcome answer to a nagging problem. But who will decide what is violent or offensive and by what criteria? Will a ratings committee assign Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner a five on the V-chip spectrum?

What about the 'if it bleeds it leads' world of TV news? Will images of the ethnic bloodletting and carnage in Bosnia rate a level seven? If so, how many young people will be denied an opportunity to discuss the barbarism with their parents and witness the depths to which human beings can sometimes stoop?

Why not produce a Tabloid TV chip for trashy talk shows like Geraldo or voyeuristic, pseudo-news programs like A Current Affair? While they're at it they should also develop an O.J. chip, a soap opera chip, a Three Stooges chip, a Paul and Karla chip, and a Simpson's chip. Eventually, the new TV landscape will be sanitized enough to be truly Barney-friendly.

It doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to imagine that public television shows like Barney the Dinosaur and Sesame street will probably be among the relatively few programs to emerge unscathed from the eye of the V-chip censors.

Unfortunately, the V-chip only addresses the underbelly of the human drama being played out on our television screens. What about Beavis and Butthead on-line, "gangsta" rap CD's or Mortal Kombat CD ROMS? A glut of explicit images, words and sounds are easily accessible via ubiquitous CD technology and personal computers.

Even if the television in the family room has been secured by the V-chip, will many of us be able to afford the extra devices needed for the TV sets in the bedrooms, kitchen and cottage? If our children are locked out of programs because of the V-chip, they will be more eager than ever to see them. And what is to prevent them from eventually going to a friend's house and watching rented videos of slasher films like Jason goes to hell or playing the latest version of Street Fighter on their Nintendo game set?

The V-chip has been designed to act as a kind of electronic, surrogate parent to police the more sinister stretches of life in television's fast lane. Many parents, already stressed to the limit with the constant demands of breadwinning and child-rearing on their plates, find it increasingly onerous to also monitor their childrens' television viewing habits. Some, having completely abdicated responsibility, have left their little ones at the mercy of what has been called the plug-in- drug.

For these families the V-chip will provide at least some sense of security and help ease the consciences of parents who are working in the next room or are away from home for part of the day.

There is no denying the fact that people are looking more and more to technology to solve problems that seem to defy easy answers. Photo radar, video surveillance and cellular phones were all born, in part, from this technology-as-savior mindset.

Huge electronics companies stand to benefit the most. They are merely capitalizing on the entrenched belief in the public mind that throwing more technology at a problem will eliminate it. There will also be those who will purchase the latest electronic gadgets simply to add to their high-tech toy collections to impress their techno-needy neighbours and friends.

But before shelling out more money as you call to reserve a V-chip device, ask yourself if you really need a $50 replacement for the on/off switch on your TV set?

Or maybe try sitting down and talking with your children about their impressions of the seamier side of life on the tube. Who knows, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that they have already developed the 'ultimate V-chip' - the ability to clearly distinguish between the absurd and the sublime in television land.

News that Bleeds Sells

January 20, 1996

Teachers bloodied by truncheon-wielding police on horseback. Queen's Park trashed by hooligan mobs of militant teachers. Angry teachers bust down barricades over education cuts.

Do I have your attention yet?

Well, judging by the sparse media coverage of the massive January 13 rally at Queen's Park, it appears as though gratuitous violence is the only way to warrant more than a twenty- second television sound bite or token side column in the local newspaper.

An estimated 37 thousand teachers, concerned parents and students from alll across Ontario - marched to Queen's Park from Nathan Philips Square in Toronto on January 13. The rally was organized by the Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Association in response to the Tory government's plan to slash $400 million from the education budget.

But unlike the protest rally a few months ago which turned ugly when some rowdies, from a crowd of a few hundred people, stormed the barricades while demonstrating outside the Legislature against the Harris government's 20 per cent cut in welfare payments, this rally was quite peaceful in comparison.

Yet National and local news organizations seemed fixated on the violent spectacle and replayed, ad nauseum, the visceral scenes of police beating back angry demonstrators. In contrast, the rally to protest cuts in education was, according to one police officer observing the thousands of enthusiastic participants, the most orderly and peaceful he had ever witnessed.

No blood and gore to titillate. No thrilling high speed chase or death defying shoot out. Just thousands of men, women and children, united in spirit and purpose, marching side by side in a snow squall on a cold Saturday afternoon. All were concerned about one thing - the effects that such deep cuts will have on the quality of education in the classroom.

It's a given in today's intensely competitive journalistic quest for sensational stories that confrontation reigns supreme. The carnivorous, tabloid-style of eat or be eaten journalism ensures that lead stories will shock, entertain and sometimes even inform us.

It's also not surprising that the mainstream media has become more tabloid-like in the ongoing struggle to salvage the bottom line. TV news networks and daily newspapers now routinely follow stories which at one time were considered the exclusive domain of tabloids like the National Enquirer.

We, too, must accept some responsibility for allowing the juicy stories and celebrities we love to hate to control our waking moments - distracting us from more important matters. We can cancel our newspaper subscriptions and cable TV service and pretend that the world outside of our own secure cocoon doesn't exist.

Or through faxes, letters and phone calls we can let newspaper editors and television news producers know how we feel about the constant flow of sensational, spectacle-driven headline news. If enough people voice their concerns then the gatekeepers of information will have no choice but to tone down the 'if it bleeds it leads' nature of the daily news.

Newspapers, The Record included, and TV news programs are beginning to listen to their audiences and have made concerted efforts to do a more effective job of balancing negative with positive news stories.

Given the sheer number of people (1,000 from Waterloo Region alone) who rallied on January 13 while chanting the slogan, 'Cuts hurt kids', it is still difficult to understand how the event attracted so little local media attention.

Perhaps before the next major rally teachers could adopt a pit bull terrier as their mascot. Or maybe they should follow Education minister John Snobelen's lead and invent a crisis. Both options might increase the chances of more media coverage at future rallies.

But then again, those of us teachers, parents and students who rallied shoulder to shoulder on a blustery Saturday afternoon - already know that the proposed cuts to the education system in Ontario constitute a real crisis which threatens to diminish us all.

Daily Seductions: The V-chip doesn't protect us from TV's constant soft sell

July 20, 1996

An ancient Greek story tells of a mother hoping to make her son, Achilles, immortal by dipping him into the river Styx, but she held him by his heel, and it remained vulnerable to injury.

In its quest to protect us from the ravages of gratuitous violence, coarse language and explicit sex on television, the CRTC, our surrogate mother, under chairman, Keith Spicer, has endorsed the merits of a high-tech device known as the V-chip or violence microchip.

The V-chip, an electronic device which categorizes and screens coded TV programs containing violence, sex and coarse language is currently being piloted by select families throughout the country. Spicer is careful, though, to point out that the V-chip is only one weapon in the battle against the excesses of American and Canadian commercial television.

Few people would deny that the level of objectionable material on television has increased substantially during recent years. The violence, sex and language are more extreme than ever. To want to shield our children from sleazy talk shows or films riddled with images of blood-splattered victims is an admirable, if not instinctive human response.

Yet, despite the controversial nature of such programs, they at least don't pretend to be anything other than what they really are - lurid entertainment designed to arouse our basic instincts.

Children with sound moral values will also likely see them for what they are - whether their parents are in the same room or not. But an 'in-your- face', violent action movie, dripping with gore and a high body count, is a more inviting target for the censors. What about the daily proliferation of the soft sell on TV?

From the Ab Sculptor to the EZ Krunch, to Baywatch and Body Shaping, television is awash in a tide of neatly-packaged, sexy images. In the world of the seductive infommercial or steamy daytime drama - happiness equals the hardest tummy or firmest bottom.

In the TV fitness program, Body Shaping, half-naked, well-oiled, muscular men and women alternately pump iron and revel in an orgy of tantalizing physical exertion. This slick, sultry production makes the popular 1980's 20 Minute Workout program seem like a Victorian tea party.

The dizzying camera angles and tight shots of sexually suggestive body movements would give an acrobat vertigo. Although both men and women share about equal time on the weights, the camera lens predominantly focuses on female cleavage.

A similar cinematic tendency also occurs on the set of the TV show, Baywatch. 'Babewatch' , as some of my media students have dubbed it, portrays silicone-enhanced female and muscular male models (actors) as lifeguards who spend much of their time rescuing drowning victims. Still, despite the presence of ample male characters, the camera eye fixates mainly on the female anatomy.

What messages do these programs communicate to our children? They are not overtly violent in the 'blood and guts' sense of the word. They don't display graphic sex acts or contain coarse language which might offend viewers. Yet there is a profoundly perverse and potentially harmful ideology which permeates these types of shows.

Such programs will escape the all-seeing eye of the V-chip censors because they don't bludgeon us like the unpretentious trash TV shows do. Instead, they kill us softly with their more subtle, insidious message - that anything short of physical perfection, as embodied in pop culture's finely-sculpted male and female icons, is worthless.

Unfortunately, society's cult of the body obsession produces sideshow freaks like the Barbie doll wannabe who had her body surgically altered more than 20 times. Less bizarre, though just as tragic, are adolescent females who starve themselves to achieve unattainable body shapes. Or males who carelessly risk the damaging side effects of excessive steroid use to achieve abnormal, G.Q.-like muscular physiques.

The quixotic world of commercial television perpetuates the myth that nirvana can be achieved by purchasing the latest gizmo or tonic. That we will somehow be magically transformed into Pamela Andersons and David Hasselhoffs by correctly following the instructions on the package.

In such a world, self-worth hinges not on one's character but on perfectly shaped abdominals, blemish-free complexions or lustrous hair. Is it little wonder that many of our adolescents increasingly express a disturbing contempt for their own bodies?

For the first time in its 80 year history, Vogue is going to feature fat models in its glossy magazine. This in response to Swiss watchmaker Omega's announcement to drop its advertisements from Vogue because of their "skeletal" models.

Whether other fashion magazines or TV programs will follow Vogue's refreshing lead is questionable. One thing is certain; unless we begin to see through the mirage, corporations will continue to profit by exploiting our fears and insecurities. Or as the 20th century philosopher, Bertrand Russell, observed, we need to develop "defenses against the seductions of eloquence".

Like Achilles, we, too, are constantly in danger of falling victim to our own vulnerability \- when we fail to realize that true beauty is ultimately found within.

Out of Class: Education is so much more than reading, writing and arithmetic

October 28, 1996

If you don't think teachers can make learning boring, you underestimate the power of education.

"O.K. class, turn to page 59 and together we'll read about how the Algonquin Indians lived hundreds of years ago."

A holistic and relevant education must incorporate some real-life adventures. Invariably, this sometimes involves risk-taking outside the boundaries of traditional school buildings and school hours.

When asked their favorite memories of elementary or high school, many adults point to experiences outside of the four walls of the classroom. They fondly remember field trips run by caring teachers who all had one belief in common - that education was much more than a basic understanding of the three R's.

With all of the cutbacks occurring in education these days, one has to wonder if the learning which takes place outside of the confines of the classroom will also fall victim to the axes of the political czars in the Ministry of Education.

In my teaching career, I have been privileged to have accompanied students during some of the most valuable learning experiences of their lives. One such event was our school's four-day, Grade 12 canoeing camping trip to Algonquin Park.

The knowledge gained by generations of high school students, who've experienced wilderness trips over the years, cannot be gleaned from a textbook. Book learning alone cannot adequately prepare our children for life or truly convey the daunting physical hardships endured by our forbearers.

Only after they actually feel the oppressive weight of a 16-foot canoe or heavy pack on their backs, after hours of strenuous hiking, do students come to appreciate the comforts they often take for granted. Four days and nights of vigorous canoeing, portaging and camping in the autumn wilderness quickly spawns a keen yearning for a hot shower and cosy bed.

The haunting call of a loon at daybreak or rhythmic sound of autumn leaves rustling in the wind must be witnessed first-hand to be truly appreciated. Not even the most sophisticated computer of CD ROM technology can begin to capture the profound natural beauty of a mist-shrouded morning lake or star-studded night sky.

In the midst of the quiet majesty and serenity of the natural surroundings, you can sense the transformation taking place in the students. Having spend most of their lives in suburban comfort, they are awakened, in part, to the stark reality and natural beauty of the life of their ancestors.

The students quickly learn to work together out of necessity to overcome the many challenges posed by the natural world. Rocky, uneven, mud-soaked terrain, narrow, twisting waterways and beaver dams must all be navigated with care if the obstacles are to be overcome.

When pushed to their limits, shy, insecure students often surprise themselves with new-found talents and innate resources they never knew existed. To paraphrase the German philosopher, Nietzsche, these students begin to see that, that which doesn't destroy them, makes them stronger.

They also learn that in order to live in harmony with the environment, they must respect its sheer power and nurture its awe-inspiring beauty. They begin to see what their ancestors understood - that they are part of a greater, divine force which emphasizes they sacredness and interconnectedness of all living things.

Though the winds of change are dramatically revamping the face of the education system in Ontario, one can only hope that those who truly value education will never abandon the struggle to expand the minds, hearts and spirits of students beyond the limits of the traditional classroom.

If we want our children to be prepared for the many obstacles they will encounter in life, then we must also continue to demand that the education system be both relevant and meaningful. Failure to do so would rob our children of the opportunities many of us have benefited from and of fond memories of their school years.

Senseless violence is the offspring of freedom of choice over social responsibility

May 27, 1998

Whenever graphic scenes of the 'crazed killer story of the month' bleed and scream at us across the media landscape - we lose our innocence.

And when the killers increasingly turn out to be preteens whose voices have yet to change or who still haven't attended their first high school prom, we recoil with moral indignation and disbelief and ask, "why?".

Many point accusing fingers at television, film and multimedia executives who pay underlings handsomely to produce and maintain a bloody river of gratuitous violence, accessible to the public mind 24 hours-a-day. This kind of accusation, though popular, is hardly new.

Film, TV and music producers have long taken a barrage of public relations hits from various groups concerned about the negative effects of 'make-believe' and real violence on viewers. The furor over the rights of the producers of 'extreme fighting' to beam their blood sport via satellite into Canadian homes is only the latest battle in this ongoing saga.

Nonetheless, entertainment conglomerate CEO's vehemently defend their right to give the viewing public exactly what it wants, serial killer of the week TV dramas and the latest pay-per-view punch-ups.

Others cast a self-righteous, glance toward our American neighbors to the south. In the land of the free and the home of the NRA (National Rifle Association), is it any surprise, after all, that the ubiquitous 354 magnum has forever shattered and indelibly stained the innocent pane of childhood?

Incorporated in 1871 to provide firearms training and encourage interest in the shooting sports, the NRA has grown into an insatiable lobby which requires an annual budget of approximately $80 million.

Yet, to amend the American constitution, which staunchly defends the right of every American to keep and bear arms, one would require the combined moral courage of a Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the political clout of the President and a solid majority in the House of Representatives. No small task.

Unfortunately, we all know what happens to such moral visionaries; they often become our fallen heroes, cut down by cowardly assassins by the very violence they abhor. To many cynical Canadians, America now is simply reaping the whirlwind of the violent seeds sown during the nation's painful birth in 1776.

So how do those of us above the 49th parallel explain away the Marc Lepine's or Clifford Olson's whose evil deeds are every bit as heinous as their American counterparts? Or the scores of Canadian women who die violently at the hands of their male partners each year?

Still, our social scientists and psychologists would have us believe that family breakdown or traumatic childhood experiences are the root causes of our episodic, insanely deviant behavior. In this paradigm, victimization is king - where many parents have selfishly sacrificed their children on the altar of 'irreconcilable differences'.

Their studies point to children from dysfunctional families who lack the economic framework and discipline offered by homes headed by two parents. Bludgeoned by economic cutbacks and scapegoated by right wing governments as social leeches, dazed single-parents surrender their latchkey children to the sleazy outer limits of 'Jerry Springerland'.

Medical science would tend to target recessive genes or other congenital neurological deficiencies as the basis of sudden, irrational violent outbursts. But to assign blame to one particular public enemy for random acts of real violence is to miss the point. In this permissive, 'give me liberty to choose or give me death' society, freedom of choice is superseding the equally important concept of social responsibility.

Paradoxically, this 'freedom' to choose often comes at the expense of those adversely affected by such choices. Just ask the families of the young victims of the Springfield, Oregon shooting.

Placing blame is an act of self-delusion which robs all of us of the opportunity to glimpse the bigger picture. Amid the array of tantalizing choices we often lose all perspective. Our 'right' to choose becomes the core of our value system as our moral centre quickly crumbles.

Conveniently ascribing blame to forces beyond ourselves relieves us of guilt and personal responsibility. Hence, many of us suffer from 'Seinfeld syndrome' - the conscious desire to avoid intimate relationships and responsibility by remaining detached from our neighbors.

We must be courageous enough to take the initiative to make socially responsible choices because the right to choose is indeed sacred. One need only look to the determined people of Northern Ireland for inspiration and hope. Sickened by decades of bitter sectarian violence, many Irish citizens are working together to assure that peace will finally break out.

Unless we also do some soul-searching of our own - we will continue to spawn our share of Canadian psychos and witness senseless acts of brutality which rob us all of our innocence.

Gruesome Release: Now people can watch John F. Kennedy being killed over and over again

July 24, 1998

While many young people will be thrilled to find a copy of the movie Titanic in their Christmas stocking this year, a significant number of 'boomers' are just as likely to discover and treasure their own copy of arguably the most famous home movie of the century.

The brutal assassination of US president John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 is indelibly seared into the collective psyches of those old enough to remember the day Camelot came crashing down. But it was Dallas businessman, Abraham Zapruder, whose 16 mm Bell and Howell movie camera captured the gruesome event during 26 horrifying seconds. Zapruder, who died in 1970, was reportedly so stricken by the experience that he never quite got over it.

Concerned that his film be handled tastefully, Zapruder sold the rights to Life Magazine for $150,000 in 1963. Due to the anti-Semitism in Dallas at the time, and on advice from his lawyer, Zapruder agreed to donate the first year's installment of $25,000 to the family of the policeman murdered by Lee Harvey-Oswald.

Zapruder's family initially demanded a cool $18.5 million for the film in compensation when the United States government takes control of it later this month.

But in an even more daring and macabre move likely to cause Abraham to spin in his grave, the Zapruders have also had the original film transferred to videotape and digital video disc which is now on sale to anyone across the U.S..

Undoubtedly, the prospect of repeatedly watching enhanced color images of President Kennedy's head explode will prove to be all too enticing for a spectacle-driven public. Clearly, from a purely financial standpoint, this video is sheer marketing genius and a demographer's dream.

The political intrigue and paranoia surrounding the Kennedy murder has an alluring 'Xfiles-like' aura which permeates current pop culture fare. From aging JFK conspiracy theorists - to curious preteens weaned on a constant diet of 'in your face' media violence - young and old alike will clamor to get their hands on a copy of the video containing grizzly images of the crime of the century.

Yet aside from lining the pockets of the Zapruders, and adding to the mega-dollar JFK memorabilia industry, what possible good could come from such a shrewd and tactless venture?

Just how will society benefit by allowing the average citizen to view the cold-blooded killing of a president? Will access by a mass audience to the film increase the chances of discovering the definitive 'truth' about who killed Kennedy? Or will the unlimited release of the video spawn a few deranged, trigger-happy assassin wannabes?

Almost 30 years after Kennedy's murder, Oliver Stone's 1991 hit film, JFK, was instrumental in rekindling interest in and shaping an entire generation's views concerning the Kennedy assassination. Based mainly on New Orleans DA Jim Garrison's book, On the trail of the Assassins, the film contradicts the official Warren Commission finding that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman.

One of Garrison's central arguments supporting a conspiracy involves the most disturbing, chilling frames of the Zapruder film. These enhanced frames show Kennedy's head exploding while snapping violently backwards. This fact, many believe, indicates a second shot coming from the front.

Other experts have equally plausible scientific theories which offer another view. They argue that, consistent with a shot from behind, the resulting incredible force of brain matter erupting from Kennedy's head probably caused him to lurch backwards at the instant of impact.

Still, there are those who firmly believe that the Zupruder film is an historical document which should remain exclusively in the hands of experts trained to examine and determine its societal relevance and value.

As our American neighbors begin to scoop up copies of Zapruder's film and before an inevitable Canadian release ensues, perhaps it is only fitting that we also carefully consider the following words of John F. Kennedy, "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."

In our politically cynical society of the 90's, where crass media-hype and commercialism rule the day, one redeeming grace is that we still have a choice. That ultimately, in a free and democratic society, the people should be allowed to decide for themselves to what extent the truth is really out there.

We get the message

November 19, 1998

The late world-renowned mass media guru and former University of Toronto professor, Marshall McLuhan, must be spinning in his grave right about now.

But the visionary man who is most famous for revolutionary insights on mass communication and coining the phrase, "the medium is the message", would likely also view the provincial government's decision to remove the stand alone media literacy credit in Ontario high schools as a truly teachable moment in history.

Last summer, behind closed doors, while teachers and students were recovering from unprecedented cutbacks in education, the media literacy credit was quietly terminated by the Harris Tories.

If there was ever any doubt as to the insidious nature of the Tories' modus operandi, it was soundly dashed when ministry of education spokeswomen, Danielle Gauvin, confirmed that media literacy would no longer be offered as a separate course in any of Ontario's secondary schools.

The elimination of the media literacy credit is not only an attack on our students' freedom of choice, but is also an assault on the crucial democratic concept of critical thought itself.

Having endured a sound political drubbing over its handling of education and health care, the trashing of the media literacy credit appears to be part of a public relations Maginot Line the Tories are desperately constructing to shield themselves from further public disdain.

A hallmark of media literacy, especially in advertising, is that what audiences don't see is what they get. In other words, it is the subtext or underlying value messages implicit within media texts, such as print and television ads or programs, which often work their magic on a media-saturated public already battling 'media fatigue syndrome'.

What probably worries the provincial Tories is that thousands of media literate students, who were encouraged by media teachers to think for themselves, will one day be media savvy adults. Hence, these discerning citizens will possess the ability to see through and recognize the glossy, expensive, publicly-funded TV spots and print ads for what they are - infommercials short on substance but long on emotional appeal.

Granted, as part of its secondary school reform initiative, the Tories have decided to make media studies one of four strands - also including literature, language and writing, in the mandatory English core program.

This proposal is inadequate, though, for the following reasons. Most teachers of English have not be trained in media literacy education. As a result, the media component of the government's proposed English program will: get short shrift by teachers who are uncomfortable examining popular culture, be dealt with on a diluted, superficial level only, or be left out altogether.

Media literacy is not a frivolous frills course, but fundamental to the notion of critical, analytical thought itself. For 28 years media has been offered as a stand-alone credit in Ontario high schools. Ontario is the envy and leader of the academic world because of its ground-breaking inroads into media literacy education during the last two decades.

At a time when, by graduation, the average high school student will have spent more time in front of the television than in the classroom, we should all be lobbying for more media literacy credits across the curriculum, not foolishly snuffing out the only one we've ever had.

It has been my experience teaching media literacy during the past decade that the media course is extremely popular with students. They often feel empowered by the knowledge that, despite being immersed in and bombarded by pop culture on a daily basis, they can retain and exert some control of their own. They come to realize that they are not just mindless consumers and target audiences, but critical thinkers who begin to understand, in many ways, that they truly are a result what they watch.

The ubiquitous government ads, which cleverly employ the 'soft sell' technique in marketing the changes to education occurring in Ontario, make a very dubious claim - that our political leaders are putting students first.

If they were genuinely concerned about the welfare of our students, they would have taken the time and effort necessary to allow them to formally voice their opinions about the value of the media literacy credit before deciding to quietly kill it. It's not a lot to ask.

But then they may have discovered much to their chagrin, that the underlying emotional appeals in their costly ads had missed the mark. That, ultimately, they failed to massage and manipulate the critical minds of free-thinking media literate students.

Ironically, it may just take such 'teachable moments' to create the public will to elect leaders who will make critical thinking and media literacy a priority by restoring it to full credit status. Perhaps then McLuhan will finally be able to enjoy the rest he so richly deserves.

Who's boss? The media . . . or us?

March 31, 1999

Throughout most of his life, fictional character Truman Burbank in the film, The Truman Show, is blissfully unaware that his life is being tightly-scripted and broadcast live to a captive audience.

From the first invasive stare of a womb-cam, to the thousands of hidden cameras which end up recording his every move, Truman eventually discovers that he is the central, 'real-life' star, trapped in the world's most popular TV drama.

But, it isn't until he consciously rejects the sugar-coated comfort of the predictable environment created for him by his director and adoptive father, that Truman truly tastes freedom.

Unfortunately, like Truman, many of today's consumers are unwitting thralls to the latest forms of entertainment and the incessant flood of commercial messages which often accompany them. From video game and television addiction, to eating disorders and 'brand-nameitis', our youth, especially, are exposed to the potentially harmful fallout from our society's obsession with the entertainment media.

Consumer research from 1996 indicates that, by age 18, an average teen will have seen 350,000 commercials with 1/3 of them advertising beer. Since the introduction of the 'Joe' (cartoon camel) advertising campaign for Camel cigarettes in 1988, sales of Camel cigarettes to those under 18 are estimated to have increased from $6 million to $476 million annually.

25% of all prime-time and weekend daytime commercials advertise food, 50% of which is "junk" food. Small wonder then that the producers of Disney movies and greasy hamburgers obliterate many local churches when it comes to weekly attendance figures.

Ironically, at a time when junk food advertising and sales appear to be at an all-time high, young girls are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images of thin, electronically and synthetically-enhanced models. Consequently, an increasing number of preteen girls are dissatisfied with their bodies while many of their mothers opt for cosmetic embellishments to stave off the inevitable physics of aging.

Liposuction, facelifts and silicone implants are a just few of a host of surgical procedures used to shape the female form to fit the unnatural 'Baywatch beauty standard'. Our preoccupation with our physical selves, ensures that the diet, cosmetics and cosmetic surgery industries remain well over $53 billion (world-wide).

The recent pay-per-view heavyweight boxing sham, featuring Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield, makes clear that it is the public who are packaged and sold to the highest bidder. The Don Kings of the entertainment world, through slick and shameless promotion, also help fuel the entertainment beast.

Many people who paid to see the fight were justifiably indignant at being insulted by the bogus result. Yet, how many millions of other potential paying customers could honestly say they weren't also somewhat seduced by the usual pre-fight shtick and gratuitous media hype?

Many of today's youth also like to believe they are free-thinkers who are not easily influenced by the waves of commercial messages which wash over them daily. Yet, in the same breath, many also admit to purchasing popular brand name products in lieu of less trendy, inexpensive items.

Are consumers truly free to make their own entertainment decisions or are their choices restricted by an increasing concentration of ownership and control?

Today's teenagers represent a multi-billion dollar dream market for media empires like Time-Warner Inc.. Undoubtedly, a tantalizing and lucrative target audience for the latest video games, movies, music videos, CD's and glossy magazines.

Ultimately, these entertainment conglomerates control much of what audiences choose to consume. A movie released by Time-Warner could be promoted on its cable TV networks, or through its book and magazine companies.

At the beginning and at the end of the media studies course I teach, I ask my students this question. Do you control the media or does the media control you?

We are all, at times, oblivious to the seamless structures which often exact an invisible, insidious toll on us. But, like Truman Burbank, we, too, have the power to refuse to be manipulated by the enticing forces of popular culture that sometimes oppress us, every time we choose between life and amusing ourselves to death.

Complicity

Media circus around disasters like Littleton just contribute to these violent dramas

May 7, 1999

On the day that thirteen people were shot dead in a Littleton, Colorado high school, some of my media students were debating which would come first, the made-for-TV movie or Hollywood film.

Such brash cynicism indicates that our children have internalized the first commandment of media literacy - that most media products are constructions created for commercial profit.

Today we pray for the victims of Kosovo, Littleton and Taber. Where will the blood from next week's carnage flow? Who will be the fresh, unsuspecting victims? Regrettably, many of us will, once again, get sucked into the maelstrom of morbid media coverage.

Even as the blood-stained memories from the Littleton shootout begin to fade, you can almost hear media conglomerate CEO's salivating over the sordid boon of juicy profits. Glossy images of contorted, grief-wracked faces and dollar signs from mega-newspaper, magazine and movie-of-the-week deals must be dancing in their heads.

Today's journalists are dispatched at sonic speeds to the gory grounds of the latest war zone - be it a bullet-riddled school cafeteria or a charred village in the Balkans.

No expense is spared as miles of cable is uncoiled and convoys of microwave trucks compete for precious space and satellite uplinks. Exorbitantly-paid network anchors primp and preen as average 'citizens-to-be-celebrities' pine for live, exclusive interviews.

We indulge in a ritualistic form of emotional masturbation whenever the camera lens records each sickening horror. Yet, we also can't avoid the inevitable guilt as we voluntarily gawk at the human 'road kill' and share the macabre media sideshow with the neighbors in our global village.

Many people have expressed outrage and indignation at the gratuitous media coverage of the Littleton tragedy and the resultant copy-cat events it has spawned. But make no mistake. We delude ourselves when we think that our hands are not also splattered with innocent blood.

It's time we pull back and realize that we are all accomplices in these violent outbursts. Every time we turn on the nightly news or purchase the daily paper, we fuel the carnivorous mass- consumption of such bloody deeds.

Anyone who buys or rents violent video games, CD's or movies contributes to the rampant 'cult of violence' in our permissive society. Although there is little hard evidence linking make-believe violence with real violence, some studies do indicate a clear link between a steady diet of violent entertainment fare and desensitization in its consumers.

The Chicago Sun Times took the admirable step of not splashing the Littleton massacre on its front page. This is a relatively small, though, positive sign that media producers respond to public opinion. But sensitive, responsible journalism is just one piece of a more convoluted puzzle.

Whenever we are too busy or tired, at the end of the day, to engage in meaningful dialogue with our children, we sow the seeds of resentment and alienation which, if unchecked, can lead to senseless acts of violence.

As education and health care budgets are slashed, less money is available for youth care workers and social programs which may help prevent another angry teenager from self-destructing.

Each time a teacher or student turns a blind eye to the daily verbal taunts directed at the less popular kids, the nightmare of a Littleton or Taber becomes more of a reality.

Given the glut of media coverage of horrific incidents like the one in Littleton and the proliferation of deadly, accessible weapons in our society, it's amazing that more disaffected youth don't go beserk.

But the implosion of a human being, much like the moral decline of an entire culture, is incremental by nature and often difficult to discern. Ultimately, unless we acknowledge and accept responsibility for our own complicity in these violent dramas - we can never hope to free our own children from the dark, sinister forces that lurk deep beneath the surface of every human heart.

Kennedy Tragedy

July 21, 1999

Ever since president John F. Kennedy hired a filmmaker to capture and construct idyllic images of his youthful, vibrant family, an entire generation's emotions have ebbed and flowed with the Kennedy family's saga.

From Oval Office shots of 'John John' mischievously peering out from under his father's presidential desk, to glimpses of glory days of the family romping aboard the yacht at the Kennedy compound, an adoring, insatiable public has soaked up every image and sound bite.

Why have so many people around the world been so profoundly impacted by such a privileged and pampered quasi-royal family?

Granted, not everyone embraced the Kennedy clan. Many people have dubbed them aloof and elitest and viewed them through less than rose-coloured lens. The horrific murders of two of their brightest stars, JFK and brother Bobby, at the apex of their lives, brutally drove home this sobering fact. Yet the chilling echo of an assassin's gunfire and the haunting shrieks of shocked bystanders, also served to immortalize the brothers.

These craven acts designed to obliterate the Kennedy mystique, paradoxically, helped to forever solidify their place in the sacred hall of martyrdom. But the roots of the universal Kennedy appeal and charisma go much deeper than this.

The recent tragic loss of JFK Jr also resonates profoundly for so many, because, like his martyred uncles before him, John Jr had not yet reached his full potential. This regrettable reality, coupled with the fact that the Kennedys have suffered a biblical number of Jobian calamities, only moves one to more tears.

Yet, for millions of people, JFK Jr will always be the innocent three-year-old whose indelible, heart-wrenching salute to his slain father's casket is burned in their psyches. This colorless freeze-frame is laden with nostalgia. It evokes in us all our vulnerable inner child and unleashes a torrent of emotions and thoughts which together cry out, 'there but for the grace of God'.

Perhaps the most enduring and meaningful legacy of the Kennedys, in spite of their obvious glamour and material wealth, resides in their generous and fiercely competitive spirit.

In that tradition of public service imbued in the Kennedys, JFK Jr founded Reaching Up, an organization which provides educational opportunities for those with special needs and chronic disabilities.

The Kennedy's, whose every fatal flaw was exposed and magnified for the world to see, also lived by the strong conviction that service is its own reward.

JFK realized this when he created the Peace Corps to help people abroad and eventually recognized that as long as one man is enslaved because of the colour of his skin, that an entire nation is not free.

RFK conveyed this philosophy to his children after witnessing, first-hand, the abject poverty in the southern United States during his campaign for the presidency in the late 1960's.

By courting positive press coverage and a mythic media image in the early years of his presidency, JFK successfully created an American Camelot.

And an adoring public, ripe for hero-worship, naively fed upon the visual feast of lavishly scripted and controlled images.

As millions mourn the untimely deaths of JFK Jr, his beautiful wife and her sister - let's remember that, for the most part, unlike his father, JFK Jr. shunned the incessant glare of media coverage.

We pay tribute to him by acknowledging that, ultimately, John John was, in many respects, just an ordinary boy born into a very extraordinary family.

No Laughing Matter

November 11, 1999

What do a disembodied female mannequin's head, with the words "help me" quote scrawled backwards across it, and a bruising wrestler named Al Snow have in common? Their synthetic likenesses were recently body-slammed of f the shelves of Wal-Mart stores across North America.

Just when you think our cultural landscape could not tolerate another twisted marketing ploy, along comes a lurid act that should have even the most timid among us enraged. "Summer Slam" 99: Road Rage Al Snow is the latest gimmick in the WWF's (World Wrestling Federation) quest to accelerate its obsession with sex and violence to a new and lethal level.

The Road Rage Al Snow action figure is modeled after the performer who carries a female mannequin's head into the wrestling ring. After losing some of his matches, Al Snow has been known to slap this Barbie-like head in fits of mock rage.

As if this misogynistic shtick were not degrading enough, in a blatant reference to oral sex, Snow routinely baits his rabid fans with the question, "what does everybody want?" to which they enthusiastically chant, "head".

Incredibly, Jim Byrne, WWF vice-president for marketing, defended the doll, which was recommended for children ages 4 and older, by stating that "Al Snow's act with the mannequin is as silly as it gets, loads of fun". Some could rightfully argue that this article is free publicity for the WWF and its controversial Al Snow action figure. So why shed light on an issue that may eventually die off under the weight of its own inanity? We owe it to victims like Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy to oppose the conditions in our culture that affirm behavior that trivializes violence against women.

We have a responsibility to honor the memories of the 14 female, Montreal massacre victims. Each one had a face and name. Each died needlessly at the hands of men who embodied the cancerous anti-feminine attitude that now disguises itself as entertainment fare. It's time we held the men responsible for their behavior. Perhaps it's time for those who profit the most from this type of fun, to enjoy trying to convince the (according to one recent Canadian survey) fifty percent of all women who have experienced at least one incident of violence since age 16 - to laugh it up too.

Or maybe they should try selling their warped sense of humour to the approximately twenty-five percent of all women who have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a marital partner. They'd also likely have a challenging time convincing the hardened victims at the numerous, overcrowded and under-funded women's shelters across the continent of their unique brand of comedy.

Better yet, perhaps they should be required to justify the marketing of their Road Rage action figures to the bereaved family members of Marc Lepine's and Paul Bernardo's victims.

Packaging and hawking political incorrectness is a disturbing and lucrative trend that currently helps defines the global, multi-billion dollar WWF juggernaut. We all know that the mayhem in and out of the ring is scripted and cleverly constructed. But what is the lesson being taught to our children, male and female, when the violence and victimization is framed within the cozy context of entertainment?

Like a politically incorrect joke, violence, real or manufactured, becomes more acceptable when cloaked in humour. We conveniently shirk any social responsibility for such acts by sweetening them with television laugh tracks. Or convince ourselves that being in on the joke also somehow makes us immune to the consequences of our harmful attitudes.

Yet to ban anything that may potentially offend one's definition of obscenity is clearly not the answer. Michael Angelo's David or entire sections of the Holy Bible, among a host of other cultural artifacts, would likely raise the ire of a legion of groups or individuals opposed to nudity or gratuitous violence.

No, the best way to curb the media's fixation with the standard 'nubile female as victim of choice' motif is to lay a ten percent 'surtax smack down' (SSD) on all repeat offenders. The surtax would kick in only after, say, television, movie or record company owners and producers refused to clean up any obvious images or language which consistently degraded women. Video game and toy makers would also be subject to this mandatory SSD.

If after ignoring an initial warning by the SSD police, an offender refused to comply with the regulation, a surtax would automatically be levied. The money would then be credited to organizations that help female victims of violence and to education programs designed to re-sensitize the creators and purveyors of blatantly obscene material. It wouldn't be long before some entertainment conglomerate CEO's felt the sting of a shrinking bottom-line and begin to police themselves.

For now, we have people like Sabrena Parton, assistant professor of communications at Kenesaw State University and a manager of a Wal-Mart in Cartersville, Georgia, to thank for their complaints of how the Road Rage Al Snow action figures make light of violence against women.

It's time we let the people responsible for providing this new brand of humor know that we are not amused; otherwise, we may continue down the road to laughing ourselves to death.

Resolve to make more snow angels

Dec. 26, 2000

What Canadian adult cannot remember the simple childhood joy of creating a snow angel? Or recall the fascination of seeing an angelic image appear, as if by magic, from thrashing about on the cold snowy ground?

About a year ago, many of us were too preoccupied with and paralyzed by Y2K angst to either, reflect on childhood memories, or seriously ponder the year that lay ahead. If you recall, all the media hype had, even the most optimistic among us, hoarding provisions and hunkering down in our basement bunkers like Mad Max Road Warriors.

Y2K bug anxiety became a financial bonanza for enterprising computer wizards and crafty Chicken Littles. Thankfully, the industrialized world avoided the widely heralded computer meltdown. Now that the sting has been taken out of the Y2K bug, it's time to leave the dark, post-apocalyptic visions behind and focus on the redemptive power of a well-chosen New Year's resolution.

The real beauty of every January first is that we can choose to view the new year as a blanket of freshly fallen snow, upon which each of us can carve our individual snow angels.

I'd like to dedicate my final community column to all those souls who are in need of a little levity and the healing potential of rebirth that this time of year provides. As the spirit of the year 2000 slowly fades, I'd like to share with you some of my serious and not so serious personal resolutions for 2001. In 2001 I resolve to:

Never again utter or write the term Y2K, unless of course someone offers me a lucrative book or movie-of-the-week deal relating to Y2K.

Use the word 'Survivor' - only as it relates to people who are really struggling to survive.

Not waste my time watching any athletes who are paid thousands of dollars per minute - unless I am really, really bored or it is playoff time.

Donate my next government tax rebate cheque to a political party genuinely dedicated to solving the affordable housing crisis. (This may take a while.)

Listen to at least one Blink 182 song (one my oldest daughter's favorite music groups), instead of blinking in disbelief 182 times after receiving my post-Christmas credit card statement.

Watch the classic Christmas films 'A Christmas Carol' and 'It's A Wonderful Life' at least five times. (This is to help counteract the effects of five years of the government's 'Grinch-like' cutbacks to Ontario's once-renowned social safety net.)

Avoid anything Harry Potter-related, unless of course my ten-year-old daughter asks me to read something from her Harry Potter collection to her.

Never get sucked in by another Y2K-type scam. (See previous Y2K resolution.)

Listen to as many Judy Garland songs (one of my childhood idols) as possible.

Put more crazy stickers on my students' assignments.

Join my children in making snow angels.

Listen to at least one John Lennon song and do something in my community to promote peace.

Avoid anything remotely related to the World Wrestling Federation- unless I am really, really bored and the playoffs are over.

Rent as many videos as possible, to get caught up on all the movies I couldn't afford to see at the theater.

Watch Stanley Kubrick's classic film '2001: A Space Odyssey'. (The apes at the beginning crack me up.)

Save a least one tree by asking Ontario health minister, Elizabeth Witmer, to recycle the paper used from all the cheques issued to hospitals during the past few years.

Never surrender to the rebellious trend of wearing my baseball cap sideways (I currently wear it backwards.) Freak windstorms excluded.

Visit the spectacular 'wonders of winter' light displays in Waterloo Park. (We could all use a lot more light at this time of year.)

Strive to raise more money for meningitis research (2nd annual Michael Longo Memorial Golf Classic) than was raised during our inaugural tournament in 2000.

What will your snow angel look like? What kind of mark or gift will you resolve to leave behind in your family and community in the year ahead? Seize the day and let the odyssey in 2001 begin!

The poor and dispossessed need our help

March 20, 2000

The late American senator, Robert F. Kennedy, once said that every time a person stands up for an ideal, or works to improve the lot of others, or battles injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope.

So it goes with the hundreds of unsung front line social activists and countless dedicated volunteers, who toil daily on behalf of the poor and dispossessed in our community.

Unfortunately, advocates for such basic necessities as decent affordable housing and a living wage, face a backlash of public resentment that threatens to paralyze them and those citizens least able to defend themselves.

Today's social lepers are families on welfare, who have been bludgeoned by severe budget cuts. They are the disaffected, whose minds, bodies and spirits have been warped by years of chronic abuse and neglect. They fall through the cracks and drift aimlessly from one shelter to the next.

They are the nearly homeless; the myriad of families and seniors teetering on the edge, who, tragically, must often decide between paying the rent or feeding themselves. Most do not cheat the system; yet, once they are painted with the same broad brush, are widely perceived as doing so.

They all suffer the wrath incurred by vindictive new welfare laws. A cruel, selective form of justice that, conveniently, excludes wealthy tax cheats who bury white-collared crimes in bureaucratic loopholes.

It's time to shed some light on those who help lessen the burden and ease the pain of the outcasts in this community and beyond. These people are not superhuman. Nor do they harbor any mysterious powers the rest of us are somehow denied.

They are our friends and neighbors. They are our husbands and wives, our brothers and sisters. They are our parents and grandparents. They are our children; the idealistic youth from the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions that traverse and enrich this vibrant, diverse tapestry called Waterloo region.

They voluntarily organize numerous food and clothing drives to help sustain our needy neighbors, as well as victims of natural disasters and war in countries such as Kosovo and Nicarauga.

They spearhead inner-city walks, solidarity fasts and anti-racism campaigns. They help their peers glimpse what it must be like to experience poverty, persecution and discrimination, while walking a mile in the shoes of the disenfranchised.

They are the numerous volunteers for the organization, Habitat For Humanity, who strive to make housing more affordable. They are the generous local high school students helping lower-income families build their own homes, by giving them a hand up, not just a hand out.

As a millennium project at my own school, students raised over $10,000 in just two weeks. Enough to construct a decent house for a destitute family from Central America, whose lives were ravaged by Hurricane Mitch.

A plethora of other such charitable deeds by selfless individuals abound but often go unheralded in this community. These people have responded to Pope John Paul II's Jubilee challenge to 'lift up the downtrodden and set prisoners free'. They are our own local heroes who deserve our collective praise, prayers and support.

But despite these laudable acts - recent local and provincial reports clearly indicate that poverty is getting worse. We must act now and demand that our provincial and federal governments join forces with private industry to create a national millennium project.

We must assign our brightest people and resources to help solve the affordable housing crisis and break the vicious cycle of poverty now threatening to decimate the most vulnerable members in our society.

We cannot leave the poor behind, as social safety nets are gutted and sacrificed on the altar of global competition. We can no longer afford to wash our hands of this social and moral travesty or defer this attainable dream.

Imagine the possibilities if we could harness and unify the million centers of energy and daring displayed by all those caring individuals truly making a difference, here, and in communities across this great country.

We would then be well on our way to transforming the tiny ripples of hope of which Kennedy spoke, into a surging current of hope, capable of sweeping down the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice.

'Reality' television isolates us from reality

July 27, 2000

If you haven't bothered to tune in yet to find out who is actually left on Survivor Island or who just got tossed from the Big Brother house, chances are you're missing out on some riveting water cooler conversations at your workplace.

Given the fragmentation of today's media-saturated audiences and the relentless pursuit by network CEO's for market share, it is no surprise that pseudo-reality type TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother are now in vogue.

The underlying premise of Survivor, a mixture of 'Lord of the Flies meets Baywatch, meets Who wants to be a Millionaire', is to be the last one standing on the island in order to collect the one million dollar booty.

Though ostensibly about teamwork (tribes) and healthy competition (games), the show really fosters individual greed and paranoia. The inhabitants conduct weekly votes to soundly turf one another off the island.Big Brother, CBS's attempt to counter the mass appeal of Survivor, tracks the mundane exploits of its ten inhabitants, the last of whom will also collect a cool one million dollars.

Its lack of originality, coupled with its 'survival of the least offensive character' voting system, is voyeurism at its tedious worst. How exciting can it be to watch banal 'highlights', captured on videotape by Big Brother's omnipresent house cams, of whiny houseguests, methodically brushing and teasing their hair?

What is rather disturbing, though, is the way in which these so-called 'reality' shows reflect some of the darker values and attitudes prevalent in the culture at large. Alliances on these programs form more out of cynicism and self-preservation than compassion for neighbor. The gossip and backstabbing that one finds in the typical workplace are alive and thriving in this new TV genre.

Still, this is not just gawking at O.J. in the back of the Bronco while chasing him down the freeway, or watching Springer goad and bait the pathetic, froth-mouthed freaks on his inane sideshow.

Television executives must face the intimidating, hypnotic allure of high-resolution video games, which encourage players to select their own life-like characters and scenarios. They are up against a daunting form of amusement that teems with Internet chat rooms and pulsates to the booming bass of the hottest MP3 files, which can be downloaded, gratis, to the nearest personal computer. All within the time it takes to brew a steaming cup of real java.

So rather than try to slay this chameleon-like entertainment beast, network bosses make peace with it. They create their own special web site that offers an illusory, interactive form of democracy; one that allows the viewer to go online to exercise a virtual vote. To decide, collectively, who gets booted out of the house and, sadly, determine the fate of someone they probably know more intimately than the guy next door.

What is wrong with this picture is that we've gradually morphed into lethal replicas of the Big Brother George Orwell warned us of in his novel 1984. We sit aloof, with computer mice and TV remotes clenched firmly in hand and become, by proxy, stoic arbiters of justice, emperor-like with thumbs upraised or pointed downward.

Rather than getting to know the people next door, we commit sins of omission and further isolate ourselves from our neighbors. We contribute, blindly, to society's next 'nice guy who suddenly snaps' and commits murder-suicide.

We also tune out potential victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, each time we willingly seclude ourselves in the comfort of our home theaters and turn on to TV programs that feed us everything but reality.

Unfortunately, the more the media scrutinizes each horrific incident of real family violence, the more we recoil and seek the solace and sweet narcotizing diversion of television. This vicious cycle makes it even more difficult to break free of the stranglehold that these popular programs have on our lives.

We need to emerge from the security of our electronic cocoons periodically, to help nurture our fellow human beings and revive the souls of our own communities.

It's telling that we still have a long way to go before ridding ourselves of the illogical sense of guilt associated with not being up on the latest pop culture fad or TV show.

What is painfully distressing about our fixation with these fleeting programs, are the countless opportunities squandered to actually make a difference in the lives of those suffering on their own personal islands; ordinary citizens who struggle, daily, to become society's real survivors.

Transforming tragedies into triumphs inspires our communities

Sept. 5, 2000

Nothing generates a banner headline in a daily newspaper or the lead story on the six o'clock news like a tragedy or disaster can.

If you were near a television in 1986, just think of the horrific Challenger space shuttle explosion and chances are you'll remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at the time. The spectacular shuttle memory is burned into our psyches, as a fiery Roman candle, whose white smoky fingers hang eerily in the azure sky of the mind.

In late December of 1997, this community was rocked to its foundation when it tragically lost two talented young teenage girls to an insidious killer. The deaths of 16 year-old Michelle Risi and Melissa Maharaj, 19, sent shock waves of fear and anxiety through thousands of local parents who accompanied their own precious children to scores of make-shift clinics in search of inoculation against meningitis.

On Jan. 3rd of 1998 an Ottawa Citizen headline proclaimed, "Deaths Send Kitchener Kids Flocking For Meningitis Shots". As recently as February 22nd of this year, The Edmonton Sun declared, "Community Shaken By Killer Disease" as Alberta struggled in the throes of another terrifying meningitis outbreak.

It was the death of one of my former students, 19 year-old Michael Longo, in 1995 from meningitis, which prompted his mother, Kathryn Blain, to create the Meningitis Research Foundation of Canada. Out of her own pain and personal anguish was forged a strong desire to help and console other victims affected by this dreaded disease.

Like Risi and Maharaj, Michael's life burned brightly with the passion of possibility. He was a creative editor of the school newspaper and video yearbook and enthusiastically embraced the challenges that came his way. But in May of 1995 Michael's hopes and dreams came to a grinding halt.

But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, this is not the end of the story, or even the beginning of the end; rather, it is merely the end of the beginning. Like Kathryn, I too was inspired to become a member of the Meningitis Research Foundation of Canada. I also recently had the privilege of coordinating the 1st annual Michael Longo Memorial Classic charity golf tournament.

Any doubts I may have had concerning the willingness of people in this community to give to yet another cause, quickly evaporated. Despite being hit upon by countless requests from the multitude of charities in our community, many business owners generously contributed money, gifts and in-kind donations (the Record included) to support our cause. This is particularly admirable considering the lethal effects of the provincial government's downloading of social services on municipalities and local communities.

Through the kind efforts of our many sponsors and volunteers, we were able to raise an incredible $10,000 in our inaugural charity tournament for meningitis research. These deliberate acts of kindness are repeated many times over by thousands of people in this region and in communities across this great country.

By transforming tragedies in triumphs, we continually breathe new life into the spirit of our communities. We draw nearer the light and the divine, whenever we consciously stare down and defeat the dark night of the soul that threatens to consume all of us in our bleakest hours.

The Greek poet, Aeschylus, once wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

During Michael's funeral, his mother Kathryn recalled a friend who momentarily drew her attention to a rainbow stretching across the spring sky. As if in defiance of the death and despair that tried its best to discourage and defeat them, the rainbow beckoned to Michael's family and friends.

It beckons to Michelle and Melissa's families and friends and to all those who lives have been cut short and ravaged by a brutal killer. It is also an affirmation of life and of the fact that beauty is often born of tragedy.

But most of all, the rainbow is a heavenly sign of hope, that, one day, meningitis will no longer terrorize or victimize any community or family.

Literacy Test A Good Idea But Poorly Designed

November 1, 2000

Well before every shiny new automobile rolls off an assembly line on to Ontario's roads, it will have undergone numerous systems and analysis checks. With the aid of sophisticated computer technology, quality control experts will thoroughly inspect and examine thousands of components to ensure a safe, reliable product.

Yet when it comes to the operation of Ontario's education system, where our children's futures are at stake, why do we not demand at least the same attention to detail that is accorded an automobile?

Let's be honest. Common standards and benchmarks in the education system have been lacking for decades. The ministry of education is finally doing the job it should have been doing all along, setting clear, measurable standards for Ontario's students.

The 1994 Royal Commission on Learning merely acted upon the public realization that a certain percentage of students who graduated from high school were, indeed, unable to read or write at an acceptable level. The Harris government deserves credit for implementing the Royal Commission's recommendation that all Ontario students pass a literacy test before graduating from high school.

If nothing else, the test will help to reassure taxpayers that they are getting their money's worth and students are achieving a reasonable level of literacy before receiving their diplomas. But when one seriously begins to dig beneath the surface of the provincial government's quest to test, they'll soon discover some gaping holes in a rather hastily laid foundation.

Ironically, the grade 10 literacy test, though long overdue and well intentioned, may very well cause more harm than good to many of Ontario's students. Since 1995 the government has cut funding for Ontario students by an average of $918 each. The extra teaching load mandated by Education Minister Janet Ecker, via Bill 74, has also caused students across the province to report that they have less access to teachers 'in-between time' for remedial help. Increased teacher workloads also translate into students having about 25 per cent less access to about one half of their instructors.

The new high school curriculum also currently excludes material for struggling 'essential level' kids who make up 15 per cent of the student population. If failing students are not given immediate help to improve, the literacy test could create a stigma that will force these kids to (drop out) leave early.

According to Liberal education critic, Gerard Kennedy, there are no new resources in this year's education budget, only re-announced ones. Hence, testing with no supports or resources for improvement is worse than not testing at all.

Another area of concern involves the disclosure method of the test results. Only those students who fail the test will receive constructive feedback for improvement. What about those who barely pass? Would they not also benefit from some form of constructive feedback?

Who will mark the tests? The ministry, it appears, is now scrambling for the assistance of the very teachers their leader (Mike Harris) has consistently denigrated during his reign in office. How will the test results be interpreted and used? If the bar was set too low, which, from most accounts, appears to be the case, will the Tories parade the above average test scores before the public as a form of self-congratulatory propaganda?

Finally, I fully support the ministry of education's decision to back down from its original position that passing a standardized literacy test would be a graduation requirement for this year's grade 10 students. Any such significant change involving our children's education (my oldest daughter included) should have first been conducted in pilot projects across the province before full implementation.

Common sense dictates that trial runs, supports and resources be put in place before overhauling any system; otherwise you run the risk of experiencing the turmoil the education system in Ontario has undergone during the last five years. The taxpayers and parents of school age children deserve better. It's not a lot to ask.

Only when our politicians are willing to treat our children with at least the same level of regard that autoworkers would give a new car, will our once renowned education system come close to recapturing the international reputation for quality, it had once enjoyed.

New Code of Conduct in Schools

May 15, 2000

What does the popular 1950's TV series, Leave It To Beaver, and the Ontario ministry of education have in common? They both portray a one-dimensional make-believe world, where seemingly complex problems are solved with simplistic solutions.

If you happen to buy into the trendy media stereotype that paints teenagers as rabid gun-toting, Beavis and Butthead clones, who threaten to trash our classrooms and hallways, then chances are you'll love the Harris government's new code of conduct for Ontario's schools.

This much-hyped 'new' code of conduct is really a shameless attempt by the Harris Tories to divert attention from their inadequate funding formula and woo aging baby boomers, who pine for a nostalgic return to a simpler era B.C.C. (Before Columbine, Colorado).

The boring fact is, for the most part, many of our schools are filled with law-abiding Theodore Cleavers. Yes, foul language and disrespect are problems, but hardly surprising when you consider how much profanity, violence and sexual imagery proliferate magazines, television programs, music videos, video games and CD's targeted at our youth.

Codes of conduct, to deal with those young people who do cross the line, are not new and have been quite effective for some time in school boards across the province. The Tories would like many parents to believe that youth violence and crime are rampant, but the statistics just don't bear them out.

Preppy uniforms look impressive and work well in some schools. But if snappy clothing and good behavior are somehow synonymous, as Tory logic suggests, then why, when they were first elected, did Tories in neatly-pressed, dark suits, target defenseless welfare moms, their children's schools and health care for millions of dollars in spending cuts?

Policies, like the pledge of allegiance to the queen, the mandatory singing of our national anthem and giving teachers the power to suspend students, are consistent with the one-size-fits-all, black and white world-view of the provincial conservatives.

This paradigm is dangerous, though, because it is born of a 'policy by focus group' mentality. Such shrewd, tired old political tactics only obscure the truth, by neglecting the nuances and complexities that clash with and confound children every day, in real classrooms.

Many of today's children are innocent victims of a culture that values conspicuous consumption and economic gain over family stability and concern for neighbor. Sadly, an increasing number of Ontario's students also now make up the working poor. They come from homes where the stay-at-home June Cleavers of the world are the exception, not the rule.

For the sake of our children, I propose that we challenge the Ontario Tories to implement and uphold a strict four-point plan or governance code of conduct:

1. Treat welfare recipients with the human dignity and respect they deserve, rather than portraying those on social assistance as parasites. Many Ontario citizens are only a marriage breakup or job loss away from free falling into a badly frayed social safety net.

2. Go out of your way to praise educators for guiding some of the most talented, creative and productive people our province has ever seen, instead of trashing Ontario's teachers and quality public education system. They, like their students, respond favorably to positive reinforcement.

3. Refrain from adopting an in your face, punitive model when dealing with troubled children. Increasing suspensions and building more detention centers will do nothing to address the root causes of the alienation and anger experienced by troubled youths.

4. Allocate serious time and resources to support programs to help prevent youth at risk of dropping out or acting out violently against their peers, teachers or themselves.

We can't afford to wait until the next election before calling our leaders to account. Too many of our children are being used as human guinea pigs in a dangerous political experiment, the results of which may yet haunt us for years to come.

Ultimately, the proposed code of conduct policy for Ontario's schools only panders to anxious prozac-needy parents, who yearn for a mythical golden age of child rearing. A time that really only existed in the antiseptic, benign fantasy world of Ozzy and Harriet and Father Knows Best.

Bill 74 Blatantly Fails Democratic Test

July 7, 2000

In George Orwell's fictional novel, 1984, the state maintained its grip on power by instilling in the minds of its members a thought process called 'doublethink'.

Basically, doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting them both. Phrases such as 'war is peace' and 'freedom is slavery' illustrate this principle.

If you swallowed the recent messages contained in the Tories' costly, taxpayer funded advertisements, you'd think the government actually had the best interests of students at heart. Well, the truth is, they do and they don't.

Education minister Janet Ecker would have the public believe that 'the more time teachers spend in the classroom equals more time with each student'. This is a classic example of doublethink. The recently passed Bill 74, the so-called Education Accountability Act, mandates that high school teachers teach an extra class (more students), not spend more time with the students (3 classes per semester) they already teach.

During the government's crusade to ram controversial Bill 160 through the legislature a couple of years ago, then education minister, Dave Johnson, indicated that Ontario's teachers spent less time in the classroom, on average, than their provincial counterparts. Leaders of teacher associations willingly offered to extend the school day by having teachers spend more time with their students (an extra 25 minutes per day).

But the government refused this reasonable offer because their real objective was, and continues to be, to save more money through reducing the number of teachers. Ironically, this is occurring at a time when teachers are retiring in droves and young blood and fresh ideas are needed more than ever.

If you believe what Ms. Ecker has been saying since she inherited the education portfolio, you'd also think that 'less is more' and that teachers are afraid of change. Contrary to popular belief, many teachers are embracing the much-needed overhaul of the curriculum in Ontario's schools.

The vast majority of teachers, I know, welcome thoughtful change that improves student performance. In fact, most of my colleagues readily acknowledge that a standardized provincial curriculum is long overdue.

Regrettably, what also hasn't had much media play is the Tory government's direct attack on democracy that is prevalent throughout Bill 74. This Act effectively removes all flexibility from local school boards to respond to community needs.

At least those citizens who feel that they have not been heard at the local level still have an opportunity to express their opinions publicly. But under this new law, school board trustees who dare to disagree with the education minister are subject to a fine of $5000 (This, coincidentally, is the annual salary for all Ontario trustees.) and up to and including dismissal.

The powers of the education minister to investigate complaints, make unilateral decisions about Board management, take over elected Boards and dismiss both elected officials and individual employees, subject to no other law or court of appeal, are indeed Orwellian in magnitude.

This Act, essentially, places the minister above the law. No right to discuss, debate or appeal any policy decisions deemed necessary by the minister. If this appears a tad unreasonable, you probably remember, from History 101, one of the crucial ingredients for a dictatorship to flourish - the immediate suppression of any opinion that diverges from the party line. Or you may recall during circle time, your kindergarten teacher's belief that everyone has the right to express his or her point of view regardless of faith, color, ethnicity or creed.

To many citizens, Bill 74 is just another piece of an enormous legislative puzzle that the Ontario Tories have been constructing since they took office over four years ago. Those who are subject to periodic bouts of paranoia might think that, in Bills 160 and 74, the Tories have lain the groundwork for the complete elimination of school Boards in Ontario.

But to those stakeholders who have a vested interest in the current school system: students, parents, teachers, administrators and all elected and appointed Board employees, it is a vindictive slap in the face and another nail in the coffin of democracy in Ontario. A province where the new math increasingly dictates that two plus two equals five.

We risk becoming hollow men

April 6, 2001

One of the most significant challenges that any of us will ever face in this life - is to discover what is truly important.

In the hit film Cast Away, Tom Hanks stars as Chuck Noland, a FedEx systems engineer whose life is ruled by the clock. He jets across the globe, with stopwatch in hand, to ensure that all FedEx employees internalize the intrinsic value of time. For one minute could mean the difference between a satisfied customer and a squandered business opportunity.

The consummate company man, Chuck excuses himself from his fiancé's Christmas family gathering and hastily makes his way to the airport to attend to his fast-paced career.

But a sudden, violent storm causes Chuck's plane to crash in the ocean and he ends up alone on a desolate island. Disconnected from everyone he's ever known and practically everything he's ever owned - Chuck is forced to face a stark reality.

When, through a wrenching twist of fate, one is suddenly stripped of the countless material things that make life comfortable, what is left? What makes life worth living?

These existential questions burn at the core of every human heart. Yet how often do any of us allow ourselves the opportunity to periodically step off the incessant 'treadmill of life'?

The voracious demands of work and family in today's frenetic, 'drive thru' society, make personal time and self-reflection extremely difficult at the best of times.

Just ask those individuals who strive daily to pay the rent and feed the kids. They are growing in number and struggling merely to survive.

And how many of us are lured in and distracted, 24/7, by seductive commercial messages, into believing that paradise can be found in a theme park vacation? Or that true happiness can be achieved by owning the latest designer label or keeping up with the 'flavor-of-the-month' 'eye-candy' on commercial television?

We are so utterly immersed in a culture that equates who we are with what we own, that many of us are immune to the ironic fact that it is we who are the products. That we are shrewdly targeted packaged and sold by advertisers to the corporate bidders with the deepest pockets.

Yet if we are ever to gain any perspective on what is really important in life – we must periodically break free from what 18th century poet, William Blake, called our 'mind-forged manacles'. The mentality of acquisitiveness that foolishly declares that the person who has the most toys when they die - wins.

Blake's contemporary, Wordsworth, also recognized that sometimes the world is "too much with us". That by focusing too much on "getting and spending" we "give our hearts away" and "lay waste our powers". By doing so we acquire a "sordid boon", all in the name of financial profit and material gain.

The relatively recent astounding emergence of communication technology and the Internet has helped spawn an emerging global economy. But who will benefit from this sweeping techno-economic union and at what cost to the 'have-nots' and natural resources of the earth?

If we don't make the time to thoughtfully examine the effects of our technological or scientific discoveries on all people and the natural environment, then we forfeit our responsibility as global citizens and stewards of this planet.

By failing to nurture our spiritual selves, we run the risk of becoming the 'hollow men' of the third millennium. For people who lack all conviction or refuse to cultivate a social conscience and moral vision are already spiritually dead.

After a few solitary years on a deserted island, Chuck Noland comes to realize that we all "live and die by time." One hopeful symbol that keeps him going is the image of an angel's wings on one of the few undelivered packages washed ashore after the plane crash. It was the only package he refused to open while stranded on the island.

But it was mainly the intangible, enduring love for his fiancé that kept the spark of hope and salvation glowing within Chuck's soul.

Paradoxically, it took a tragic plane crash to save his life, by forcing him to slow down and look inwardly. To, ultimately, allow him the time and space to discover what was really precious and important in his life.

Succeeding despite tough odds

Sept. 5, 2001

What is a hero? This was the most popular question asked of American actor, Christopher Reeve, following the release of the first Superman movie in 1978.

Reeve has been asked this question so often by the media, that he developed the following trite response: "A hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences."

They were the soldiers who braved enemy bullets and navigated treacherous minefields to rescue wounded comrades in battle.

They were the larger-than-life athletes immortalized in sports halls of fame. They were also the charismatic, visionary leaders like Gandhi or JFK.

But it wasn't until sometime after a freak riding accident in 1995, rendering him a vent-dependent quadriplegic, that Reeve revised his definition of heroism.

Upon waking after a few days of heavy sedation, only to learn that he would likely never again breathe on his own or regain the use of his arms and legs, Reeve faced the most profound decision of his life.

His first lucid words to his wife Dana were "Maybe we should let me go" to which she quickly replied, "you are still you and I love you."

Reeve credits his wife's loving response for saving his life. Knowing that she was in it for the long haul, he could begin to focus on finding ways to be productive again.

Reeve now believes a hero is 'an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming odds'.

Since the tragedy that nearly ended his life, Reeve has done more than persevere. He has appeared at the Oscars, spoken at the Democratic National Convention, created a Paralysis Foundation, directed a film, written a book, worked on political issues, and traveled more extensively than most high-level quadriplegics.

Closer to home, local resident Mark Noot's horrific battle with meningitis in December of 1997, began with a sore throat. Within hours, Noot watched his legs turn black with gangrene as the vicious disease left the 23 year-old unconscious and on life support, forcing doctors to amputate both his legs above the knee.

Since those dark December days, Noot's determination and upbeat attitude have helped him stare down a debilitating disease. Today Noot is a member of the Canadian National Sledge Hockey Team and someday hopes to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics. He is also a valued employee at ATS (Automated Tooling Systems).

Noot shared his gripping story of how meningitis nearly took his life, with about 150 people during the 2nd annual Michael Longo Classic charity golf tournament for meningitis research on August 24th.

Like Reeve, Noot has received a lot of love and support from those closest to him. However, what has also helped sustain him is his zany, self-deprecating sense of humor and relentless drive to succeed.

Kathryn Blain, who started the Meningitis Research Foundation of Canada, visited Mark during his rehabilitation. Blain remembers how Noot's steely resolve to overcome his physical limitations, had such a beneficial effect on those around him.

Noot embraced the challenge to golf in the charity tournament, which began as a tribute to the memory of Blain's 19 year-old son, Michael Longo, who succumbed to meningococcal-septicemia in 1995.

Club Car Inc. provided Noot with a special state-of-the-art golf car, which featured, among other things, a swivel seat and hand controls to operate the accelerator and brake.

Conestoga Golf Club staff welcomed Noot by allowing him the chance to get used to the idiosyncrasies of the unique golf car before playing in the tournament.

When thanking Noot for taking part in the tournament and speaking to the participants, Blain presented him with a framed poster of another Canadian hero, Rick Hansen.

Hansen, who wheeled around the world in his 'man-in-motion' tour from 1985 to 1987, signed the poster with the words, 'Never give up on your dreams'.

Mark Noot and Christopher Reeve are living proof that, in real life, you don't have to be a 'superhero' to succeed. They teach us that, ultimately, it is only through enduring and persevering that we truly realize our dreams.

Teachers Should Be Free to Teach

June 27, 2002

You can't always judge an organization by its mission statement.

The mission of the Hamilton Wentworth Catholic District School Board is "to enable all learners to realize the fullness of humanity of which our Lord Jesus Christ is the model".

What better way to enable students to 'realize the fullness of humanity' then to teach them and their parents about how unjust it is for factory owners to exploit and subject workers to inhumane working conditions? What better way for a teacher to model Christ-like behavior then to encourage students to oppose injustice by standing up for the dignity and basic human rights of the oppressed?

This is exactly what a popular grade 7 and 8 religion teacher in Hamilton did when he sought to educate his students and their parents about a national high school No Sweat campaign.

The No Sweat campaign is coordinated by the Ethical Trading Action Group whose members include such organizations as: Oxfam Canada, Students Against Sweat Shops-Canada, Ten Days for Global Justice and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.

Campaign organizers want clothing manufacturers like RJ McCarthy to disclose where their school clothing is made and open these locations up to independent monitoring. McCarthy, Canada's largest school uniform supplier, makes uniforms in countries such as Mexico, China, Thailand and Canada.

One of the long-standing arguments in favor of school uniforms is that they help to create a level playing field among students. Some advocates of school uniforms believe they reduce the artificial need for the more affluent students to flaunt the latest designer labels in the faces of their 'less-than-preppy' peers. Ironically, the issue of where and under what conditions school uniforms are made is now stirring up new controversy and healthy debate in some schools across Canada.

It is important to note that there have been no allegations and no evidence to suggest McCarthy employs sweatshop labor. In fact, McCarthy has a code of conduct in place to help ensure it would never use sweatshop labor to produce school uniforms. The company refuses to agree with activists' demands for public disclosure of its factories. McCarthy president Martin McCarthy fears such disclosure would tip off its competitors.

But No Sweat campaign organizers believe the code of conduct is not enough, that McCarthy factories must be open to independent monitoring. High school students and teachers across Canada are also advocating the adoption of No Sweat purchasing policies by their schools and school boards.

You would think that the actions of the Hamilton teacher would exemplify the catholic values espoused by his board's mission statement. That he would be congratulated by his superiors for his effort to 'walk the talk' by showing his students that when one person is allowed to exploit others, we all pay a price.

Yet, "for his good and the good of his school community" he was recently informed in writing that he is being transferred out of the school. His offense, that he allegedly violated school and board policy by sending home information with his students about the No Sweat campaign.

What is the message to teachers working for his or any other school board? It's fine to anesthetize students with ethereal platitudes like board mission statements. But don't dare to educate them about deplorable sweatshop practices in garment factories around the world.

Let's be clear. Our schools are not logo-free zones. Our children are being sold every time they walk through the doors of their school. From Nova Scotia to New Mexico, sugary soft drink giants like Pepsi and Coke pay some schools $10 to $20 per student for exclusive rights to push their products in cafeteria vending machines.

Throughout the typical school year, our kids are used by schools to deliver a barrage of letters and forms to bewildered parents. From reading programs sponsored by popular mega fast-food chains, to insurance application forms and annual in-school fundraisers, corporations are tripping over one another to instill brand loyalty (branding) into our impressionable children.

The current underfunding of Ontario's education system will only entice more cash-strapped school boards to swing open their doors to corporate bidders eager to win over the lifelong allegiance of a young and captive audience.

Ironically, by quietly trying to shuffle one of its teachers off to another school, board officials have inadvertently shone a bright light on the important issue of sweatshop labor. A light that will help expose despicable practices in garment factories around the world. Practices such as long hours, low wages, forced overtime, physical and verbal abuse, poor health and safety standards and dismissals of workers who try to form unions to improve conditions.

Ultimately, no mission statement, however eloquently crafted, will ever replace dedicated teachers who can teach their students to fight injustice and thereby truly realize the fullness of their humanity.

Front Line Heath Workers Keep System Alive

Oct. 25, 2002

A recent personal walkabout through part of our much-maligned healthcare system has made at least one thing crystal clear. Whatever we pay the frontline workers in our hospitals - it's not nearly enough.

The odyssey began on a weeknight at 7:28 pm, the moment I signed my son's name on the clipboard in a local hospital ER. He had injured himself at a high school cross-country meet earlier in the day and required seven sutures to close a wound under his chin.

The surreal sideshow witnessed during the next four hours would help drive home why many wonderful healthcare workers are rapidly 'burning out' and changing careers altogether. Who could blame them for wanting out when they must continually endure their share of belligerent and ungrateful patients?

Upon arrival, ER patients must first sign a clipboard. They are then seen by a triage nurse who determines the severity of their condition. Most patients in emergency know this and are resigned to silently enduring long, often painful waits.

Yet, the few who insist that their condition is severe and deserve immediate treatment can truly make the ER a living hell for the others. Witness the man who, with his wheelchair-bound female companion in tow, kept badgering and berating the nurses for not dropping everything to attend to their personal crisis. Never mind that there were at least five patients in queue ahead of them in just as much distress and 'pain'.

Just when the abusive couple are finally dealt with by the nurses, a police officer escorts a man in handcuffs into the ER. As the officer seeks medical treatment for his captive, another deeply disturbed person follows them inside the waiting room. He sits down, rocks back and forth while loudly cursing the voices in his head and threatening to commit suicide. Eventually, the officer gently calms the distraught man just long enough to remove the handcuffs from his other dishevelled client.

As if on cue, an American visitor then comments on the lengthy wait of a woman he met four hours earlier. She confided that her own doctor was too busy to see her as she patiently waited for an empty bed. They both then lament over the general state of the health care system in Ontario and the growing number of people managing without a family doctor in Waterloo Region.

Is this region a microcosm of a larger, pathetic provincial health care picture? Is it the master plan of the Tories to so saturate hospital ER's that people will embrace, with open arms and cheque books, private health care providers? Or is it that both the federal and provincial governments have 'dropped the medicine ball' in their endless quest to download services and cut taxes?

Based on many conversations with friends and acquaintances, this recent experience is more like the rule than the exception. When recounting my ER adventure, heads unanimously nod in agreement, eyes roll and glaze over with looks of 'you think your wait was long, wait until you hear my story'.

Yet, to continually focus on the horror stories and assign blame is to miss the point. The system, though wounded, is working; albeit, at a snail's pace. Moreover, it's working largely due to the dedication and commitment of the frontline workers in our hospitals.

It's still kicking because the nurses, police officers, security guards, paramedics and other countless hospital staff members and volunteers breath new life into it every day. They display a truly remarkable resilience and grace-under-pressure in the daily grind of the most gut-wrenching trauma.

Many of them must face a daily barrage of traumatized, blood-splattered patients and somehow, at the end of their shift, summon enough energy to care for their own loved ones.

Let's ask them what they think is best for our ailing system and then insist that our politicians act upon their recommendations. Otherwise, healthcare will continue to flounder, as these local treasures choose other less stressful occupations.

Ultimately, a few extra tax dollars in our pockets adds up to just another slap in the face of those workers struggling to keep the system alive - as they continue to suffer the indignant, slow death of a thousand cuts.

Assault Deflects Real Problems in Education

March 13, 2003

Education minister Elizabeth Witmer should be relieved it was only a glass of water someone tossed at her during a recent encounter with disgruntled members of the English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA).

In the summer of 2000, a Prince Edward Island man got 30 days for throwing a pie in the face of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. In October of the same year, local activist Julian Ichim doused Alliance leader Stockwell Day with chocolate milk during a campaign stop in Kitchener.

Each of these relatively harmless, though clearly defiant acts, raise an important question. Given the erosion of civil liberties since 911, how do ordinary citizens express dissent in a manner that is both civil and newsworthy?

Face it; today's spectacle-driven public is short on attention span and long on TV eye candy. Seductive media sound bites and shallow Barbie and Ken-like journalist clones compete for precious airtime and replace in depth analysis. Sadly, instant pop star status is bestowed upon anyone who can successfully grab the media glare for even a few fleeting moments of fame.

In the 1970's, the international environmental group Greenpeace perfected the art of firing powerful images or 'mind bombs' rather than missiles at designated targets. Who, over the age of forty, doesn't remember gruesome images of blood stained ice flows as baby Harp seals were bludgeoned to death for their fur? Such graphic images eventually all but wiped out the international market for seal pup fur.

The organizers of the recent OECTA annual general meeting were merely attempting to do what any media-savvy government routinely does to maintain its grip on power. It tried to limit the opposition's ability to package and deliver its 'spin' or message to the public.

Yes, Witmer was invited to address the OECTA members, but at the last minute was asked to cut short her prepared speech to allow for more questions from the floor. It's also no surprise that organizers barred the media from the covering the minister's speech.

The provincial government's recent heath and education-related ad campaigns already hammer home daily and at great public expense, Tory propaganda. Their steady stream of countless new money announcements and scripted 'photo-ops' also provide them ample avenues to further manipulate the masses and massage the public mind.

Yet almost 40,000 Ontario school children with learning disabilities are on waiting lists to be assessed and waiting for the help they need to succeed. Unlike the gory seal pup visual, their suffering is silent and less likely to make headlines. But their pain is just as real. As any first year journalism student already knows, what tends to sell newspapers and ensure elevated television news ratings are images of conflict.

Unfortunately, the sensational front-page March 11 Record headline, Teachers mob, heckle Witmer, by extension, unfairly portrays all teachers as part of an unruly mob. The same day a local radio talk show host goads and baits teachers in his listening audience by challenging them to defend themselves from further public outrage over the boorish actions of a handful of their overzealous colleagues.

TV news editors couldn't replay the video footage quickly enough to an insatiable audience, many of whom who are hooked on high-octane 'reality-type' TV programs like Joe Millionaire or Temptation Island.

Ironically, the only images people will remember from this ugly incident are the ones that portray Witmer as a victim. A few 'schoolyard bullies' have unintentionally misrepresented the vast majority of educators in Ontario, fed another juicy 'photo op' to the well-oiled Tory propaganda machine and helped sell a few more newspapers along the way.

Grim Face of Poverty Enriches Student Understanding

May 10, 2003

Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement, once wrote that, "people never mean half of what they say, and it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions."

An inner-city excursion during a recent professional development day has made it abundantly clear that our Catholic schools are at their best and truly live their mission when they also walk the talk.

Almost two decades in the secondary school system have taught me that those who are on the front lines often deliver the most meaningful professional development. Our school chaplain led a group of teachers on a journey that she and many other fortunate students and their teachers have travelled since the inception of the inner-city walk program at our school.

This program gives students, many who come from affluent families, the opportunity to see, for the first time, the grim face of poverty in Waterloo Region.

By meeting and talking with the volunteers and patrons at many of the local social agencies, they begin to learn that the hungry, poor and the homeless are, in many ways, just like them and difficult to distinguish from the rest of the population.

They also discover that beneath the many stereotypes, poverty, homelessness, addiction and mental illness are vastly complex social issues with deeply entrenched underlying causes.

Students on these walks hear real stories of local teenagers who have been the tragic victims of years of brutal sexual and verbal abuse at the hands of needy and dysfunctional parents.

Their eyes are opened to the harsh reality that some of these innocents are as young as 12 and have a 95 per cent chance of being sexually assaulted during their first week on the streets.

Their middle-class naiveté is shattered by the ugly fact that a disturbing number of local children must rely on the goodwill of charitable organizations for their next hot meal and a place to sleep.

The students come to realize how fragile and interconnected their lives really are; that many of their own families and thousands of local residents are merely a job loss, failed marriage or insidious addiction away from suffering the same abysmal fate.

Having been raised and immersed in a culture obsessed with conspicuous consumption, the students are also introduced to the healthy concepts of sustainable development and simple living.

Through the walk they learn that, in order to preserve the Earth for their descendants, it requires a community approach, beginning with respect for the natural environment.

The inner-city walk program is essential if the cycle of poverty in our community is ever to be adequately addressed and broken. It offers hope for the hopeless and a chance for today's youth to help repair and sustain the social fabric of their community.

Long after their initial participation in the program, a number of students and teachers continue to volunteer their time at local charitable agencies whenever possible.

One of the highlights for the participants near the end of the walk is a shared meal at St. John's Kitchen in downtown Kitchener. During the meal, the students are encouraged to volunteer their services in the form of food preparation, serving or clean up.

It is this act of service that allows students the opportunity, at least temporarily, to experience the sense of humility and privilege derived from serving the poor and dispossessed in their community.

This call to servant leadership resides at the core of our Catholic education system. It is rooted in the belief that a holistic education must include enriching experiences beyond the four walls of the classroom.

Ultimately, it is a call that recognizes the God-given dignity of every human person and inspires us to ignite in our children a burning passion to continue the sacred walk toward a more just and sustainable society.

We'll miss the man in black

Sept. 19, 2003

The tragic 1959 plane crash the killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper is widely believed by many to be the day the music died.

If this is so, why then has the recent death of legendary musician Johnny Cash registered such seismic shock waves throughout the music and entertainment worlds? Why have numerous artists and millions of fans from Country to Rap and Folk to Rock & Roll, many of whom were born long after his prime, been so deeply moved by his passing?

Make no mistake; the man in black lived a full life. From the dark valley of drug dependency to the shiny mountaintop of musical stardom, the son of Southern Baptist sharecroppers earned every one of his seventy-one years on earth. He was blessed with two wives, the second, June Carter, whom he credited with saving his career and life from a downward spiral of drug dependency.

Perhaps part of Johnny Cash's appeal resides in the way we can identify with people who have championed the underdog or suffered profound loss themselves. His songs resonate in every person whoever felt the sting of injustice. The Ballad of Ira Hayes is about a Prima Indian who defended America during WWII only to die drunk one morning on the cold ground of a cotton field.

The more light hearted pop hit A Boy Named Sue expresses a son's disdain for a father who not only abandoned him but cruelly named him Sue. Ironically, he eventually discovers that it was that name that made him tough and his father who helped put "gravel in his guts."

One of my best childhood friends could sing virtually every word of every Johnny Cash song ever written. Every time he belted out one of Johnny's tunes he would ease his own pain born of a broken home and temporarily quell the 'ring of fire' in his tortured soul.

Like an aging prizefighter, unwilling to yield to the unforgiving force of time, Johnny Cash refused to stay down for long. He kept reinventing himself by working with the likes of U2 and Paul McCartney and branching out with bold compositions including covers of songs by Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Nick Lowe and Trent Reznor.

His final gift to us is his stirring cover and video of the Trent Reznor Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. Although not specifically written for the man in black, it is a fitting grim dirge about drug abuse and the deep pain of loss. It's a brilliant and evocative montage of bittersweet images of a lonely, frail looking patriarch, juxtaposed with tender vivid scenes of his family and memorable live concert performances amid adoring fans.

Throughout the song Johnny Cash repeats the haunting refrain "you can have it all, my empire of dirt." In other words, fame, money, music awards, gold records, even sweetest friends will all "go away", "let you down" and "make you hurt" in the end. The video concludes with a torrent of rapids cuts that include images of a Christ figure being crucified and nailed to a wooden cross.

What could easily be considered Johnny Cash's requiem, Hurt, articulates an eternal truth that youth and all earthly possessions will eventually fade with time. It reminds us of our mortality and hints at a personal resurrection, "If I could start again, a million miles away, I would find a way."

Ultimately, Hurt briefly captures the fire in the fistful of dust; the lie of immortality that lures and betrays all of us, that, in the end, betrayed Johnny Cash - all too soon. The day the music died.

Provocative film has youth talking

May 3, 2004

Ancient Romans often jammed the Coliseum to be fed by emperors and entertained by gladiators, who fought to the bloody death or were torn apart by wild beasts.

Today's audiences still cherish "bread and circuses." They flock en masse to gigantic movie theatres, pop culture's equivalent of ancient temples and holy shrines, to pay homage to the latest blockbuster Hollywood release. How else can you explain the morbid, visceral attraction to the blood and gore driving many curious pilgrims, young and old, to Mel Gibson's new film The Passion Of The Christ?

And by branding Gibson's movie with an R rating, the Motion Picture Association of America has all but ensured its financial success at the box office. Nothing entices youth more to want to see something than to slap a warning label or restricted rating on it.

However, I am already growing tired of the critics who characterize the portrayal of violence in Gibson's film as too graphic and over-the-top. Let's be honest. Based on historic accounts of scourging and crucifixion, what we (humanity) did to Jesus was about as barbaric and over-the-top as it gets. But apparently, it's fine for our children to devour teen flicks such as any one of the Scary Movie trilogy or Jackass The Movie, like so many cheeseburgers and sodas.

These kinds of films are particularly insidious because they blend comedy with gratuitous violence where the negative consequences of such mayhem are often not shown. What is the message to our youth when sex, bloody violence and crude behaviour are framed in the context of humour? Where is the outcry from the movie critics at this type of cinematic schlock?

Finally, someone (Gibson) had the moral courage to break away from the glut of Hollywood movies that glorify and trivialize violence. Yes, the violence in this film is sickening and hauntingly real. So much so that by the end of the movie, the audience feels as if Christ's crimson blood stains their own guilty hands, which is really the central point of the film. We are all, gentile and Jew, complicit in history's most infamous murder.

Gibson's violence differs from the standard teen splatter film in that it is responsibly contextualized. It bludgeons our psyches and makes us cringe, not merely because of its primal brutality, but because it is sharply contrasted with loving images of gentleness and beauty. The violence is abhorrent because we can sense a mother's agony over her son's humiliation, torture and death.

When Mary encounters her savagely beaten, bloodied son, Jesus, upon the Via Della Rosa, she flashes back to a memory of her innocent child falling on the dirt road beside their home.

In another scene, we are brought face to face with the stark reality that the healing hands of the carpenter from Galilee will soon endure the hot searing sting of iron spikes.

At a time when many Christian leaders are lamenting the fact that youth comprise a tiny fraction of their congregations, Gibson's film couldn't be timelier. But this is not Matrix Reloaded with dizzying digital effects that I have overheard my students discussing in the classroom. They are suddenly engaging one another over what are typically considered rather boring teenage issues: spirituality and religious faith.

Almost overnight, a film about Jesus has replaced Janet Jackson's breast on their social radar screens.

Many of them are also well aware of the critics who believe the film may incite anti-Semitism. But most of them are also intelligent enough to realize that a few desperate, power-hungry Jewish leaders and sadistic Romans, at one freeze frame in history, do not represent an entire people.

Many of these young people are hungering for meaning and are finally awakening, for the first time, to the central story of Christianity. The exciting possibility that their inner passion might be ignited and deepened by this moving film presents a glorious opportunity for spiritual conversion during this Lenten season.

As occurred with the release of Martin Scorsese's controversial film, The Last Temptation of Christ, many people have condemned Gibson's film without actually seeing it. Yet if the stony silence of those in the theatre is any indication, not allowing our youth the chance to experience the redemptive power of The Passion of The Christ may, ironically, result in a case of what they don't see may hurt them.

Like Political Attack Ads, Film Can Backfire

July 30, 2004

In Ray Bradbury's classic novel, Fahrenheit 451, freedom of thought is attacked by the enforcers of a repressive regime. Books and houses are torched indiscriminately at a torrid 451 degrees, or the temperature at which books burn.

Michael Moore, in his smash hit documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, unwittingly sets his own believability ablaze by launching a cruel white-hot personal attack against current U.S. President George W. Bush.

Please don't get me wrong. Moore is probably the best thing to happen to America since the advent of sound in motion pictures. His searing no-nonsense style of filmmaking is remarkably refreshing and relatively honest considering today's omnipresent "reality" programs and formulaic fantasy flicks.

It also appeals increasingly to mass audiences fed up with highly-filtered, uncritical war coverage by most, if not all, the mainstream American TV networks.

Moore is a media savvy modern day Don Quixote who boldly flails away at corporate windmills and greedy government giants that recklessly flaunt their power. In fact, one has to admire Moore's eagerness to challenge and rail against a system that, though democratic in name, also contains some rather deep socio-economic cracks in desperate need of repair.

In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore makes a number of blunt, humorous observations clear to the audience. One, that Bush was elected amid a highly suspect vote count in the pivotal state of Florida which, coincidentally, happens to be governed by his brother Jeb Bush.

Secondly, throughout the 20th century and now in the 21st, rich and powerful white American men have always sent poor black men to fight and die in wars. The Iraq war is no exception to this rule. In perhaps the most heart-wrenching scene of the film, Moore shows us an inconsolable grieving mother who passionately questions why her son, an American soldier killed in Iraq, was ever sent there to begin with.

Thirdly, Moore humorously drives home the point that weapons of mass destruction, if they exist at all, reside only in the minds of American politicians and their supportive petroleum-addicted corporations.

His highly successful books, Stupid White Men and Dude Where's My Country?, also attack American politicians and the corporate elite. Both works rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Clearly though, his target of choice in both is Bush.

Moore's documentaries, Roger And Me, a social commentary and stinging attack upon General Motors CEO Roger Smith, and Bowling For Columbine, a riveting satire of the powerful gun lobby and violence in America, have also helped catapult him headlong into mainstream America.

He has stirred controversy in Canada as well and has been accused by some of contravening the Canadian Elections Act and possibly influencing the outcome of the recent Canadian federal election. He is alleged to have done this by encouraging Canadians not to vote for Stephen Harper and the Conservative party.

Even Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley was willing to make Moore a citizen of the small Ontario town to avoid having him, as an American citizen, charged with "inducing in any way an elector to vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate."

Moore slyly beats the mainstream news media at its own game by craftily packaging information and entertainment; though as an independent filmmaker, he does it in a "no-holds-barred," unapologetic "go-for-the-jugular" manner. But I've always been taught that if you want people to respect you and take you seriously, you should attack their ideas or policies, not them personally.

After being visually bludgeoned for five agonizing minutes by haunting images of the bloodied and charred remains of innocent Iraqi bombing victims, Moore inserts a Britney Spears interview. In it, the all-American teen idol naively offers her complete support for her president and his decision to bomb Iraq. Through the power of editing, Spears becomes just another one of Moore's "lambs to the cinematic slaughter."

Unfortunately, Moore's quest for laughs at Bush's expense diminishes the powerful message his film has to offer. Through a carefully selected barrage of archival movie, TV clips and stills, he simply cannot resist humiliating the president at almost every opportunity. Through skilful juxtaposition and sarcastic commentary, he reduces Bush to an impotent, inarticulate, smirking buffoon.

This caricature is no more apparent than during the now famous video clip of Bush visiting with elementary school children after learning of the first attack on the twin towers.

Having the advantage of 20/20 hindsight and super slow motion, Moore deliberately slows, to a crawl, the scene where Bush first learns of the attack as he appears to be reading a children's book. Moore then includes his own voiceover in which he asks if the president might be thinking about his wealthy Saudi friends.

Ultimately, in his quest for chuckles and guffaws, Moore, like many television and film producers, panders to the lowest common denominator and, ironically, stoops to, at least if not below, the level of the man he attempts to deride.

Make no mistake; parts of this film provoke the same kind of profound reflective response as that of Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion Of The Christ.

This time around, though, a sitting president on the verge of another election is the one who is mocked and crucified. Consequently, like many political attack ads before it, Fahrenheit 9/11 may eventually backfire on Moore by becoming the temperature at which his credibility burns.

NHL Lockout

Jan 5, 2005

Like countless other Canadian males my age, my most cherished childhood dream was to play in the National Hockey League.

School holidays meant endless hours of road hockey in the summer or emulating and imagining the glory of favourite Canadian hockey heroes on frozen outdoor ice rinks in winter.

It was an idyllic time, when, during any given game, the most pressing problem was deciding whose turn it was to be Paul Henderson, Guy Lafleur or any one of our sacred childhood hockey heroes.

But just as my aspirations of playing NHL hockey were once dashed, so, too, have the dreams of many of today's youth been shattered by the harsh reality of the bitter NHL lockout. Their hockey idols have also been tarnished by a series of repulsive acts of on-ice brutality, resulting from a vigilante culture of violence that has permeated Canadian hockey for far too long.

Fortunately, the current void in professional hockey has offered many Canadians the chance to reflect on and reconnect with the sheer joy of what former NHL goalie and Toronto Maple Leaf president, Ken Dryden, has called "the game."

"The game" is not necessarily hockey; rather, it is a metaphor for the healthy feeling of competition and camaraderie one can experience in any team sport. "The game" also includes practices, dressing rooms, coaches, victories, defeats, tournaments, fans, teammates, team parties and much more.

Fortunately, an essential part of "the game," the sense of competition for its own sake, has arisen from the cold ashes of the NHL lockout. It has reawakened the "hidden child" in a number of students and teachers at the school which I teach.

It's hard to remember when I've witnessed such wide-eyed enthusiasm and energy from teenagers and adults during the same event. But there is no question that our newly-formed intramural ball hockey league has rekindled a magical, child-like passion that is sorely lacking in many of today's complacent professional athletes.

If anything, the current freeze in relations between the NHL players and team owners has allowed thousands of Canadians the opportunity to enjoy and support a variety of amateur sports.

It is a largely refreshing world where the majority of players are motivated, not by visions of multi-million dollar contracts or signing bonuses, but by scoring memorable goals or making unselfish plays.

It is a world where young men and a growing number of young women play because of the valuable lessons sport can teach. They offer our youth the value of team work and to strive to reach their own potential or personal best. Sports can show them that victory and defeat are merely opposite sides of the same coin and that to gracefully accept both is a necessary life skill.

Though we play ball hockey just once a week at our school, it is arguably the highlight for a number of the students, teachers and support staff who participate. For one brief hour, we are blissfully transported from an academic world of stale classrooms, benchmarks and provincial expectations to an extraordinary world in which all that really matters is the love of "the game."

The added beauty of this weekly ritual is that it has spawned at least two positive side-effects: outdoor physical activity and school spirit.

In today's frenetic world of part-time jobs and dizzying, high-tech distractions, any physical activity that can keep students at school after the final bell has rung has to be deemed a success.

And when said activity can also boost one's fondness for and allegiance to their school (peers and authority figures included), there is also the distinct danger of increased school spirit breaking out.

Though game results as well as team and individual stats are recorded, in the end, everyone wins.

The school community is richer and safer when students and teachers have one more reason to feel connected to one another. The surrounding community benefits because there is another healthy outlet for adolescents to channel their pent-up energy.

Paradoxically, the lack of NHL hockey this season may have awakened and unleashed in Canadians their enduring passion for "the game" and that is what really matters and the stuff that childhood dreams are made of.

Media savvy Pope was a superstar

April 6, 2005

The recent outpouring of mass sympathy and grief over the passing of Pope John Paul II reaffirms the potency and defining role the mass media plays in constructing our modern day icons.

Is it just coincidence that I can remember precisely where I was and what I was doing at the moment I learned of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981 and the murder of John Lennon in 1980? Having heard both shocking announcements over the radio, I did not have to actually see the televised images to believe and feel the gut-wrenching horror such news evoked.

Both events seemed to have had the same traumatic effect on the psyches of millions of people throughout the world. To know that one deranged person could, in the twinkling of an eye, snuff out the light and life of such visionaries and advocates for peace is indeed terrifying.

It would be understandable, too, if, soon after his well-deserved arrival at the gates of heaven, John Paul II should seek out the famous Canadian media guru, Marshall McLuhan, if only to shake his hand.

It would also be fitting and slightly ironic for one of the greatest communicators of the 20th century, Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla), to pay homage to the late University of Toronto communications professor who, in the 1960s, coined the terms "global village" and "the medium is the message."

It was within this global crucible of bold secular and spiritual ideas that John XXIII forged the sweeping renewal of the Catholic church known as the Second Vatican Council. It was also around this time that Wojtyla was designated metropolitan bishop of Krakow, Poland.

Over a decade later, when Wojtyla was finally elected pope in 1978, many followers were hoping that the new spiritual leader of the Catholic church would continue the liberal reforms started by Pope John XXIII during Vatican II.

But while he traversed the globe and built bridges of peace to the other major world religions, Pope John Paul II also alienated many Catholic followers by refusing to even discuss issues such as a married priesthood or the ordination of women.

Yet John Paul II was able to deflect and disarm many of his critics by spreading the gospel and his own personal charm to a cast of millions through the enticing power of communication technology.

From U.S. president John F. Kennedy to American talk show idol Oprah Winfrey, the television age has manufactured countless political and social pop icons. John Paul II also wisely seized the power of the mass media to disseminate not just his charismatic image, but his counter-cultural message of humble service and forgiveness.

A 1993 Time magazine cover referred to John Paul II as a superstar. His profound, broad-based appeal to young people was witnessed during various World Youth Days that clearly surpassed any experience a secular rock or rap star could hope to engender.

He was a genius at skilfully combining the paradoxical Christian concept of "being in the world but not of it" with an astonishing sense of media savvy. Consequently, this dynamic pontificate has seared his image into the consciousness of an entire generation of hundreds of millions of Christians and non-Christians alike.

Who can ever forget the amazing scene of a compassionate Pope John Paul II hearing the confession of Mehmet Ali Agca, his would-be assassin? Or the faceless millions who gathered in inclement weather in the hopes of stealing a glimpse of St. Peter's successor during numerous papal visits?

How ironic that the love of the Vicar of Christ, not mighty battalions, caused Poland's communist general Wojciech Jaruzelski's knees to quiver in front of the world media and eventually batter down the walls of communism in Eastern Europe.

The beckoning eye of the television camera loved this pope and he eagerly obliged and harnessed the power of its hypnotic gaze. The good shepherd of Vatican City craftily enticed the world press to flock to and record numerous historic events during his papacy.

His moving visits to the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz in 1979 and to the Yad Vashem memorial and Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in 2000 were tailor made for TV and satellite technology. In 2001, the cameras bore witness to the first pope to ever enter a mosque in the Islamic country of Syria.

In his last televised Easter appearance from his Vatican apartment, a clearly frail and frustrated John Paul II could not utter a single word. Yet, to the masses, his silent, contorted countenance spoke volumes about inner courage and the noble quest for meaning in the face of human pain and suffering. For John Paul II, it was the final scene in a personal passion play, acted out on the world stage as part of his last truly teachable moment.

John Paul II's remarkable 26-year reign eclipses all other leaders before him, setting his legacy apart from and above the fleeting notions of fame and celebrity commonly associated with secular society. The shoes of this fisherman will be incredibly difficult to fill.

Even after his physical death, John Paul II speaks to us with a spiritual ferocity that is both haunting and awe-inspiring. It is a clear voice that, in spite of the deluge of televised images streaming from the Vatican, seems to echo from the grave the words from the Gospel of John, "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Film about evil may do some good

July 29, 2005

My first reaction to news of the movie, Karla (originally known as Deadly), set to make its Canadian debut at the Montreal film festival at the end of August, was that it definitely should not be shown in Canada, especially in the heart of the very city where one of Canada's most notorious sex killers, Karla Homolka, has just been released.

But after carefully considering the issues from different perspectives, I'm now not so sure.

In fact, just a few months ago, I recall signing an online petition imploring Canadian theatre companies to refrain from purchasing this film for public consumption. The thought of Karla possibly lounging in a plush movie theatre somewhere in Montreal viewing this film, while munching popcorn and sipping an ice cappuccino, made me ill.

Karla is a $5 million US film based on the true story of how Homolka and then-husband Paul Bernardo raped, tortured and killed Ontario schoolgirls Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.

Like many other Canadian parents, the atrocious trail of unfathomable human pain and suffering unleashed by Bernardo and Homolka over a decade ago still causes my blood to boil.

As the father of five children, four of whom are daughters, my heart breaks and yearns for justice for the French and Mahaffy families.

But when it comes to banning controversial works, whether books or films, there are two basic rules: No. 1, as long as we live in a relatively free society, people will always find ways to exploit and profit from the misery of others; and rule No. 2, you can't change rule No. 1 without limiting individual freedom even further.

Never has the fine line between artistic freedom and victims' rights been exposed more than in this recent debate. People who believe the film should be banned or boycotted point to insensitivity and lack of respect for the victims. Thus, showing the film would insult and degrade the memories of French, Mahaffy and their families.

Tim Danson, the lawyer for the French and Mahaffy families, sees the film as exploitative and sensational in nature and has not ruled out legal action to block its debut. Danson also views the producer's decision to change the film title from Deadly to Karla as a calculated attempt to capitalize on the recent publicity the controversial film has garnered in the United States.

Others calling for a boycott believe that there are already more than enough details of the sickening crimes available in books and on the Internet. To make facts of the gruesome crimes accessible to an even broader audience via film would only rub salt into the reopened wounds of the victims' families.

Those who defend the right of the producer to show this film also have valid arguments.

Good and evil do not exist in a vacuum and seldom come in neat black and white packages. A new post-9/11 consciousness and the discovery that the recent London Underground terrorists were homegrown and indistinguishable from the crowd, emphasizes this harsh reality.

Described by some in the media as the "Ken and Barbie killers," Bernardo and Homolka were so lethal precisely because they were so outwardly charming. By all accounts and appearances, they were the perfect couple next door, the most likely to be voted high school prom king and queen.

Others would argue that the film has merit as an interpretative historic artifact, like the ones that chronicle and portray the infamous deeds of notorious criminals like Bonnie and Clyde or the freakish Charles Manson family.

Even the highly esteemed English playwright, William Shakespeare, was not above using poetic licence to profit from his craft. He was known to borrow his storylines about real criminals from historical sources and then recycle them into many of his now famous tragedies.

In his defence, Karla producer Michael Sellers claims that he has been sensitive to the victims and their families. For instance, he was careful to change the names of the victims and not to mention their ages in his film.

He has even offered to have Danson view the film at an exclusive screening and consulted with him for months before submitting the film to the Montreal festival for consideration.

Sellers also has three teenage daughters whose opinions he says he consulted before deciding to produce the movie. He encouraged them to research Bernardo and Homolka's heinous crimes. After having been exposed to the sickening saga, apparently they felt safer.

Perhaps the research helped dispel in his daughters the commonly held myth perpetuated by pop culture that evil tends to be a stranger who wears a hockey mask and wields a chainsaw.

Before casting final judgment though, we need to ask some critical questions. At what point does a film about senseless violence and brutality cross the line from responsible and judicious to sensational and exploitative? Shouldn't each individual at least have the opportunity to see this film firsthand before condemning it outright and thirsting for the creator's blood?

Nonetheless, in future, I would strongly support the federal government slapping an extreme "lack of sensitivity" surtax on top of the theatre ticket price of such films and then donating the profits to victims of violence. At least this way people would still get a chance to satisfy their own curiosity, while also benefiting the real victims of violence.

Hopefully, though, if the film Karla is released in Canada, those who choose to see it will walk away with a deeper understanding of how the seductive and complex nature of evil can often blind us, by showing its deadly face in what would appear to be the most innocent people in the most ordinary of circumstances.

Step up to the 'cyber-learning' plate

March 18, 2006

The famous U.S. film director George Lucas is best known as the creative genius behind the blockbuster Star Wars film saga. His wildly imaginative fictional characters and storyline are firmly embedded in popular culture lore and will glow like light sabres for generations to come.

Lucas attributes completion of the second Star Wars trilogy, almost three decades after the first, to advances in digital technology in the years following the release of the original Star Wars movie in 1977. The dawn of seamless digital effects in the early 1990s finally allowed him to fully realize and share his intergalactic dream with a vast global audience.

Like Lucas, many of Ontario's teachers and students would also like to fully realize their learning potential by integrating the power of computer technology and the Internet in classrooms, but a number of obstacles stand in their way.

In 1993, the Ontario Ministry of Education created a Royal Commission on Learning to conduct an intensive study of the education system. Two years later, the commission issued a report called For the Love of Learning that contained a chapter entitled Learning, Teaching and Information Technology.

One of the many recommendations in that chapter was, "that school boards, in co-operation with the Ministry, the private sector, universities and colleges, initiate a number of high-profile and diverse projects on school computers and learning, to include a major infusion of computer hardware and software."

One would especially believe and hope that in Canada's so-called "technology triangle," home of world-renowned high-tech juggernauts such as Open Text Corporation and the BlackBerry creator Research In Motion, that the commission's recommendations would not fall on deaf ears.

But today, more than a decade later, the envisioned "alliances" among the ministry, school boards, hardware and software firms and the private sector remain unfulfilled.

Here in Waterloo Region, we need our own dynamic "theoretical think tank" to implement the partnerships outlined in the commission report.

Many techno-savvy students in today's electronic universe are frustrated within the confines of the current educational model. The ratio of computers to students in many of Ontario's elementary and secondary schools is woefully inadequate for a growing number of educators and students.

All too often I've heard from frustrated secondary school colleagues and students who struggle to book a computer lab for one 75-minute class per week, or from elementary teachers who lament the lack of computers with decent speed and up-to-date software programs.

Combine these situations with the growing number of students who seem to have the attention span of a hyperactive squirrel hooked on crack cocaine and you begin to get the picture.

Of course, communication technology in education is also a potential minefield. But if it's navigated carefully, we can avoid many of the dangers.

The Royal Commission on Learning was careful to point out that, "adding new machines to classrooms does not buy instant learning." Exorbitant costs for computer hardware, software and maintenance costs, teacher training, student access to inappropriate websites, e-mail and instant messaging, these are all issues that must be fully addressed by all stakeholders to help ensure a safe and level learning field.

A computer is an expensive tool and is as effective as the instructor and learner at the helm. Indeed, far more than tools, computers and the Internet represent new learning environments, a paradigm shift that firmly places students, not teachers, at the centre of their education.

In Quebec's Eastern Townships, an innovative public school board has, in partnership with Apple Canada, equipped all of its more than 5,600 students with laptops. In this first-ever Canadian initiative, the students have the world at their fingertips.

Since the laptop program was introduced, there has been a 34-per-cent decrease in behavioural incidents. Absenteeism has dropped 26 per cent.

Nonetheless, governments do not have nearly enough of the funds required to make our schools technologically-integrated learning environments as advocated by the 1995 Love of Learning report. Along with Apple Canada, a growing number of corporations are realizing that children are a captive audience. They are stepping up to the "cyber-learning" plate by investing in e-learning and partnering with educational institutions.

According to a 2001 Ontario Secondary School Teacher Federation paper titled Commercialization in Our Schools, "the next big killer application of the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big, it's going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error."

In the same paper, Mike Searles, former president of Kids-R-Us, a major children's clothing store, is quoted saying the following on the business of marketing to kids: "If you own this child at an early age, you can own this child for years to come. Companies are saying, 'Hey I want to own the kid younger and younger.' "

Clearly, with such ground-breaking partnerships beginning to take shape between the public and private sectors, there must be policies to protect, respect and balance both the needs of students as independent thinkers and the corporate imperative to increase shareholder value.

The education system seems to be forever chasing its tail, especially when it comes to computer technology in the classroom. But sometimes the tail wags the dog. For many, change has been far too slow.

Many of the aging elementary and secondary school classrooms in Canada serve an increasingly antiquated educational model and are not equipped for the integration of digital technology. If the publicly funded education system does not meet the learning needs of today's self-directed, computer-literate students, then for-profit organizations will quickly move in to fill the void.

Ironically, George Lucas may never be widely acknowledged for one of his less popular, though arguably more important legacies, the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

The movie mogul indicates on the foundation's website (www.edutopia.org) that bridging the "digital divide" is crucial.

"Digital media can engage students who lose interest in traditional schooling, all people are entitled to take part in the new information-based economy and in this digital age, employers require workers with technology skills."

It's all true. Yet in the frenetic race to harness cyberspace, we would do well to remember that computers may have lots of memory, but no imagination.

The most expensive computer and the most sophisticated software will never replace caring teachers or creative film directors. The human element is still essential in helping to inspire others to strive for and, hopefully, achieve their fondest dreams.

Don't Rush To Judgement About Killer

September 16, 2006

Many of today's aging boomers will never forget the chilling photo of a smirking Lee Harvey Oswald that was splashed across millions of newspapers and television screens after the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy in 1963.

All dressed in black, Oswald proudly wore a holster and pistol on his hip, held two Marxist newsletters in one hand, and a high-powered rifle, similar to the one that was positively identified as the weapon that killed Kennedy. Since that dreadful November day, biographers have consistently painted Kennedy's suspected killer (Oswald) as a lonely misfit with passive-aggressive tendencies.

Fast forward 43 years to the present, to another eerie image of a wild-eyed, deeply disturbed young man dressed in black, and holding an assault rifle. Instantly it's burned into millions of psyches and infects countless human hard drives, and wired to satellite technology, Internet blogs and chat rooms.

Enter Kimveer Gill, the man suspected of killing an 18-year-old woman, critically wounding several others and causing a maelstrom of bloody mayhem at Dawson College in Montreal. Gill is the latest in a sickening line of disaffected young males to short circuit, morph into a tornado of senseless violence, then self-destruct. News stories are quick to unearth quirky details of the alleged killer's now tabloid life tale: a fascination with vampire web sites, bloody video games, dark clothes and a funny haircut.

But to blame this madness on video games like Super Massacre at Columbine, heavy metal music, goth culture or warped websites -- as morally depraved as they all may be -- is to miss the point. These pop culture villains may attract media owners with gripping visuals and seductive sound bites but they do not even begin to explain the complexity of the underlying causes of such mind-boggling, anti-social behaviour.

There are copious examples of those who have jumped to conclusions and blamed popular culture for the deadly deeds of crazed individuals. From teen "stalk-n-slash" film character Freddy Krueger to shock rocker Marilyn Manson, a plethora of pop culture villains have taken heat for causing unstable people to snap. This human tendency to identify easy targets, find simplistic answers and avoid personal responsibility at all costs will no doubt continue.

But the tragic fact is that these "suicide bombers" of our comparatively affluent western world, were, at some point in their lives, reachable. Yet rather than focus on meaningful intervention strategies to assist alienated youth in their struggle for acceptance, which takes time, effort and resources, it's easier to point accusing fingers at familiar targets.

That's why it's extremely encouraging that our political leaders are finally recognizing that to truly enhance the quality and value of all human life, they must be willing to embrace and invest in those young people who are most at risk of failure. Initiatives such as the current provincial government's "six ways" to help students graduate is a major step in this direction.

Student success teams in every high school are able to spend more time with many of the students who do not pursue higher education. The students who have fallen through the proverbial cracks in our schools are now intentionally sought out for special instruction and guidance. It was not always this way.

In fact, for far too long, teachers, all of whom have been university educated themselves, have tended to cater to the academically-oriented students. In a 2005 report for the Ontario Ministry of Education, Early School Leavers: Understanding the Lived Reality of Student Disengagement from Secondary School, five parent/guardian focus groups indicated the greatest risk factors for students dropping out of school are bullying and lack of protection offered by educators.

Innovative projects to help students complete or rescue their credits, specialist high-skills majors, expanded co-operative education credits, Grade 8 to 9 transition programs, and dual credit programs are all designed to make learning relevant and help keep youth in school.

Prior to his 18th birthday, Lee Harvey Oswald had lived in 22 different residences and attended 12 different schools. There were likely many lost opportunities for others to reach out to try and make a positive difference in his brief life.

Make no mistake. Every one of us has a social obligation and moral responsibility to help ensure that the next angry, dysfunctional person lurking in the shadows does not meet the same fate as Oswald and Gill.

We owe it to the many promising young lives that hang in the balance, and to the memories of those victims who have already been sacrificed on the cruel altar of human indifference.

Responsibility is lagging behind trendy technology

March 27, 2007

I sometimes wonder if those who design new technological devices ever really account for or seriously consider their product's possible misuses.

Take for example the recent trend where some teenagers use their cell- phones to record brutal street fights or bizarre scenes of the latest teacher who temporarily "loses it" after being unknowingly baited by students. When these sensational images and sound bites are posted on popular video-streaming websites for the world to gawk at as merely another form of entertainment, then who or what is responsible for the inevitable fallout?

At whom do we point the accusing finger of blame when someone decides to use e-mail or instant messaging to harass, bully, degrade or libel peers or authority figures? Obviously those who initiate these attacks must be held accountable. Right?

But what about the less-visible players, such as the companies that design and produce the latest hi-tech gadgets or the Internet service providers that supply the infrastructure for video-streaming and text message-based web sites that facilitate personal attacks? Most, if not all of these electronic gateway providers have disclaimers and acceptable-use guidelines. In its service agreement, my mobile phone company "trusts" that I will not use their service for "any illegal or abusive purpose." What exactly does this mean? Are they then completely free from all responsibility when their technology is intentionally used to seriously or irreparably attack or defame another human being?

I realize that in a democratic society the line between the right to public privacy and personal safety is fuzzy at best. As well, common sense dictates that a cellphone, personal computer or Internet website in and of itself is neither good nor bad. In fact, such technological innovations allow us to conduct countless business transactions and communicate information rapidly at practically any time and from almost anywhere on the planet. But in the hands of someone with evil intent, these technological creations can just as easily inflict havoc and suffering on innocent, unsuspecting victims.

Is anyone really surprised that some alienated youth are imitating and recycling the cynical "cult of reality" constantly bombarding them on a daily basis through the mass media? Or that the more technically savvy among them are moving the scourge of bullying from the public domain of the schoolyard or classroom to the perceived confines and relative anonymity of cyberspace? Reality-based popular culture is now ubiquitous and serves up a plethora of commercial offerings such as any one of at least a dozen television programs.

Part of the appeal of the Internet is that it allows millions of people the freedom to evade "big brother," to openly engage in unfiltered discourse without the fear of censorship from some central, external authority.

The walls of a number of repressive regimes have been successfully breached and political prisoners freed because of the decentralized nature of the Internet.

But at the same time this technology is being used by pedophiles to conceal their identities and infiltrate popular Internet chat rooms to lure and entrap innocent children. It is also facilitating the widespread sharing of nauseating pornographic images that exploit these vulnerable victims. That practically anyone can use Internet "blogs" (web logs) to anonymously "snipe from the sidelines" only adds to the illusion of invisibility.

There's no doubt that a number of young people succumb to the misleading notion that communicating in cyberspace somehow renders them consequence-free and invulnerable to detection. Yet, if recent incidents of cyber-bullying and self-aggrandizement by a small minority of youth are any indication, school boards are already displaying a willingness to quickly clamp down on such misbehaviour.

Two boys from an Ottawa high school were recently suspended for a fight seen on the Internet by their vice-principal and more than 1,000 people. And students at a Caledon East high school were suspended last month for posting on another popular website crude remarks and illustrations in reference to their principal.

Many school boards already use filtering software to track which web -sites students are surfing and block them from using school computer networks to access those popular web- sites. Such sites -- as some youth, to their chagrin, have already learned -- are biting back and being used as evidence by authorities to identify and consequence offenders.

The communication technology genie has been out of the bottle for some time now, and authorities are scrambling to keep up to those people with nefarious intent who are able to outpace them. But perhaps it's time the companies that create, market and distribute the hi-tech gadget-of-the-month investigate ways to take more responsibility for their inventions.

Before they are legislated to do so and before someone else is victimized and ends up as more "road kill" on the information highway, the technology companies should proactively discern how their creations -- when in the wrong hands -- may be used for purposes other than for what they were intended.

IWBs Taking Education Giant Step into the Future

September 19, 2007

Interactive Whiteboards are transforming how teachers teach and students learn

It's widely known that the invention of the blackboard in the 19th century revolutionized education in one-room schoolhouses around the world. The larger chalkboard allowed teachers to move from the tedious task of writing on the individual slates of their students to instructing an entire class where everyone had the advantage of seeing one board.

Today, another technological innovation -- interactive whiteboards or IWBs -- are helping teachers throughout the industrialized world combine the power of computer technology, the Internet and various software applications into a dynamic, synergistic curriculum delivery system.

Driven by a standard laptop or PC and digital projector, an IWB can display any computer generated image. But the real draw and appeal of the IWB, for students and teachers, is in its touch sensitive screen capability. Computer applications can be controlled by the touch of a finger or digital pen, and teacher or student can draw, write and manipulate images directly on the interactive screen.

The beauty and allure of the IWB is that, unlike the standard chalk or whiteboard, it engages students -- many of whom are already computer savvy -- and entices them to get involved in and take ownership of their own learning.

Of course, this does not mean that IWBs do not have their detractors.

IWBs are now in about half of the classrooms in the United Kingdom and every secondary school in London, England uses IWBs in at least one core subject -- English, math and science. But on the heels of an expensive scheme to replace classroom blackboards throughout the U.K. with the more popular IWBs, London University's Institute of Education released in early 2007 a government-funded study indicating that children are distracted by the technology and the pace of some classes slowed as teachers tried to give individual students more time at the board.

Academics also reported that the amount and complexity of the work teachers offered via the IWB was confusing for some students and resigned others to a "spectator role."

Successful implementation of any new technological tool requires sound professional training. No matter how cutting-edge the technology, there is no substitute for quality instruction.

Teachers need extra lesson preparation time and relevant professional development opportunities to adapt to the use of IWBs so as to effectively harness their potential in curriculum delivery and to improve student performance. More teachers confident with the technology can continue to inspire, then move over to become "guides on the side" to, ultimately, help position self-motivated students at the centre of the classroom learning experience.

Uptake of IWBs in school boards and schools in Ontario has been growing but is largely based upon the whims of the politicians who control the availability of government grants.

As well, partnerships in education needed to help mitigate the costs of new technologies such as IWBs, have largely failed to materialize despite the Ontario government's 1995 Royal Commission on Learning that advocated these kinds of arrangements.

Yet, if the results of a recent survey are any indication, the IWBs are hitting the mark with a select group of teachers and students with the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. As the result of a government grant and part of a pilot project, 20 IWBs were purchased and placed in the classrooms of 14 elementary schools and the board's five high schools.

They've been introduced in junior level elementary classrooms, and in Grades 9 and 10 math classes.

IWBs are intended to increase student engagement in course material and overall academic performance and despite some initial, though understandable reluctance from a few teachers to incorporate IWBs into the classroom, the overall consensus is now strongly supportive of the transformative potential this dynamic technology has to improve student learning.

High school math teachers involved in the pilot project indicated that IWBs help address the needs of predominantly audiovisual learners by engaging them through differentiated instruction.

Other educators piloting the new technology pointed out that non-academic students who would otherwise not participate in class are now more likely to behave and interact with the technological features offered by the IWB.

Some students commented that use of the IWB increased their confidence level in class and helped them to better visualize and understand math concepts.

The transition to any new technology will always pose challenges. The advent of blackboards in traditional 19th-century one-room schoolhouses undoubtedly shifted some of the learning landscape from students back to the teacher. Some educators will easily adjust to the emerging technological paradigm that will inevitably swing more control to students in the classroom, while others will need more time and support.

What's increasingly clear is how quickly teachers have been able to adapt to, share control of, and effectively use tools such as IWBs to enhance learning in the classroom. That will ultimately determine to what extent the individual needs of their students will be met, now and well into the future.

Media Must Shoulder Blame For Violence

February 20, 2008

No troubled teenager or tormented adult who coldly guns down innocent human beings and then self-destructs does so in a vacuum. They learn it from the media.

Here are the facts:

On Feb. 14, 21 people were shot-- five fatally -- as students attend an oceanography class at Northern Illinois University.

On April 16, 2007, 33 people are shot to death and several others are wounded at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in Blacksburg, Va.

On Oct. 2, 2006, a gunman kills five girls and critically wounds five others in an Amish schoolhouse in the village of Paradise, near Nickel Mines, Pa.

On Sept. 13, 2006, a young man kills an 18-year-old woman, while 19 others are wounded at Dawson College in Montreal.

In each of these tragic events the male shooters irreparably shattered the hopes and dreams of their innocent victims then take their own lives.

Violent video games, Goth culture, relentless bullying, dysfunctional families, or access to guns may be contributing factors but are clearly not the main reasons a growing list of angst-ridden adolescents and alienated adults suddenly seem to snap.

Since 1966, there has been a gruesome litany of at least 15 other occasions when ticking human time-bombs have self-destructed, though not before inflicting a horrific tsunami of human grief and anguish in their wake. Each inexplicable act has and continues to take an incalculable toll on the stunned survivors, the families and friends of each victim.

How many of us can actually remember the names of the victims? Without conducting a formal survey, I would be willing to wager that more people recall the names of the deranged killers than they do the tragic victims of these senseless crimes. So what else do all of these shootings have in common?

In almost every gut-twisting case, the names and images of the killers were boldly splashed across countless newspapers, television and computer screens throughout the free world.

It's time we give our heads a shake and stop making instant celebrities out of the latest school-shooter-of-the-week. Don't get me wrong. I'm not for a minute suggesting we can or should even attempt to completely squelch information about the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes.

The proliferation of camera phones, video-sharing Internet web- sites and other technologies yet to land on our store shelves makes any attempt at complete censorship impossible. If there is the slightest chance we can learn more about why these sad souls end up exploding, then by all means such information should be shared with law enforcement agencies and medical experts to prevent future calamities.

What I am suggesting is that media organizations employ the same sort of discretion and self-censorship we see when television networks refuse to provide a platform for individuals or groups who openly threaten violence to achieve their ends. To deter would-be exhibitionists, most TV networks decline to broadcast images of inebriated fans who decide to bare it all during professional sporting events. Couldn't they also refrain from communicating information about school shooters?

What possible benefit can result from feeding the public sordid details of a killer's banal past, other than giving them exactly what they crave? Such coverage only draws attention away from the victims and their families whose lives are mangled beyond repair.

Rather than suffer in silent despair or seek help, a small but disturbing segment of youth is choosing to violently lash out and die in a hail of bullets, though not before dragging others out the blood-spattered door with them. In death, they achieve the mass notoriety that eludes them in life, as their lethal deeds instantly vault them into the glare of the media spotlight.

As any psychologist or weary teacher will readily acknowledge, many troubled adolescents choose to misbehave to gain some attention, however negative, rather than none at all. Should we really be surprised at such attention-seeking behaviour in our more distressed youth?

On an almost daily basis we witness spoiled celebrities who garner disproportionate media attention simply by being bad. Misdeeds, substance abuse, violent tantrums and rehab are all now one-way tickets to over-the-top media coverage.

It's time to take back some of the media landscape by encouraging owners of the broadcast industry to exercise more prudence whenever tragic events like the recent Valentine's Day school shooting occur.

Like it or not, when we scan the latest newspaper, television or online news story for details of such heinous events, we also indirectly contribute to the cycle of violence and frenetic media mayhem that inevitably ensues.

Beaming the names and faces of the killers around the globe following such chilling events will only encourage more unstable individuals to act out in ways that, in the end, will continue to rob us all of our humanity.

New Media Hold Opportunities for Internet Generation

May 9, 2008

In 1966 John Lennon got into a world of trouble by saying during an interview that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. He later clarified, correctly so, that his statement was taken out of context and that rather than implying that the Beatles were more important than Jesus, he was merely pointing out that rock and roll music at that time was probably more influential in the life of the typical teenager than was Jesus.

But the damage was done and some so-called Christians organized public bonfires of Beatles records and even threatened to kill Lennon. How would such a statement by a comparable celebrity be received today? Would it even register as a blip on our jaded entertainment industry radar screen?

Fast forward to 2008 and it seems that Lennon's words are still as relevant as ever. Canadian sociologist Dr. Reginald Bibby's most recent (2005) major survey pegs weekly church attendance among Canadian Christians at about 25 per cent compared to a high of about 70 per cent during the 1950s. A 2006 Ipsos survey put weekly attendance at about 17 per cent.

There are a multitude of reasons weekly church attendance is down overall. Certainly the fact that Sunday is viewed by many in our culture as just one more day to add to the bottom line contributes to the lack of weekly worship. But it is clearly not just adolescents who are shunning the church pew.

Pope John Paul II was keenly aware of his own charisma and how to fuse it with the power of communication technology to help spread the Gospel to the multitudes. John Paul II seemed to internalize the central message of one particular document forged in the Roman Catholic crucible known as the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

Inter Mirifica (The Decree on the Media of Social Communications), among other things, acknowledged that "The church recognizes that these media, (the press, movies, radio, television and the like) if properly utilized, can be of great service to mankind."

A growing number of Protestant pastors and ministers are tired of competing with the Internet, MTV and video games and are taking a long look at the exploding market of what is being called "house of worship technology." Fed up with dwindling congregations and disconnected parishioners, some Christian leaders are raising funds to hard-wire their houses of worship with large video screens, state-of-the-art sound systems and digital video cameras.

Others use shared homilies, Internet blogs and video clips from popular films to illustrate and comment on the weekly Scripture readings while recording, then later uploading the weekly service as a podcast to the Internet. But is this pandering or simply a genuine effort of innovative leaders to re-engage and help meet the spiritual needs of the online generation?

Regardless, as many Catholics are all too aware, change in their church is often agonizingly slow. Indeed, at times, the state of the Holy See more accurately reflects the catchy phrase "nothing's going to change my world" from the popular Beatles song "Across the Universe."

Quite often throughout history, though, change has occurred at the grass roots level. The incredibly rich and storied history and traditions of the Catholic Church should continue to be shared and celebrated with the faithful. But perhaps the standard one-dimensional weekly homily from the pulpit has run its course.

Many of today's youth and young adults may not be devout worshippers but they are spiritual beings who hunger for purpose and meaning in their lives. Their world is rife with complexity and interactivity, where ideas are exchanged with lightning speed via brave new technologies.

They eagerly leverage the read-and-write capabilities of the Internet which promote and facilitate wide-spread collaboration. The rigid top-down management style of the business world is giving way to more fluid forms of egalitarianism, where holistic thinking and bold innovation are encouraged, not sacrificed on the altar of "thou shalt not."

Catholic new media are blossoming and quickly changing the techno-theological landscape. Indeed, later this month in Toronto (May 28-30) more than 300 Catholic communications professionals will gather to discuss and learn more about using the latest media tools to better advantage in their ministry to the world.

The Catholic Media Convention 2008 will unite theory and practice together in talks and workshops dealing with everything from design to next generation web techologies. For more information, go to www.catholicmediaconvention.org.

Not every liturgy need be a rock concert or every priest a pop star. But by continuing to open its doors to new ideas and engaging technologies, the Catholic Church would help keep hope alive by honouring the imaginative spirit of Vatican II and in the process, perhaps even encourage some of its stray sheep to return to the fold.

Chinese Use Time-honoured Practice of Image Control

August 19, 2008

When Dorothy and her three motley cinematic companions inadvertently stumbled upon the man behind the curtain in the magical Land of Oz, as most anyone in their places likely would have done, they reacted with confusion, indignation and disillusionment.

Similarly, when the world first learned that parts of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics had been faked, millions of people who witnessed the dazzling feast of sound, colour, pyrotechnics, synchronicity and human drama may have shared a similar sense of betrayal and disenchantment.

In the opening extravaganza the Chinese organizing wizards drew upon the best from the past two Olympic opening ceremonies. Do you remember the Australian icons amid a sea of dazzling flora and fauna in 2000 in Sydney? Or the two drummers who pounded to the rhythmic pace of a heartbeat during the dramatic 28 second countdown in 2004 in Athens Greece?

Not to be outdone, 2008 Olympic ceremony designers created giant, elaborate firework footprints that marched across Beijing toward the Olympic stadium \-- though not long after the ceremony the world soon learned that these spectacular images were pre-recorded, digitally enhanced, and mixed into footage beamed across the planet.

Beijing Olympic committee officials justified the illusion by pointing out that it was necessary to replace live video with computer-generated 3-D imagery because the smoggy skies made it difficult to see. The 3-D computer effects would also avoid them placing the helicopter pilot scheduled to shoot the pyrotechnics in obvious danger in attempting to film the event while flying through hazy skies.

In breathtaking fashion and accompanied by a thunderous cast of 2008 Fou drummers beating down upon traditional drums with glow-in-the-dark sticks, the big red machine also paraded and flashed before the world captivating vignettes of four of its colossal contributions to humanity -- gunpowder, paper, movable type and the compass.

Then, in a tender moment that could just as easily have originated in a syrupy scene of an animated Disney movie, an adorable little Chinese girl with pigtails sang and melted the collective hearts of the multitudes watching via television and those lucky enough to have a spot in the remarkable venue dubbed the "Beijing bird's nest."

Or at least the global audience believed the sweet nine-year-old school girl in the red dress was the one actually crooning the entrance song ushering in 56 children representing the expansive diversity of the People's Republic. Once Chinese officials openly admitted to deceiving the public and that the actual singing voice was that of another Chinese girl, Yang Peiyi, the proverbial Siamese cat had escaped the bag.

Apparently, a member of the dominant Chinese politburo watching a rehearsal of the opening ceremony determined that though Yang Peiyi's voice may be perfect, because of her protruding teeth she did not fit the physical image of beauty the Chinese wanted to portray to the world -- hence, a picture perfect stand-in.

Another influential political figure to internalize the power of the image was Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of the affluent Massachusetts Kennedy clan. As Kennedy once said: "It's not what you are that counts, but what people think you are."

One of his famous sons, the late President John F. Kennedy, was a primary example of this dictum. A sickly child who nearly lost his life to Addison's disease in 1947, Kennedy, during his brief time in office, was often injected with steroids to help alleviate severe spastic colitis and a debilitating back problem for which he wore a brace. While in office his physical ailments and marital infidelity were largely hidden from public scrutiny. His image was controlled and captured by a personal filmmaker and compliant press that was not nearly as insatiable as are today's journalists in exposing and magnifying the foibles of celebrities and politicians for all to see.

Yet during the 1960s an oblivious public was more than content to feed upon the constructed reality of a pseudo royal court where president and first lady became king and queen of a mythical American Camelot. Images of JFK combined to paint a portrait of a strong leader, whose daring dreams, physical vitality and family values were shaped during bold speeches to the nation, backyard family football games and tender moments with Jackie, Caroline and John Jr.

The glittering ideals of the Olympic Games on the world stage or lofty dreams of political leaders of nations are still viewed best through the unfiltered lens of the critical human mind and heart.

Ironically, it was not until the fictional, self-proclaimed great and powerful Wizard of Oz was finally exposed for what he truly was that the quest for a brain, a heart, courage and home could finally be realized.

What would Jesus text?

March 31, 2009

Imagine how rapidly Christianity or any socio-political movement would have swept across the breadth of the ancient world if given the benefit of today's ubiquitous communication technologies.

The Vatican's recent announcement of a new YouTube channel to communicate its message to the world, and its exploration of other ways to use new media, if not surprising, is certainly an astute and pragmatic move.

Pope Benedict's ground-breaking Short Message Service (text) message sent to pilgrims during this past World Youth Day in Australia was but one of a series of strategic moves designed to appeal to today's gadget-addicted Catholics.

A recent homily given during the bi-monthly children's liturgy at my parish got me wondering about how communication technology would factor into Jesus' ministry if He were to return today.

Our parish priest cleverly used a popular music player as a metaphor to capture the attention of his young audience. He indicated to the children that, like an iPod that needs recharging every 24 hours or so, our "spiritual batteries" also need regular attention.

So I got to thinking about today's hi-tech communication devices and the recent explosion in social networking web sites and wondered how Jesus might have leveraged all this wondrous technology were He walking among us.

Would our Lord use a computer to create religious podcasts to reach the masses? Would he wear an iPhone or BlackBerry on His belt to connect with 21st-century disciples? Would He create web-based social-networking sites on the likes of Facebook, MySpace or Twitter to connect with believers and non-believers across the globe?

Or would God's son maintain His own daily blog, wiki or online video channel to spread the good news and collaborate with the world's techno-savvy in order to save the souls of the techno-needy?

I would suspect that, were He among us in the flesh today, Jesus would not hesitate to harness the vast potential of the read-and-write capabilities of the Internet and SMS technology to seek out and interact with the comfortable.

Jesus as iGod would likely waste little time in mobilizing and evangelizing the more affluent "techno-haves" of the world to encourage them to help comfort the afflicted, to feed the bodies, minds and spirits of the poor, hungry, alienated, lonely and broken among us.

The modern-day miracles of digital, satellite and cellular technology can deliver on-demand live television, webcasts and text and audio messages virtually anywhere in the world in the twinkling of an eye.

Like the previous papal media superstar John Paul II, it would not be much of a stretch to expect that Jesus would adapt quickly to new technologies and leverage them to avidly oppose the triple threat of war, hunger and disease, while actively promoting and preserving the dignity of life, about which the late pope so eloquently spoke and wrote.

It is difficult to imagine that a plugged-in Jesus would use today's technology to cast anything less than a rainbow of promise across the digital universe.

Now if only the rest of us could consistently harness the power of technology to promote peace and justice in our own families, communities and in the world beyond our borders. We would then be bearers of light and hope for those unfortunate souls whose lives, in need of healing, contain too much darkness.

It's time to open schools to corporate deals

May 12, 2009

So I came across an interesting news article the other day -- Toronto Board Allows Use Of Future Shop Colours In Computer Lab -- that might be part of the solution to the Ontario Ministry of Education's underfunding of educational technology in Ontario's schools.

I mean, what's a person to think when, on the one hand, the ministry spends millions of dollars to train potential e-learning teachers and create and promote e-learning courses -- then announces a reduction in the amount it allocates to school districts for computer technology purchases.

The recent ministry announcement of reductions in grants for student needs, as related to computer technology, is ironically coinciding with some innovative responses to a growing problem in public education systems throughout North America.

Future Shop, meanwhile, is donating $100,000 to the Toronto District School Board so it can create two computer labs. The retail chain hopes the labs will go into schools in high-risk neighbourhoods that are within seven kilometres of one of their stores. They view the donation as a way to give back to the communities they serve.

Part of the deal requires that the computer labs be painted shades of grey with red trim -- Future Shop's corporate colours -- and that they be located within seven kilometres of one of their stores. There will be no flashy logos though.

Rewind to 1994 and the Ontario government's Royal Commission report For the Love of Learning. One key recommendation emphasized "that school boards, in co-operation with the ministry, the private sector, universities and colleges, initiate a number of high-profile and diverse projects on school computers and learning, to include a major infusion of computer hardware and software."

Sadly, 15 years later these visionary goals have, for the most part, not been realized. Though there are pockets of technological innovation in some elementary and secondary schools, most classrooms in Ontario still reflect a 19th-century model of education, where the teacher contains, controls and dispenses information which students consume then regurgitate in the form of paper and pencil tests.

Speaking in support of the deal, Toronto school board trustee James Pasternak said, "corporate Canada has a responsibility to participate in public education."

Another trustee, Michael Coteau, cautioned that allowing a company to "brand a room (with corporate colours) where children are going to learn is a dangerous thing."

The reality is, if you walk into any school in Ontario today you will likely find dozens of brands to which our children are already exposed on a daily basis -- whether it's the junk or nutritional food in the school cafeteria, the branded insurance forms that children take home their first day of school, or the lunches sponsored by the local pizzeria -- corporate bidders are already in the faces of our kids.

To meet the growing needs of and engage the average 21st-century media-saturated learner requires not only current technological hardware and software, but a well-crafted plan to train pre-service and current teachers on instructing students on the appropriate and ethical use of technology as well as the effective use of instructional technology in curriculum delivery.

We are constantly reminded that we live in a technological matrix of innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurialism. We proudly and rightfully boast about our numerous dot-com successes and the impact they have had throughout the world.

The ministry of education spends our hard-earned tax dollars on its e-learning initiative and providing access to engaging, interactive web-based resources for students. At the same time it trims technology budgets which prevents school board officials from purchasing the necessary equipment and support required to leverage and train teachers on the new technologies.

Ultimately, it is the students and the community into which they will one day graduate that will pay the price of such political dithering. The realities of rapid technological change, fierce global competition and an ever-changing workforce are demanding of our future employees transferable skills such as: collaboration, problem-solving, communication and technological literacy.

For the sake of all stakeholders, it's time our visionary educational and corporate community leaders stepped up to the plate to help find a solution to the underfunding of technology in our public education system.

All that is missing are the partnerships, funds and political will to make our schools the rich learning environments they should be for our children. If there is a moral or subtext to the Future Shop-school board deal, perhaps it's this: never underestimate the power of a fresh coat of paint.

