The Duck Project

Several years ago, the class of about a dozen special needs students I worked with, participated in “The Duck Project.” “The Duck Project” was much like “The Egg Project”, where students are required to carry an egg around and take care of it, making sure it isn’t neglected or broken, with the intention of giving the chosen students the responsibility of looking after something that depends on them for survival.

Only with “The Duck Project” each student was given a duckling, a beautiful, fluffy baby, to take care of for two weeks after which time the ducklings were returned to the duck farm and left to grow up and become someone’s dinner. How lovely though, that for a brief time, the students would have the opportunity to take care of a living, breathing thing whose life depended on them. A fine life lesson for young teens? A taste of reality maybe?

It was an absolutely dreadful idea from the start – baby ducks, although cute as can be, stink after only a short time in an enclosed pen (where they were kept during school hours, a much preferred location, I am sure to the boxes they were kept in while being transported to and from school and maybe longer.) A letter and a consent form explaining the purpose of the project went home but accommodations weren't checked out. I believe though, most of the ducklings were cared for appropriately.

Days passed and the ducks grew rapidly. They got bigger, noisier, smellier and less cute. The kids lost interest quickly because looking after them was hard and unrewarding work. Ducklings don’t give a lot back. The peeping was continuous, tempers flared and everyone was getting pretty edgy. By the time the ducklings and students had been together through a weekend, everyone, including the ducklings I’m sure, wished that the project would end. And for one it did, very abruptly.

About midway through week two, a previously healthy duckling died overnight at the student’s home. The student came to school and told the teacher she didn’t have a duckling anymore. I wasn’t privy to that conversation and I don’t know the details which were never shared with the rest of the staff working in that classroom. However, I do know the ducklings were returned to the duck farm that day and the dead duckling was never acknowledged. Questions from the other students went unanswered. It was as though the poor duckling never existed. Death, especially suspicious death, apparently was a taboo subject, not to be included in this life lesson. As classroom assistants, we were told not to discuss it.

Weeks later however, a group of the students approached me and asked me if I remembered xxx’s baby duck and wanted to know what happened to it. I told them it died and they asked why. I said I didn’t know. One said she’d heard that it was strangled and another said it got stepped on. One of the boys told them the family ate it? Someone else said it drowned? They all knew it was dead but my goodness, how rumours grow when questions aren’t answered!

They wanted to know where it was, what happened to its body? Again, I didn’t know. Their concern, empathy and sorrow were evident. One said it was wrong to just forget the duck like it was nothing and started to cry. I told them it was okay to be sad and that it made me sad too.

The students had expressed my thoughts precisely. The fuss at the beginning of the project suggested that the ducklings should be personified and treated like part of the family, like darling baby cousins coming for a visit, and yet when this duckling died, there was no mourning, no funeral, and no acknowledgement of sadness and grief even though everyone was visibly upset. All of the ducklings were just gone.

Children require answers so they can make sense of their world. Tragedy and death are not pleasant topics but questions need to be answered in an honest way. Information doesn’t have to be repetitive, elaborate, or sensational – just informative at the level of the kids’ questions and understanding. So much angst could have been prevented after "The Duck Project" if only the kids’ feelings had been considered. Tragedy happens and when it does, kids hear about it. They want mostly to be reassured but often don’t have the words to express their needs. It is important to find the time to listen and to share information at their comfort level so fears can be addressed and their rampant imaginings can be put to rest.

Play it again...

Okay, so I have this cupboard full of old cookbooks and recipes. Most are mine but some of the really old ones were my mothers. And there’s a recipe box full of handwritten recipes from before that.

My grandmother’s scone recipe is there but the method involves a handful of this, a pinch of that, a dollop and a slab of other ingredients and then folding it all together with your hands until a soft dough forms. I tried this once and got to the folding together part, assuming that the dough “forming” was a kind of magical phenomenon. It wasn’t and I doubt that I translated dollops and pinches correctly because it was all a big mess. All I know is my mom made these scones and, with strawberry jam, they were out of this world delicious.

There are several old recipes in that box, all with really vague measuring instructions. Maybe in the early 1900s there was a collective baking sense that came to women the way computer sense now seems to be almost inherent in our children. Born half way through that century, I missed out on both counts.

But the reason I was recently snooping through those old recipe files was because I was in search of THE vegetable marrow honey recipe. This delicious, lemony preserve, when spread on toast of fresh bread was wonderful, one of the special tastes of my childhood – something I remember fondly but don’t know how to make. I could let it go, but as fate would have it, my mother fed it to my son when he was a little guy and he remembers. A few years ago he asked me if I would make some. I thought I had it figured out but, like the scones, it was a disaster. I haven’t thought about it since.

Fast forward to the market last weekend. The lady in front of me asked the market lady if the squash she was holding  was a spaghetti squash. No, she was told. It was a vegetable marrow. The market lady said she hasn’t  been able to get them for several years. Maybe the grocery stores haven’t had them either because I haven’t seen one in a long time.

“I don’t want it then,” said the spaghetti squash lady.

“I do,” burst out of my mouth, the memory of marrow honey teasing my taste buds, the memory of not having the recipe, gone. So I brought it home. It isn’t as big as the ones my dad grew but it is a firm, light yellow vegetable marrow, none the less. And it’s waiting for me to do something with it.

So I am in search of the recipe. I’ve found a couple that might work on vintage recipe sites and I’m hoping I can come close to the smooth, buttery texture and fine taste of the marrow honey I remember. If not, I’m done, but if it works, there will be a couple of us who are really happy.

Anyone else have memories of marrow honey?

Eeehaw and all that crap.

From the Calgary Stampede website:

The very first chuckwagon competition at the Calgary Stampede occurred in 1923. Stampede founder Guy Weadick recruited ranchers to enter their chuckwagon and roundup crews in competition, and the Rangeland Derby was born.

Billed as the No. 10 Event evening competition, the "Cowboy's Chuck-Wagon Race" offered purses and prizes totaling $275. An outfit consisted of four horses, a wagon, a driver and four helpers. The Yukon's Bill Sommers won the first race. For the Official Canadian Championship, each outfit was required to "Cut a figure eight around barrels, out through backstretch into track, run around track back to camp ground, unhook team from wagon, stretch fly. No less than two stakes, and make fire. First smoke decides winner."

Considering the number of accidents on the track as chuckwagon races get faster and faster, let’s consider how the races came to be what they are today. The above bit of research shows that in the beginning the races were much different. In my memory, starting in the 50s, several changes have been made to the chucks to make conditions safer.

The current grandstand and infield replaced an earlier version in the 1970s. If you think the infield is too small for the barrels and turns now, you should have seen it then. Wagons have been refined, stove baskets removed so horses running behind a wagon don’t step in them, tent poles have been shortened so they no longer fall out of the wagon or drag on the track. Drivers and outriders wear safety gear. This year we’re down to two outriders to clear the congestion a little.

Still we have accidents. I see two main reasons for this. As in the accident on Thursday evening, and many other accidents in other years, a horse suffers a fatal medical incident before the accident causing a roller coaster of events. This is not unique to chuck wagon races – it happens in horse racing, harness racing, show jumping, steeplechase etc. With the veterinary care and monitoring chuckwagon horses receive, everything possible to predict this type of danger is in place. But accidents happen. I’ve seen chuckwagon races several times and I’ve seen a horse collapse and die on the track…but not at the Stampede but at one of the many small town rodeos that dot the prairies each summer. Unlike bullfighting, which is an accepted sport in many parts of the world, no one starts out planning how a wagon horse will die.

The second reason places blame on a public that demands extreme excitement, the vicarious thrill of speed and danger at such events. That grandstand is full because the audience is looking for an adrenalin rush. Prime viewing from Scotchman’s Hill is packed because people are looking for a thrill. Everyone who watches races knows there is danger involved – you can smell it. How can it not be dangerous but is it more so because horses who are bred to run have an accident? Race car drivers die, skiers die, mountain climbers die and although I have trouble with the concept, everyone says they died doing what they loved. But that’s not for horses, I guess. I’m not saying the horses make a conscious choice as extreme sports people do, but thoroughbreds do love to run.

And in today’s world, how many people would pay to watch the races as they were originally set out? How many people would have the patience to wait, at the end of each race, for the cowboys to unhitch the horses, set up a lean-to and start a fire? Today’s thrill-seeking crowd would be bored to tears.

But It is no longer about tradition, people. It’s about getting the adrenalin going. So don’t whine when the unexpected happens and you’re brought up short at the fragility of life; don’t whine when you have to console your children who have been devastated because you’ve neglected to explain the danger, or, for that matter, where their hamburger came from when you whine about other aspects of rodeo. And don’t blame the cowboys who make every possible effort to keep their horses – the thoroughbreds, many who have been given a second chance – safe.

More Shameless Promotion

http://www.alexandrawriters.org/what-we-offer/courses

Finding Your Muse

Ellen Kelly

Saturdays

9:30am-12pm

July 14 (6 weeks)

Is there a book hidden somewhere inside you? Do stories dance in your head? Does your personal writing say what you want it to? Are you a poet at heart? Through friendly discussion, in-class writing exercises and sharing your writing, we will address the basics and specific interests of the participants involved. For writers of all levels.

Underwear Sale

This is a survey, or maybe not. But what I want to know is – sometimes do store specials confound you, like how is this a special? Really?

Point in question – panties. Today I found a special in a ladies store, seven pairs of panties for $28. $4 a pair. Great deal except who really needs a week’s worth of panties in one shot? Individually each pair cost $8 which, I guess provides real incentive to stuff one’s drawers, pardon the pun, and may have even been tempting if a) I needed some, and b) the colours weren’t so hideous.

The most interesting part of the encounter was the sales lady, who went to lengths her employer would be proud of, to convince me that I really needed seven new pairs of panties in hideous shades of fushia and lime green and that I didn’t want to buy the one subdued pair I liked for $8 because that would be ripping me off. Really, she wanted to know, why on earth wouldn’t I choose six more pair?

Turns out I put back the ones I liked and didn’t buy any but I left the store with a weird feeling that maybe during the next laundry my panties will all fade, develop holes, over-extended elastic, and ripped seams and that I will forever regret not having seven new pairs of blindingly bright underwear waiting in the wings.

I am happy with replacing my undies as necessary. And besides, it may not matter much what goes on beneath the jeans but I don’t want to be blinded when I get dressed in the morning.

Long overdue

Long overdue, my mom passed away in 1990 but here goes.

To my mom, who I always loved but didn’t always show it because it wasn’t always easy  -

I sometimes wish there was a telephone/chat line/ text messaging system (you would have loved computers) that could reach you now because there are so many questions left unanswered. I am curious about so much but it probably isn’t any more my business now than it was when you told me it wasn’t so I just hope that you’re still keeping an eye on me. I say to myself sometimes, when the going gets rough, I wonder how Mom would have handled that. Most of the time I know the answer and most of the time, it helps.  

There are a few things I should have said to you but didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t – I was blessed with your ability to procrastinate, your elephantine memory and your stubbornness. I wish I had also been blessed with your courage, your tenacity and you sense of purpose. Anyway, here are some of the things I should have told you.

First of all, sorry I was such a brat when I was a kid, especially in high school. That must have been tough. I often wondered why you weren’t more lenient, more understanding, more forgiving. Although it’s taken me 60+ years, I now have to admit your “tough row to hoe” was dead on. So, sorry for the insolence (I know you caught the eye-rolling, the under-the –breath comments, the slammed doors etc.) and thanks for the ultimate understanding that I was just being a kid and would come around eventually.

Secondly, thanks for being there. You were always there to listen, even though I wasn’t always there to talk. I thought that you didn’t understand – you have to admit, you did have a pretty critical eye – but the thing I missed back then was how overextended you were, how stretched to the limit physically, emotionally and financially you were for so many years as you held our strange little family together. I know now that I could never keep up with you, the way you took such good care of Dad during his long illness, gardened like a farmer to can, preserve, and store vegetables and berries from our large garden for food for the winter, made do with next to nothing because many times there was next to nothing, and then how you went out to work at an age when women today are considering retiring because necessity dictated it.

I am amazed, when I look back, at the magic you performed on a regular basis. You devised toys to keep me entertained. You cooked and baked and sewed and dreamed. You taught me the value of imagination. You invented gadgets to save time and energy – who would have guessed that a ringer washer could be turned into the perfect pea-shelling machine. It took a little innovation and a few squashed peas but in the end it worked like a charm. I remember, there were a lot of peas.

There was always baking and tea. We didn’t eat fancy, but we always ate. We were really poor but I didn’t know then how hard you worked to keep me from realizing it. I’m not angry anymore that you made me pay for my school bus fare out of my babysitting money.

Thanks for teaching me to read. Not how to read – I learned that at school – but to read for pleasure, for adventure, for solace, for friendship, for discovery, for information. You took me to the library – actually the Bookmobile on the corner – when I was four. The librarian said I couldn’t have a card unless I could print my name on it so I did. I’ve had a library card ever since.

And thanks for letting me use your sewing machine when I was so small I had to stand up to reach the treadle. You encouraged me to sew and I became good at it. Being able to sew turned out to be both extremely useful and somewhat obsessive.

And thirdly, I want you to know how proud I was/am of you, of how smart you were, how determined you were, how ethical you were and how insightful you were. You were a little older than most of the other kids’ moms when I was little (Dad was a lot older) and sometimes kids asked me if you were my grandma. No, I would say, that’s my mom. I said it somewhat indignantly and always proudly. I was proud of you as you achieved your career goal in your 50s, worked tirelessly as a volunteer throughout your life and I was in awe of you when, at the age I am now, you set out to see the world. I am still in awe.

There were so many things to be proud of, too many and too maudlin to write here. It sometimes took my friends to point that out to me. You always welcomed my friends and many of them loved you too.

And I admired your sense of balance between practicality and frivolity. You were a saver of string, elastic bands, paper clips and plastic bags. When, in your 60s, you received an inheritance that would allow you some luxury for the rest of your life, you went out and bought an electric frying pan and a small crystal chandelier. I liked that a lot.

And last of all, I want you to know that I love you and I miss you. We had our differences and it took years to work through “the stuff”.  When we finally realized that we were both going in the same direction but coming at it from different angles, neither one completely right, neither one completely wrong, we got along better. I miss our long conversations about life in general, our animated discussions about books or politics or how to fix the world, and our shared joys in your grandchildren. You worried about me – a lot –but when you realized I was all grown up and amazingly enough, doing okay, we became friends, really good friends. And who could ask for more than that?

Shameless Promotion

Just a reminder to anyone interested in writing, refining, and submitting personal essays – I’m teaching a course called Our Stories: Personal Essays with Public Appeal at the Alexandra Writers’ Centre in Calgary on Thursday evenings (7:00 – 9:00) beginning on April 26^th.

It’s an 8 week course that will help participants take an idea from being a reflection or snippet, to a piece of writing with much broader appeal. Classes are small, there is lots of time for questions and discussion, and you’ll meet new friends.

The course is geared to help new writers find a starting point and to inspire experienced writers to write their stories. In the class, we discuss how to connect with our readers, learn techniques that make our prose come alive and read and write various types of essays (and learn about their specific characteristics and purposes.) Writing is required and sharing is encouraged but not mandatory.

 If you are interested, please go to www.alexandrawriters.org for information on how to register or, if you have any questions, leave me a message and I will contact you.

Flaws

The first thing a child with special needs learns in school is that he is flawed and that flaw is the most important thing about him – I read this today and thought, after the events of the past few days, how absolutely true this is. But it isn’t the child’s classmates that designate the differences. Especially in the early grades, they barely notice and couldn’t care less.

First please know that this blog/rant isn’t directed at the wonderful, sensitive, compassionate and dedicated teachers/assistants/administrators that work under very trying circumstances to make a positive difference for every student in their care. I know, love and respect them. I trust they know who they are and feel confident that many of them share my harsh feelings about the ones among them who destroy self-esteem and the love of learning in small children for personal and/or selfish reasons.

So, considering my own experience, having raised three fairly normal children who travelled through a fairly average school system, graduated, completed post-secondary education, and went on to become productive citizens, and having worked in schools for 18 years, many of them in special ed. classrooms, and who is now watching a small grandson struggle, I have some observations I’d like to share.

Fact: Some students are harder to teach than others.

Two of my children were easy learners and for the most part, they had fabulous teachers. Parent teacher interviews were pleasant visits; everyone parted smiling. My middle child, bless her heart, was more difficult to teach. Sometimes parent/teacher interviews were hell. I can count the number of nurturing, compassionate teachers in her life on one hand.

Was she just unlucky? Heck no. Teachers like children who learn easily – it makes them feel good, makes them feel successful, that they’re doing a wonderful job. For the most part and for most students, they probably are but, when faced with the challenge of a student who just doesn’t “get it”, their nurturing, compassionate nature often goes out the window.

Fact: If a child isn’t learning from the way the teacher teaches, it’s up to the teacher to change the way he/she is teaching.

Children are, after all, children. It is not up to them to adjust to a rigid teacher. Educators are all aware of different learning styles but some only give lip service to the concept. The really good educators are able to pinpoint the needs of each student and teach to them accordingly. Some teachers will say there isn’t enough time/there are too many students/there aren’t resources to teach this way. Not true. There are dedicated, successful teachers doing it on the same resources with the same amount of time and number of students. They are angels and there are far too few of them.

Fact: Busy children are happy children.

However, that means they have to leave their seats sometimes, work on hands-on projects and get down and dirty. They need the freedom to discover what works and what doesn’t work even if this means the classroom is sometimes chaotic. Some children cause more chaos than others. This is not a crime.

Fact: Children learn better when they are having fun.

See above!

Fact: Educators put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else.

When a child in kindergarten runs into his teacher at the grocery store/gas station/library etc., he is confused. The teacher is out of context and when the child finally places him/her, he wonders why the teacher isn’t at school, waiting for Monday morning and the children to arrive.  However, students soon come to realize that their teachers are just people with hopes, dreams, sorrows and baggage, just like everyone else.  It takes some teachers longer to come to the same conclusion.

Fact: Asking intelligent questions of educators is not confrontational and if a teacher/administrator sees it that way, he/she/they are likely already feeling vulnerable.

Also Fact: A parent has the right to question her child’s program, especially when it does not seem to be working.

Sometimes, when a parent disagrees with the way things are done, suggests for example, that making a child with numerous difficulties write out, in his agenda in his own shaky writing, that he has changed reading levels (and he understands that he has been demoted from one reading level which he was proud to finally achieve to a lower level even though the difference in books is negligible) is a tad cruel, the teacher takes the note as being confrontational. Are parents required to always agree with the teacher? Are teachers not expected to be accountable?

Can a parent not ask questions when her child cries because he doesn’t want to go to school, when a little boy who left kindergarten full of confidence and joy tells his mom he’s stupid –  that he can’t do anything right, when he refuses to try new tasks and who has anxiety attacks? Parents are allowed, no, obligated, to ask questions, to assure their children are being educated in a safe and nurturing manner. And some educators need to weed their own gardens before telling anyone else why their plants aren’t growing.

March is Epilepsy Awareness Month in Canada

Recently, my second grandson asked me if he could bring the Transformer movie to my house so he could watch it with Grandpa and me. I asked him if it was scary.

 He said, “No but you will cover your eyes, Grandma, because there’s lots of shootin’.”

I said, “I don’t like shooting. I would be scared.”

He said, “Its okay Grandma. Don’t worry. You can sit close to me. I am brave.”

Instantly, I felt a lump in my throat because, in all truth, this grandson is the bravest person I know. Not brave in a flamboyant, jump into the river and save someone drowning kind of brave, although knowing his six-year-old heart, I don’t doubt he’d do that if the occasion arose, but the kind of brave that makes a very young man with a seizure disorder meet each day with optimism and dignity. His condition is known as myoclonic astatic epilepsy or Doose syndrome which is characterized by multiple seizure types and presents him with several other unpleasant physical and mental obstacles to overcome.

As I write this, he is in a good place regarding the seizures – his meds are effective for the most part and have allowed him to be a kid, to grow and to learn and to interact with his brothers and his friends in grade one. However, the meds, the syndrome or a combination of both have left him tired, fragile and unable to concentrate. That’s where bravery comes in.

This little guy doesn’t give up. He doesn’t withdraw or strike out. He does the best he can under really harsh circumstances and faces every situation head on. His peers are racing ahead of him by leaps and bounds and his school experience has been less than nurturing this year, yet his quiet gentle nature has earned him the friendship and respect of the children in his class, many of whom step up to help him if he falls behind .

Our boy doesn’t fit in a box and he’s okay with that. He handles each situation as it comes and although some tasks take longer, or are too complicated for his little hands that shake with a tremor, he does his best. He doesn’t complain. That’s bravery.

He handles the medical encounters the same way. Many of the procedures he has endured are not pleasant but he takes a deep breath and doesn’t object. His beautiful brown eyes may fill to the brim but there is no fuss. That’s bravery.

I don’t know what the future holds for this young man, but whatever the challenges, he will fight to overcome them. There’s a saying, what doesn’t kill us makes us strong, and it’s true. The challenges he faces now are forming strength and resiliency of character. But that can be destroyed by too many harsh words, too many people implying that he’s not good enough, he’s not measuring up, he’s different. It can break a gentle spirit.

Epilepsy doesn’t mean my grandson is not bright or that he can’t learn. It doesn’t mean that he won’t be able to have a successful life when he grows up. It does mean that there are some things he likely won’t able to do, but there are others he will excel at.

Epilepsy is still misunderstood in our society.  People with seizure disorders face an uphill struggle and the key to ending that struggle is education. If you know someone with a seizure disorder, if there is someone in your child’s school that is affected, or, if you just want to be a better informed human being, educate yourself. Understand the facts and dispel the myths. Help children with epilepsy grow up to be accepted, valued and confident. And in getting to know them, they can probably teach you something about patience, perseverance and bravery.

March is epilepsy awareness month in Canada. For further information go to www.epilepsycalgary.com or www.epilepsy.ca            

Sunday Meditation

Snow swirls around cars in the parking lot visible through the glass wall of our local recreation centre, the swimming pool area to be exact. I sit inside on a bench, watching four grandsons learn how to swim, all in different classes and in different areas of the huge swimming complex. The fact that there were lessons scheduled to accommodate all four in the pool at the same time was a marvel and a stroke of luck, but there they are, bobbing around in their various classes.

My own kids were swimmers. Ongoing lessons and in one case, swim club made the pool a weekly, sometimes biweekly event for several years. My youngest spent her early months inhaling chlorine as she slept peacefully in her car seat while her older brother and sister swam. That’s her, out there now, with the youngest grandson, who, at not quite three, is not yet old enough to be in the water by himself. He boldly retrieves ping pong balls and rubber ducks, spins, claps, blows bubbles and tries to float. He is safe in mommy’s arms for now but before long he will be swimming on his own.

The next grandson, at four and a half is at home in the water. He loves fish and right now is probably pretending he is one. He does what is required and then explores along the edge of the pool. His instructor calls him back regularly but he is experimenting – stretching his fins in the direction of independence.

Our six year old guy is with his instructor in the corner of one of the big tanks. He is the only one in his class, a necessary allowance for a little guy who wants to swim like the others but who wouldn’t thrive in a class with the distraction of other students.

And the oldest grandson is off with his eight year old peers. He tries very hard but he is nervous – wants so badly to succeed but he’s isn’t able yet to relax enough to let his body trust the water. He may or may not get his badge this time around. He will be disappointed if he doesn’t make it and I make a mental note to tell him how many times his uncle, who he admires and who eventually became an excellent swimmer, took to pass the beginner level. Looking even further back, I will share with him that it took his grandma several tries as well.

I go back to watching the youngest and his mom – they are having a great time building trust, building a mom/son relationship so important in a single parent family. The mom is doing an admirable job with these boys – it’s hard to be everything for everybody and I admire her love and strength. She has been given such an enormous responsibility and she meets it daily, head on.

I am there because I want to be. I am thankful for this opportunity to enjoy the pool – the smell of chlorine is friendly, familiar. The air is moist and warm – a good place to be on a cold winter day.  I am the guardian of the towels, the waver, the person with the thumbs up after a successful jump or dunk. And afterward, I manage to keep four little fishies, changed back into rambunctious boys, from leaving the building while their mom gets dressed.

When they are over, I will miss these lessons and the opportunity to spend time in this warm, humid atmosphere.  It’s a peaceful half hour – a good place to let thoughts wander on a Sunday morning.

Dear Alison,

I hope you don’t mind me calling you Alison…you are such a breath of fresh air I feel like I know you personally. I am so pleased that more money is being spent on education and services for those in need. Your quick and direct action in that direction is a valuable and admirable first step toward making our province a better place to live for all.

However, there is a “but”. It’s a big “but” and a personal “but” that could be expressed by many first line workers across the broad scope of social services. This funding is set up to help those in need at the expense of the first contact workers that administer that help. What good is this extra funding if it must go toward the training of new employees, administration, and reorganization?

Picture a young woman who works for an agency that depends on government funding to run its programs. She and her peers have recently been told that their nominal calculations have to be at 100% to prove that they are earning their wage, that they aren’t wasting the taxpayers’ money.

 Good thought, but there are many duties that are disallowed in the calculation of these figures so as caseloads increase to impossible, excellent case workers with valuable experience and education are being forced to leave jobs that they love and clients that depend on them. They are burned out, can’t cope with the internal pressure, but more importantly, they no longer have time to give their clients appropriate service so leaving the position becomes a moral decision as well.

Now on the personal level, last week my daughter, one such caseworker, was diagnosed with a severe case of strep throat. She was extremely ill and spent the past week unable to swallow or eat. She was seen by a doctor and was subsequently sent to the urgent care centre in our community to receive intravenous antibiotics and steroids to eliminate the rampant infection and swelling in her throat. She was encouraged by her supervisors to take time to recover, to not overdo and to not return to work until she was well.

But these same supervisors have reiterated that if her nominal figures are below 100% in any given month, a letter of reprimand will be placed in her file (as would happen to anyone whose figures did not meet the standard for whatever reason.) She covered her time off as best she could, took a personal day, then used up vacation days to cover her absence. However, this has no bearing on the fact that the organization still expects a 100% outcome. If this is not reached, a threat to end employment has been made.

Today she is recovering, still cannot swallow and the strong antibiotics she must take are making her nauseous but she’s back at work because she has to be. There are people that depend on her and she doesn’t want to lose her job. 

So Alison, is this the way this initiative is intended to play out? I can’t believe the intention is to create a whole new group of victims among the first contact caseworkers, so maybe it’s time the method of assessing work hours is evaluated and more importantly, monitored, especially concerning work done in private agencies. Thank you for listening.

Yours respectfully,
A hopeful but frustrated Albertan

"I Know What We're Going to do Today"

Does anyone watch the kids’ cartoon, Phineas  and Ferb? To understand what I am about to say, you must watch at least a couple of episodes, not a difficult task because these guys are pretty funny. The brothers, imaginative inventors of all things impossible, meet each adventure head on. They share the show with parents, friends, a pet platypus/secret agent, a benignly evil villain, and a sister.

It’s the sister, her boyfriend and their relationship that fascinate me. Candace is, to say the least, high strung. She lovable but insecure, her insecurities arising from the fact that no matter how hard she tries, her parents are oblivious to her  brothers’ escapades.  She is obsessed, can’t get them out of her mind, and coincidentally (as is the nature of cartoons) they are always right there in her face. She wants to “bust” them, expose them mainly to her ever-distracted mom, get them in trouble and mostly prove that she isn’t crazy for seeing the things that she sees.

She is a little bit loud, a little bit full of herself, but she is also a caregiver. She worries about her brothers and doesn’t want them to meet with the disaster they always seem to be headed for. She cares about her friends who are constantly trying keep her calm in the face of her many crisis. No one can call Candace irresponsible. She’s a little high maintenance but mostly she’s a kind, caring and deeply concerned young lady. I love Candace, I love her cranky/sweet nature and I love her vulnerability.

And then there is Jeremy, Candace’s boyfriend. Too good to be true Jeremy. He is the anchor in Candace’s stormy life, a voice of reason, her soft place to fall. In Candace’s words, Jeremy is perfect. He stays with her regardless of her paranoia and the predicaments she gets into. He likes her for who she is. He’s proud of her, but most of the time doesn’t understand what all the flap and fuss is about. Candace feels insecure as she tries to have deep and meaningful conversations with him but he drives her to distraction with his calm acceptance of almost everything. Certainly Jeremy must have faults, but the only obvious one is his stereotypical male nature.

Episode after episode, Phineas and Ferb do something totally impossible, Candace tries to stop them, the scheme comes to an end before she can involve her mom and their lives go on. So why am I writing about this? Darned if I know.

The problem with doors...

Does anyone else have a problem with doors?

Maybe other “lefties” can identify somewhat but this seriously funny (to everyone else) problem that I have, is becoming ever increasingly NOT funny to me. You would think that by the law of averages, at least 50% of the time I would choose the right door – the one that opens the way I push it – to allow free passage into stores, banks, offices, restaurants etc. but that’s not the case.

Inevitably, if there are two doors, the one I push is locked and the other is the one that opens freely. Why do they put two doors there if only one opens?  I mutter as, yet again, I try to switch to the other door unnoticed.  

If there is only one door into an establishment, also inevitably, I will push when I should pull or pull when I should push. The frequency that this happens has become a joke, like “let her go first and watch her go through the door.”

Even in places that I visit often – our favourite coffee shop comes to mind – I can’t remember which door I am supposed to use, and with a reverse savant-like determination, nearly 100% of the time, I choose the wrong door.

I must add that on the odd chance that I choose the right door, proceed immediately into the building and do a happy dance, laughing and clapping my hands in the foyer/entranceway of often very public places, I am equally embarrassed by the looks I get.

The first door problem I can remember occurred in high school. I took public transit in the days before backpacks when binders and text books were strategically balanced as we made our way on and off the buses. Off was the problem. While balancing my books in one arm, I would step onto the two stairs at the exit and notice, time and time again, my free hand was on the opposite side from the bar that pushed open the door. The bar was always on the same side but try as I might, I couldn’t remember. I would have to quickly shift my load from one arm to the other, not an easy task when carrying two or three binders and an equal number of text books. Or I would have to reach across myself and as the door opened, hop out (mostly successfully) sideways.

I also have a problem with sliding doors – specifically the one at the local library. As most people approach, the door opens and they walk right through without breaking stride. I, however, must sidle in on an angle because the door rarely opens until it and I are almost glass to nose. I have also been known to stand in front of the wrong glass panel waiting for a tightly sealed window to open.

So today, as I walk up to the door at London Drugs, I consciously think to myself – how many people do you know that think about how a door is going to open when they reach it – that’s how neurotic I am I becoming. Anyway, I think  Ah, only one automatic door – piece of cake. So I walk boldly and with confidence toward the door and…

it doesn’t open. The door is broken. I have to stop abruptly to keep from running into it. My husband wisely squelches a laugh as I pull, no push, open the door and march in.

Thanks for the picture, son  8)
Far Side, Gary Larson