2023 – Page 2 – Sommer Season all year

Those of you who read my (#blogger #blog #somseason #YA #authors) blog know that I am a retired school teacher. Over the years, I’ve participated in and supervised many school events that were fun and brought joy to students. We’ve just had Valentine’s Day, and at one of the schools I taught at the High School Student Council would organize events like sending a flower, along with a message, to their boyfriends or girlfriends, to someone they secretly liked, or to someone they admired. Even I received a flower on occasion. This tradition made people feel special and appreciated. I always thought it was a wonderful activity, so you can imagine how shocked I was to read about an Ontario school who banned Valentine’s Day. What is so wrong with Valentine’s Day? It’s a day of tradition where one’s beloved is honoured. Their reasons for prohibiting this day are lame to say the least.

Then there is the BC elementary school cancels Mother’s Day, introduces ‘The Grownups Who Love Us Day’. Why are they trying to erase motherhood and fatherhood from our culture? The school’s reasoning behind the name change is so that all students can feel included in card-making. They claim students with one parent or with a deceased parent are excluded. I went to school with classmates whose mother or father had passed away. It wasn’t an issue then, so why now?

Then there is the New Brunswick (NB) school that silences Oh Canada, Canada’s National Anthem. That’s insanity. NB is a province in Canada. Apparently, Oh Canada is no longer a daily morning event at Belleisle Elementary as the school’s principal dropped it to accommodate parents who didn’t want their children taking part singing the anthem. The principal wouldn’t say why the parents objected to their kids taking part, citing privacy reasons. I guess the “squeaky wheel gets the grease.” The trend nowadays is if something offends just one person, you ban it. As American conservative political commentator, Rush Limbaugh says, “It’s impossible to go through life not offending people. All you have to do is basically have an opinion on anything, and you’re gonna offend people,” or as English-born American political activist, Thomas Paine said, “He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” Stop banning things for a few whiners.

Something is terribly wrong. It seems our schools are becoming places where fun and tradition are banned, but some things schools are doing border on craziness. A Hamilton high school students fired from a hospital co-op placement over “OK” hand gesture. The student’s employer alleged that an “OK” hand gesture she made in a social media photo was a symbol of white supremacy. What? It usually denotes approval, agreement, and all is well or “okay.” Who decided it was a hate symbol? The best one yet is Math now racist according to Ontario court. Say what? Apparently Math Proficiency Tests are “unconstitutional” as it impairs non-white teacher candidates. I’m baffled! Ban proficiency tests, because they’re unfair to immigrant teachers, and allow the quality of teachers to decrease. Seems logical. I’m being sarcastic of course.

Spirit days were huge in the schools I worked in. We had crazy hair days, pajama days, crazy hat days, dress as your hero days, formal dress day, to name a few. They were fun for both teachers and students. Yet, an Ontario school board bans spirit days, wacky hair days for woke reasons. You see, fun days are banned because the school board claims spirit days need to be reimagined because many are racist, ableist (discrimination based on disability), exclusionary and push colonialism. Pardon me? Are they saying crazy hair days are racist or exclusionary? I guess the bald students are excluded, but in my 35 years of teaching, I never taught a student without hair. I worked with colleagues who lacked hair though. Forbidding kids to have fun in school is bullying (#bullying, #antibullying) plain and simple.

A University lecturer is disciplined for wearing Indigenous costume as teaching aid. Yes, you read that correctly. The professor dressed up as an Indigenous person because he was discussing a book about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He says he dressed up as an Indigenous person to get his students’ attention, and had reportedly worn other costumes in the weeks leading up to this incident while teaching other lessons. His behaviour was deemed inappropriate although the article fails to say how it’s inappropriate. I guess creative teaching is banned. No wonder students are bored. Then there is the Ontario teacher who is allowed to keep license after criticizing WOKE ideology, but we live in a country where free speech is allowed, right?

Where things really get bizarre are the positions taken by authorities regarding sex education and gender issues. Take for example the Waterloo school board trying to obliterate debate over sexualized children’s books. The board decided not to post the video of a controversial public meeting where a long-serving teacher was cut off for questioning the value of two highly sexualized children’s books in school libraries. Another School Board cuts mom’s mic for reading GRAPHIC assignment given to daughter. I guess it’s okay for 15-year-olds to read these assignments but inappropriate for a mother to read it to the School Board whiling expressing her horror. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Then there is the Ottawa school board gender guide that says teachers can’t question washroom preferences. The board orders teachers to accommodate students who wish to use the opposite sex’s change rooms, affirming that “self-identification” is the only determinant of a student’s gender. When I was in school, students were disciplined for going into the opposite sex’s washrooms. I guess it’s okay in today’s schools. Most disturbing is the Masturbation homework given to B.C. junior kindergarten students. Yes, you read that right; kindergarten students. Kindergarten students are as young as 4 years old. The teacher sent home a masturbation worksheet taken from a guide called “Body Smart: Right From the Start.” When I was teaching, we would have been severely reprimanded, if not fired, for doing such a thing.

Then there is the university Professor who says let’s ditch the term pedophile for ‘minor-attracted person’. I have nothing to say about that, except to quote author Mike Lew who said, “The rape of a child is a violent act of contempt, not an expression of sexuality or affection.”

Edmonton, an Alberta city, is embedding “anti-racism” into the kindergarten-to-grade 6 curriculum, as explained in the news article, Edmonton to teach kindergarteners “anti-racism” curriculum. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is controversial to say the least, and that’s a whole other blog post. True North columnist Sue-Ann Levy says, “School boards…are already trying to indoctrinate kids as young as kindergarten with this very dangerous CRT philosophy, which is divisive and racist in its selectivity.” I couldn’t agree more. CRT is indoctrination.

The National Post columnist, Rex Murphy: Toronto school board takes lunacy to a whole new level. He talks of a Toronto School board who is contemplating censoring a Jewish trustee who complained about anti-Semitic materials. What is there to say about that? I guess it is okay to have students read anti-Semitic books as well as sexualized children’s books.

A new Leger poll reveals reports that Canadians agree with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre that Canada is broken. The poll says 67% of Canadians agree with the statement made by a Canadian politician who stated that “it feels like everything is broken in this country right now”. I have to agree! Canada’s schools certainly are broken. American football player, Justin James (J.J) Watt, said, “What I remember most about high school are the memories I created with my friends.” I guarantee you those memories were not teacher lessons. Memories came from fun. Stop taking the fun out of schools. Stop this madness!

My wife and I, along with our son, recently went to the newly released Avatar sequel; Avatar: The Way of Water. There’s been lots of hype about the movie since the last Avatar movie was released in 2009. It’s a story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their children) who get displaced and are forced to flee to another Indigenous tribe’s—the Metkayina—water world. I won’t give any more of the plot away than that.

It’s been over 10 years since my wife and I saw the first Avatar, so we watched it again. Avatar 1 takes place on the alien world of Pandora where the humanoid indigenous Na’vi live, a primitive, yet highly evolved people. The planet’s environment is poisonous for humans and to the Na’vi hybrids or Avatars. These Avatars link to human minds to allow for free movement on Pandora. Former Marine, Jake Sully, is paralyzed so becomes mobile again through his Avatar.

For me ((#blogger #blog #somseason #YA #authors) the most infuriating part of the movie is the corporate CEO’s intention to drive off the Na’vi in order to mine a precious material. In exchange for the spinal surgery to fix his legs, Jake gathers knowledge of the Na’vi way of life for a military unit commanded by an arrogant, egotistical Colonel. While bonding with the native tribe, Jake falls in love with Neytiri, one of the clan’s females. The Colonel uses ruthless bullying (#bullying, #antibullying) tactics to remove the Na’vi which forces Jake to take a stand and he fights back. The Colonel ends up destroying the clan’s village tree, and much of the story centers around the ‘Tree of Souls,’ the clan’s most sacred site, which is also destroyed by the Colonel.

Watching the two movies got me thinking about the indigenous people on our planet. Both movies have a similar plot; corporation gets rich taking valuable resources and uses any force necessary to do so. It is obvious the corporate world cares only about money and couldn’t care less about the indigenous on Pandora. Isn’t that what happened to our Indigenous peoples? I’m not just referring to North America’s (NA) Indigenous peoples, but also those found in South America, Australia, and Africa as well. I will focus on Canada’s Indigenous since I am most familiar with them.

According to National Geographic’s, The untold story of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in October 1666, King Charles II of England was told of the “great store of beaver” discovered in NA. That led to settlers setting up on James Bay’s southern shores where they traded with the Cree, but by the mid-1800s, attitudes toward Indigenous Peoples grew more contemptuous when the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) officials began to rely less on Indigenous knowledge. In 1822, George Simpson, a Scottish explorer and colonial governor of the HBC wrote that Indigenous peoples “must be ruled with a rod of iron, to bring and to keep them in a proper state of subordination.” The motto for the corporate world seems to be: If the Indigenous aren’t cooperative, then use force.

It struck me in the first Avatar movie that the indigenous people were referred to as “blue monkeys,” and “hostiles.” Our North America indigenous people were often referred to as “savages” and “barbarians.”

The Na’vi’s most sacred place the“Tree of Souls” is where they could access their ancestors. NA Indigenous people believe nature is sacred. A Native American Elder once said, “Honor the sacred. Honor the earth, our mother. Honor the elders. Honor all with whom we share the earth: four-leggeds, two-leggeds, winged ones, swimmers, crawlers, plant, and rock people. Walk in balance and beauty.” It’s difficult to summarize Native American spirituality as there are hundreds of tribes, each unique, but there seems to be a strong sense of reverence for ancestors and nature in Native American culture.

In another scene, Scully tells the CEO about how the Na’vi talk about ‘flows of energy, that energy flows through everything, and energy is only borrowed.’ When the CEO is told about the ‘Tree of Souls’ and the scientists urge him to leave the tree alone because the root system connects all trees, the CEO laughs and responds saying, “Those fly bitten savages. They’re just trees.” To the Colonel’s pleasure, the military is instructed to go in with force to move out the Na’vi. Soldiers just follow orders, showing no compassion or care for the Na’vi, except one pilot who says “I didn’t sign up for this shit,” when she realized a slaughter was happening.

Native Americans operate under the belief that both the living and nonliving have an individual spirit that is part of the greater soul of the universe. Chief Big Thunder expresses it best when he said, “The Great Spirit is in all things. He is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our father, but the earth is our mother. She nourishes us. That which we put into the ground she returns to us.” It’s why the indigenous people believed the land was never theirs, as Chief Seattle said, “The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth.” It’s also why Crazy Horse, a Lakota war leader who said, “One does not sell the land people walk on.” An ancient native American proverb says, “We don’t inherit the Earth from our Ancestors; we borrow it from our Children.” Indigenous people had no sense of ownership, everything was shared.

I’m presently reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. She is an indigenous woman belonging to the Potawatomi Nation, and is a distinguished professor of Environmental Sciences at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She tells a story of teaching a class when she asked the hypothetical question: What do you suppose would happen if people believed this crazy notion that the Earth loved them back? The class erupted and wanted to discuss it. One student summed it up saying, “You wouldn’t harm what gives you love” (page 124). Would our planet have the environmental crises it has today if that attitude had been adopted?

Kimmerer describes her early university experience saying,

The first plant science class was a disaster. I barely scraped by with a C and could not muster much enthusiasm for memorizing…There were times I wanted to quit, but the more I learned, the more fascinated I became…mesmerized by plant ecology, evolution, taxonomy, physiology, soils and fungi…yet there was always something tapping on my shoulder…My natural inclination was to see relationships, to seek the threads that connect the world, to join instead of divide. But science is rigorous in separating the observer from the observed, and the observed from the observer. Why two flowers are beautiful together would violate the division necessary for objectivity…I scarcely doubted the primacy of scientific thought. Following the path of science trained me to separate, to distinguish perception from physical reality, to atomize complexity into its smallest components, to honor the chain of evidence and logic, to discern one thing from another, to savor the pleasure of precision… (page 42)

Science compartmentalizes and seldom looks at the big picture, or the interconnectedness of things. Science doesn’t acknowledge what American author, Amy Leigh Mercree says, “Interconnection permeates the entire universe. We are all one.”

There is a scene in the first Avatar where Neytiri is sad after she killed the animals who were attacking Sully’s Avatar, and she even apologized to them. According to the article, What Is the Relationship Between Indigenous Peoples and Animals, many Indigenous Peoples believe that: “the Animal People have spirits and enter the human world to give their bodies to supply men with food, fur and other materials. After their flesh is used the animals return home, put on new flesh and re-enter the human world whenever they choose.” Indigenous people respect the animal world and never took more than what they needed.

Britannica’s article: Which Animal Is the Smartest? says, “Strictly speaking, humans are the smartest animals on Earth—at least according to human standards.” That is what we’re taught in our Western World, and I grew up believing that, but Kimmerer writes in her book,

In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of creation—and the plants on the bottom. But in the Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as ‘the younger brothers of creation.’ We say the humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we’ve been and have had the time to figure things out. They [plants] live both above and below ground, joining Skyworld to the earth. Plants know how to make food and medicine from light and water, and then give it away (page 9).

We humans seem to think we have it all figured out, that animals and plants are inferior, yet the Indigenous culture teaches us to learn from nature; to learn from the plants and animals because of their wisdom . How much better off would we be if we had liberated ourselves from our arrogant Western ideals and learned from the Indigenous? That is one of Avatar’s lessons.