…this image is pretty funny. Produced by GOOD Magazine, it moves countries’ populations around to so that size and population followed the same progression. Take a look:
A re-ordered world. Photo credit GOOD Magazine
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Marching with HSSE in the 2010 Victoria Pride Parade
Yesterday I went down to the Pride Parade but instead of merely watching, this year I decided to march with Heterosexuals for Same Sex Equality (HSSE). It was a great deal of fun, mostly thanks to Shona Crisp who did all the organizing and networking to get us all out. There are a great deal of other pictures out there on the internet covering the rest of the great parade, such as the Paparazzi float we were a few behind (that was the big truck with the bubble machine, DJ, and people dancing in front with large feather ensembles), so I figured I would put up the HSSE pictures only. Enjoy:
(You can also see them in the flickr set)
Last weekend on Saltspring…
It may sound like the beginning to a great story, but it is really the intro to a series of pictures I took the last Saturday in June when I visited Saltpring Island with two friends. We hit the Saltspring Market, ArtCraft, and a pair of beaches (including one in Ruckle Park. All in all, a great day had by all. Pictures below and in my Flickr set.
Langford Mayor Stew Young blogs
I failed to notice this earlier this year, but as of March 2010, the Mayor of Langford, Stew Young, has got himself a blog. It is mostly puff pieces and is likely written by the City of Langford’s communications/pr department. This is marked difference to John Luton’s and Cairine Green’s blogs, which are both written by them. Another key difference: John and Cairine actually update their blogs. As of this writing, John updated his today, talking about 2-laning the Johnson St. bridge, and Cairine with an update on June 21st about a recent council meeting.
A few pictures from a few block parties
Yesterday I went for a bit of a walk around Oak Bay to 5 different block parties: St. Patrick, Byron St, Pacific St, the lane behind Dalhousie St, and Oliver St. While out for my jaunt I took a few pictures (see them all in my Flickr set too):
Tea Party pictures
Oh the hair!
I uploaded some Tea Party pictures from sunny Saturday to a Flickr set today. Sadly I missed out on getting pictures of the parade due to me forgetting my battery from my camera at home, but I managed to borrow another camera for the rest of the day.
I spent large parts of Saturday and Sunday working at Rotary Oak Bay’s cotton candy and popcorn booth, so I didn’t get a huge amount of time for photographs. Still, enjoy!
Why merit pay for teachers makes no sense
First of all, full disclosure. I come from a family of teachers. My mother was a teacher, my maternal grandfather went from school principal to deputy minister in the Dept. of Education here in BC, both my maternal grandmother and aunt taught nursing and my father has taught university biology classes. Suffice it to say that the likelihood of me ending up in a teaching career is extremely high.
Back to merit pay. The Globe and Mail has a recent article on it, which is what got me thinking. In principle, I like the idea of merit pay, as I suspect most people do. It strikes to the heart of our sense of fairness and reward. Do better and get rewarded for it. Which brings us to the big problem with merit pay for teachers. What the heck do you reward them for?
The most common reward seems to be students marks, either through not having them fail or through getting higher grades. But are grades the be all and end all of teaching? No, schools are important places of social and creative learning, neither of which are especially well tested by any standard method. Nor can whether little Bobby or Sue or Rajinder is going to be a well adjusted person in later life be determined from a multiple choice test.
So if you cannot easily test whether or not a teacher is truly succeeding at all they are supposed to do, not just whether or not their students do well in standardized tests, you cannot fairly apportion merit pay. Because to do so would be to reward those teachers that “teach to the test” and not teach the student, and teaching to the test is precisely what a school should not be doing. Rather than use that money to reward teachers on some arbitrary system, why not use the money to pay for a few school breakfasts and lunches? Well fed students learn better and are more attentive, regardless of whether they are in a Math, English or Drama class.
Added calendar of Oak Bay events
I have added a calendar of Oak Bay events, including an iCal feed so you can add it to your own calendar. I will update it as I get new events, but feel free to contact me if you have anything you think is relevant and want to add.
John Luton joins the blogging ranks
As I have lamented in the past, few councillors are using this shiny information superhighway thingy to tell us, their constituents, about what goes on in city hall. Until recently, Cairine Green, District of North Saanich Councillor, remained the only one to harness this power.
But she is no longer alone, as John Luton has decided to join the blogging ranks, with The Sustainable City. As he puts it in his own words:
As a Victoria City Councillor, I’ll use the blog to share ideas and profile work I am doing down at City Hall. I hope it will be of some value in providing some accountability to the citizens of Victoria and the many thousands of you who lent me their votes last year.
I am glad my list of blogging councillors has doubled in size. Let’s hope 2010 can double that list again.