On Marxism

It's such a go-to now to call the enemy some version of a communist in a weird throwback to 1950s America and McCarthyism. And now the leader of the opposition accused Canada's Prime Minister of being a Marxist, and he said it like it's a bad thing!

Lisa B0923 explains why Trudeau is decidedly not Marxist: 

"This is what Marxists believe: 'Marxism analyses the impact of the ruling class on the laborers, leading to uneven distribution of wealth and privileges in the society. It stimulates the workers to protest the injustice.' Now I guess compared to the current CPC the liberals may look Marxist because the current CPC is so far right, like, you can't even see them in the distance." 

@lisab0923 #greenscreenvideo #greenscreen #pierrepoilievre #jamiljivani #michelleferreri #cpc #durham #doorknocking #staged #justintrudeau #liberal #marxist #buzzwords #ragefarming #politicalspectrum #conservativesarewack #howembarrassing #canada #canpolitt #sorightyourewrong #neverpoilievre #everydamnday ♬ original sound - Lisa

But let's dive a little deeper into what Marx said to see that philosophically, communists and capitalists aren't that far apart, but both are nowhere near the neolibertarian capitalists. Kinda like Lisa said above, neoliberals are just so far to the right that everyone looks like a commie from their vantage point.

Commies, Capitalists and Neoliberal Capitalists

What I think is interesting is that one of the fathers of capitalism, John Locke, and one of the fathers of communism, Karl Marx, were reacting to their different situations in very similar ways. 

Just 1,460 More Days 'Til We Vote Him Out!

They called the election before all the polling places were closed because Ford had that much of a lead. My first thought this morning: 

"Realizing what a bubble I'm in online and in real life. I don't know a single person who would consider voting PC. I'm blown away that cuts to healthcare, profit-driven LTC, no autism services, online ed, paved over farmland, etc. is what Ontario actually wants."

Many were quick to point out that it's not what Ontario wants, but possibly just the 18% of eligible voters who actually voted for Ford. It helps to know that 25% of people voted against Ford, and the big surprise - sort of - is that 57% didn't vote at all. I was all in a tizzy about this one, yet lots and lots of people just stayed home. 

Can you blame them?

On Educational Reform

I'm teaching a "new" type of program call the Futures Forward Project.  It joins three grade ten subjects for the morning with one teacher.  The idea is that if students have one teacher all morning, with three subjects, their education can become more flexible and therefore more student-directed as they individually decide every day what kinds of projects to do and when.

The idea has been around for centuries.  It started with Rousseau, then Montessori, and more recently with Hall-Dennis, Outcomes Based, and Mastery Learning projects.  All of these recent additions to education seem to come and go over and over under different names.  It's curious to me how we have this one main way of teaching that involves socratic teaching and some rote memorization of facts followed by testing and the practical application of skills within a typical classroom setting, and then every few years or so, we're told to throw it all out and do something radically different.  Then we revert back to the old standard again.