I don't listen to music very much. When I am driving, I prefer podcasts and talk radio because I like to engage ideas and argue—yes, I argue with the car radio. I certainly don't make a habit of going to concerts, but I was very excited about a concert last September at St. Andrews in [...]
After reading several blogs I wrote for posting this summer, Tanya, the editor of Inside Out, suggested I write something more personal—I should save the more academic posts for the fall. Personal? I was puzzled at first, but then I had an idea—I have this blank-page book I carry with me all the time; I [...]
What if we measured wealth in something other than money and material possessions? The grade 9 Humanities classes went on a field trip to the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus in Vancouver. It was a valuable experience as we began our study of First Nations cultures in Canada. One of the things that stood [...]
I was asking my Humanities 9 students a series of questions in preparation for a research project. "Is it OK to use a pencil?" "Is it OK to use an apple (to make pie, for instance)?" "Is it OK to use a chicken (to make pie, for instance)?" Most answered yes to all of the [...]
I recently heard a pastor refer to France as a spiritual wasteland, and this wasn't the first time I had heard this. Twenty-one of our students went to France this past spring break and I asked them if they found this to be true. They agreed that French culture is very secular. Very few people [...]
I teach Beowulf in Literature 12. It's a story about a hero and a monster. I did some research and learned that heroes represent cultural ideals—our best selves. Monsters challenge these ideals—they represent our doubts about who we are. Zombies are everywhere these days. If literary monsters reveal a cultural identity crisis, I wondered what [...]
This is my work mug. I've been drinking from it since before my current students were born. There's much you can know about my mug if you study it as a scientist might. One of the tools scientists use is empirical observation. By this method they could determine things like capacity (32 ml), mass, (347.1 [...]
I'm not too keen on flying. I wouldn't say I'm terrified, but even if it's a very smooth flight, I'm at least uncomfortable with being nine kilometers above the surface of the earth. It's not actually a fear of flying; it's more a fear of crashing. To deal with this fear, I have a little [...]
When I was 10, I was a fundamentalist. It was then that I learned in science class that the tomato was a fruit. It's likely that, armed with this new information, I sallied forth to do battle against ignorance—or, rather, against the ignorant. I'd approach my unsuspecting victim and say, "Tomatoes are fruit." Predictably, they'd [...]
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