Kindergarten Guidelines For Life

My dad was an early childhood educator. I don't think he ever had a kindergarten class of his own, but he spent a lot of time in classrooms with university students who were specializing in this area, and would soon have classes of their own. It was his excitement for teaching that led me towards a (short) career in education.

Occasionally I taught as an on-call teacher in kindergarten classes. It is a (barely) controlled anarchy of a most wonderful kind. There is potential and magic happening all day long. It is a thrilling, tiring ride for those teachers that are brave of soul and strong of heart.

Dad loved this early atmosphere and always said, "The little people are where it's at." He thought that if you wanted to change the world it was the little people to which you should appeal. After all, the essential learnings happen early in our lives.

If I were teaching "little people" today, the guidelines that we would discuss at the beginning of the year would be something like the following.

• Share everything.
• Be kind.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry if you hurt somebody.
• Learn something new every day.
• Think and ask questions. All the time.
• Don’t take more than your fair share.
• Draw, paint, sing, dance and play a bit every day.
• Get a good sleep, and take naps.
• Work and play with each other - together we are strong. 
• When out in the world hold hands.
• Show respect for all living things.
• Be truthful.
• Be yourself and share your gifts with the world.
• Nurture your curiosity and sense of wonder.

What if the lessons we learned in kindergarten stayed with us for our whole lives? How different our world would be.

Want to know where it is at? Visit a kindergarten class and see what the little people are up to. Or ask a kindergarten student you know. They will remind you of the important things in life.

Turn Off The News - Turn On Your Brain

Since changing our news consumption habits we have been enjoying more music.

In my post "I Quit" I talked about the simplicity of subtracting things that no longer make sense in our lives. A reader left a comment with what I think is the secret to successful quitting, and implementing positive lifestyle changes. Question Everything. All The Time.

He said, "Over the years, I have quit a lot of things I previously took for natural. The most important part is becoming aware that something you have been brought up to accept as unquestioned is a rather strange habit. I now question everything in my everyday life. What do I do this for? Do I need it?"

It has been 3 weeks since Linda and I asked these very questions about our news consumption habits. Our answer was to quit by implementing a news fast. Cold turkey. We went from checking several newspapers from across the country and the globe daily (or even several times a day) to nothing.

Surprisingly easy, our news fast has provided a space of peace and tranquility that we felt was missing from our lives lately. We replaced the time we would have spent obsessing over newspapers in healthier pursuits, like music or stretching or reading a novel or baking or cleaning or visiting a neighbour. Or doing nothing.

I don't know if no news is good news, but I am pretty sure that too much news is bad news. Going forward our news consumption will be far more limited, selective, and independent/alternative vs mainstream media.

Turn off news. Turn on your brain. And Question Everything.

Listen To The Trees

Visiting a 1000+ year old Western Red Cedar on Vancouver Island before moving to Nova Scotia.

"Because they are primeval, because they outlive us, because they are fixed, trees seem to emanate a sense of permanence.  And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky.  For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them, to haunt about them with the idea that if we could only read their silent riddle rightly we should learn some secret vital to our own lives." 

- Kim Taplin

Give A Passport To Everything - A Library Card

“Congratulations on the new library, because it isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you -- and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.”

― Isaac Asimov 

If you are giving someone a gift, regardless of age, I can't think of a better one than a library card. The first thing Linda and I did after arriving in our new community of Digby, NS last summer was apply for our library cards. They came in the mail on a hot summer day, but it felt like Christmas.

Even better, our library cards were completely free of charge, as they are in many public libraries. Free card, free borrowing, free, free, free. How can you beat that?

These days anything publicly funded is being targeted by mean-spirited, anti-community, anti-knowledge governments looking to move more funds into private pockets. Public libraries have long been underfunded, but now their very existence is threatened.

In Canada our federal government has been closing government controlled libraries, and has gone so far as to destroy materials and burn books. 100 years of environmental research materials were burned or dumped in landfills.

Public libraries, while chronically underfunded, are safe... for now.

One way we can show our support for our public libraries is to get a card. And use it. A lot.

Right now I am using my library to enjoy several music CDs, a few movies on DVD, and one of the most beautiful books I have ever checked out. The book is the Smithsonian Definitive Visual History of Music. It is huge, filled with photos and information, and is transporting me through thousands of years of musical history.

The timeline for my musical tome is from 60,000 BCE to the current era. I am travelling through time and space (for free), and humming a tune as I go along.

You can too. Get a library card for yourself, or someone you love, and gain access to books, music, computers, movies, and your own civilization and community.

Simple Living In History

“This book highlights how rethinking our attitudes and behaviour toward consumption can be a fruitful pathway to social and ecological harmony.”  - David Holmgren

  

Simplicity has always been practiced by humanity. For 99% of our existence it has been the preferred mode of living on our finite planet.

It has only been the last few decades that extreme materialism has been touted as the best way to achieve happiness. This in spite of knowing for thousands of years the appropriateness of living simply.

The accumulated knowledge of appropriate living on Earth was recognized recently when The Simplicity Institute published a book called Simple Living In History: Pioneers of The Deep Future.

After receiving an email from the Institute I previewed the book. The Table of Contents sent me immediately to our public library website to see if it was in the collection. Unfortunately it wasn't, so I will be recommending it to their book buyers.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface by the Editors, Samuel Alexander and Amanda McLeod

FOREWORD
by David Shi


1. BUDDHA - Peter Doran

2. DIOGENES - William Desmond

3. ARISTOTLE - Jerome Segal

4. EPICURUS - Michael Augustin

5. THE STOICS - Dirk Baltzly

6. JESUS - Simon Ussher

7. WESTERN MONASTICISM - William Fahey

8. THE QUAKERS - Mark Burch

9. THE AMISH - Steven Nolt

10. HENRY THOREAU - Samuel Alexander

11. JOHN RUSKIN - David Craig

12. WILLIAM MORRIS - Sara Wills

13. GANDHI - Whitney Sanford

14. DITCHLING VILLAGE - William Fahey

15. THE AGRARIANS - Allan Carlson

16. THE NEARINGS - Amanda McLeod

17. IVAN ILLICH - Marius de Geus

18. JOHN SEYMOUR - Amanda McLeod

19. VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY - Mary Grigsby

20. RADICAL HOMEMAKING - Shannon Hayes

21. INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES - Bill Metcalf

22. PERMACULTURE - Albert Bates

23. TRANSITION TOWNS - Samuel Alexander and Esther Alloun

24. DEGROWTH - Serge Latouche

25. THE SIMPLER WAY - Ted Trainer

26. MINDFULNESS - Mark Burch


Each chapter of Simple Living In History is an essay about the person or movement indicated. It reflects the recent history (the past couple thousand years) of right living on our fragile planet even though our experience of living simply goes back hundreds of thousands of years to our origins.

Talk about a simple living study list - the Table of Contents alone gets me going. Awesome for future research, but I am going to see if I can get my frugal hands on a volume of this book.

Simplicity has been the way of the past, and will be the way of the future. Therefore a book like Simple Living In History becomes an important collection of applied knowledge to guide us into our sustainable future.

“Simple Living in History challenges the mentality of waste and extravagance that defines modern industrial lifestyles, reminding us that the answers we need have been here all along, waiting for us to notice them.”   

- John Michael Greer

Catching Up

This healthy, happy moment brought to you by your positive thoughts and comments.

Dear NBA readers (NBAers, NBAanistas, NBAists...),

I am taking this Saturday morning to get caught up on some responses to your wonderful comments. I like to respond to all comments as often as possible, but sometimes it is difficult. Like during and after the hospital visit Linda and I had the first two weeks of September.

So as I reread comments today I am blown away all over again. I left a general comment on my post Cut Own Hair... Again, and because it expresses my feelings about all the comments left on NBA, I thought I would put it in a post for all to see.

I am humbled by the wonderful words expressed here, and thank all of you for taking the time (especially first time commenters - welcome aboard). 

Things have improved a great deal since I wrote this post. My back has been rapidly improving although I imagine it will be tender for months to come. I am implementing a walking and yoga exercise/stretching program to help heal and stay strong. 

Linda has been getting better, too. It seems strange to report this because the medical establishment would say that people with secondary multiple sclerosis don't get better. But there you go. 

Call it the power of positive thinking, or CCSVI treatment, or love, or most likely a combination of all, but both of us are feeling healthier.

Thank you all for your contribution to our successful recoveries.

NBA friends, you enhance our world. Funny, because when we started this blog our goal was to enhance the world in our small way. We did not anticipate the degree to which that would come back to us.

Health and happiness to you and yours. And keep the comments coming. We would like this to be a safe place for all of us to meet, share, and support one another. And have fun and laugh and sing and dance.

Ignorance Is Not An Excuse Monday

As a teacher I believe that the answer to our most pressing problems can be found through education and learning. I also believe that each of us is ultimately responsible for our own education, because it is impossible to force someone to learn something.

We must choose to drink from the waters of knowledge ourselves. Unfortunately, many are choosing not to satiate their thirst.

Many people maintain a willful ignorance of ecological realities in order to continue high-consumption lifestyles. If knowing means change, they would rather not know.

But "I didn't know" has never been a valid excuse for anything.

It is our responsibility as citizens of this planet to banish our ignorance by:

1. Observing
2. Thinking
3. Studying
4. Applying

Doing the hard work of education and learning will provide us with all the answers to our seemingly intractable problems.

But we must first choose to go there ourselves.

Take A Screen Diet And Read A Good Book

#1: Turn off TV, computer, iPad, cell phone, tablet, DVD player, laptop, and notebook.

I got up before the sun this morning with a challenge clearly in mind - to write a top-notch, inspiring and insightful post before the sun came up. Trying to stick to my schedule of having new posts up as early as possible every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I fired up the laptop and secured a hot drink.

For me there is no writing on/off switch. Usually I find that an initial brief survey of my resources gets me to the point that I am ready for writing.

First of all, Linda, the Official Muse, Co-Contributor, and Head Editor around here, must be consulted.

If further inspiration is required after that, I review newspapers, other simple living blogs, and my own portfolio of information and writing in order to trigger an impulse to begin.

This morning I started by visiting the Frugal In Tasmania blog to read a short post about going on a month long TV diet. I don't have a television, but do watch programming on the computer. Thinking that I sometimes watch too much, I was inspired to go on a bit of a screen diet myself, and started immediately.

I set the computer aside, and picked up a library book I have been ignoring for too long. The sun came up, the tide came in, the tide went out, and I read and read and read. Lounging on the couch with the book on my lap, a soporific sunbeam fell on me and my reading session was punctuated by a short nap.

After a gloriously long day of leisurely reading, the sun went down. It may have been a brief screen diet, but it definitely had a positive impact on my desire to spend time away from the digital world. It felt good to disengage for a while.

Thanks to the Tasmanian Minimalist (who also loves reading a good book), for the brief reminder that escaping the screens is good for you. It may even help me to write better posts here.

Now, back to my book.



What are you reading? Today I have been enjoying a non-fiction book called Teenage: The Creation Of Youth Culture, by Jon Savage. Fascinating reading about the origins of adolescence and taming the "troubled teens".

Talking With Bears

Bears teach us about introspection and loving our goals and dreams
enough to protect and nurture them without fear.

"If you talk to the animals

they will talk to you,

and you will know each other.

If you do not talk to them

you will not know them,

and what you do not know

you will fear.

What one fears

one destroys."

- Chief Dan George

I went for a bike ride today, and toward the end I decided to extend it down the trail for another couple of kilometres. It was beautiful out and the forecasted rains hadn't yet started.

I crossed a bridge over a local salmon stream and stopped to look into the rushing water to see if the fish had returned. They had not, and feeling slightly disappointed, I turned my bike around to head home.

My attention was drawn to a splashing sound below. I looked down and saw a shaggy black bear crossing the stream. The bear ambled, perhaps also looking for spawning salmon.

After splashing about in the water a bit the bear noticed me. We looked into each others eyes. We talked.

I could feel the connection between us as the bear spoke of wilderness, freedom, and the benefits of moving through life without fear.

I realized we are not so different, me and the primal creature before me. We want the same things.

The lesson complete, my teacher stepped from the rushing but fishless water and disappeared into the forest.

Forest Schools Connect Kids With Nature

If early childhood education was like this when I was small I wouldn't be a kindergarten
 drop out today. All photos: Chad Hipolito

Ask most kids and they will tell you that recess is the best part of elementary school. Why? Because it takes place in the great outdoors, free from the confines of big walls, tiny windows, and someone else's agenda. I felt this way myself as a grade 3 student waiting to go outside and play marbles with friends, and I still felt like this after becoming a teacher.

A serious student of nature records observations in a forest floor book.

There were a lot of things I liked about teaching. Being inside all the time wasn't one of them. Sure there was the occasional field trip like voyageur canoeing on a major historical river that ran through town, or going on the year end camping trip, but it was all inside all the time otherwise.

How can kids learn about and care for nature if they are never in it and haven't developed a relationship with the natural world and found their place in it? How can they save nature if they don't know what they are missing?

Not a desk, computer, or television screen to be seen.

Forest schools are one answer to nature deficit disorder which afflicts nearly all of us, students, teachers, and parents. The solution proposed in this philosophy is learning through playing in nature. It's kind of like recess all the time.

In my community, this has taken the form of a Nature Kindergarten where the children spend most of their time exploring local forests and beaches. Even in the rain. I would have loved it as a child. I would love in now - these are teaching conditions that would agree with my desire to spend as much time outside in nature as possible.

"Amid the heavy downpours of winter the kids notice the puddles, they notice the quantity of worms has gone up. No one asks when is it time to go inside." 

- The Nature Kindergarten's school principal.

The outdoor classroom is a great place to play, learn, and connect.

If I had the benefit of this style of learning when I was young I wouldn't have ended up dropping out of kindergarten. My introduction to institutionalized education did not work for me, being the wild child that I was. I found it all far too restrictive, and I resisted being forced into situations that did not feel right to me.

Being in nature is the antidote to the afflictions and restrictions of modern living. Children are just as susceptible to the ravages of a chronically artificial indoor life as the rest of us. Maybe more so.

That is why getting kids into nature more often, as in the forest schools, is so important. It is one way to inoculate our little ones, and prepare them to value, protect, and enjoy their natural surroundings. It is a way to protect them from acquiring nature deficit disorder later in life.

No blackboards or closets here. Thanks for holding that, tree.

“When they come home really dirty, that means they’ve had a good day.” 

-  parent talking about her Nature Children

Appreciating Fathers

Me, my dad, and my oldest brother in 1962 sharing a son/father moment

Often fathers go unrecognized and under appreciated. I know that I was guilty of this omission when I was younger. When I finally came to realize how intelligent and wise my dad really was, he was struck down by the same brain tumour that he first battled in his twenties.

My dad started as the typical 50s dad stereotype, but later in life he learned, grew and mellowed enough to look back and question the confines of the box into which society had placed him.

Within the walls dad was a very successful member of society. Married, five kids, teacher, school principal, university professor, world traveler, active community member, and all around gentle and loving human being. But what about that other box we know as happiness?

Like most of us, dad looked back on his life and saw room for improvement. In 1999 after Father's Day he wrote me a heartfelt and brutally honest letter from the South Pacific where he was working as a volunteer administrator in a high school.

Of the early years of our family he wrote that "it's all a dream now", reflecting on how quickly our short lives pass. At the time he did not know that he was a few months shy of the end of his own abbreviated existence.

Dad shared insights about learning how to be a father from one's own father, even though your father's ways "may no longer apply, if they ever did". He wrote of the shifting gender roles in the 60's and 70's, and the rigidity of those roles previously.

"The father went out and earned the bacon. The mother stayed home and took care of things there. I thought this was the model to follow. Well, it didn't work. Deep down in my stomach, I knew that something was wrong."

"Behind the mask I wore, I felt lonely, little, sick and helpless."

My father was a thinker and lifelong learner as well as a teacher. He used these capabilities to change a great deal throughout his life - he always tried to do the right thing with the knowledge he had available  at the time. When he sent the letter he was ready to make more changes.

His letter concluded that "constructive action" was what must come from self-realizations. But what direction should this action take?

"Most of my life, either I don't know what constructive action to take or I am too chicken shit to take it", my father wrote.

Wow. Every time I read this letter I am gobsmacked by it all over again. Such honesty in revealing what I consider to be a universal feeling today - that something is not quite right. Obviously people have been feeling this way for quite a while.

As a 35 year teacher and 50s-style breadwinner, my father was frequently gone from home while at work, in meetings, giving presentations to community groups, advocating for teachers and students, and doing the countless number of other things that good teachers and "providers" do.

While he was working hard to "bring home the bacon" he missed out on much of our family life. That was, as he was told, my mother's responsibility. He knew what he missed out on by fulfilling society's narrowly defined expectations. He knew something was wrong. Society was wrong.

Unfortunately, dad wasn't doing what HE wanted to do all those years ago. By the time he wrote the letter to me he had the knowledge and the time to want to improve his relationships with his children and get caught up.

He died a few months later. The lessons he taught me will continue to enrich my own existence until I reach my end.

Thanks, dad. 

All My Relations - Learning From Nature

We can learn a lot from observing our animal relations

"All my relations" is an expression highlighting the basic philosophy of many Native Americans. According to these beliefs, animals, plants, stones, and humans are all related because we come from a common source.

But we have become dangerously separated from contact with these relatives by modern fast-paced lifestyles. Standing Bear warned us, "Man's heart away from nature becomes hard".

Besides a diminished sense of compassion, the lack of exposure to nature also means a loss of knowledge. We are missing out on valuable lessons in the greatest classroom of all. However, it is always there, waiting for us to pay attention.

"Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are."    - Osho

Even in the city, the sky is always above. Flowers grow in cracks in the sidewalk. Gulls clean up the fries someone left on the bench. How can we notice these things when we are constantly rushing around struggling to "get ahead"?

We have to go slow, or better yet stop entirely, to observe and learn from nature. Its lessons often progress slowly with the phases of the moon and turn of the seasons.

From observing the rich world of nature we can learn how to live comfortably and sustainably on earth. We can learn about ourselves and how we fit into the larger picture of life.

5 Things I've Learned From Nature


1. Slow and steady gets the job done. Water wears down mountains to mole hills over millions of years. Nature doesn't hurry - neither should we.
2. Cooperation rules.  The excitement of competition may get all the headlines, but it is good old boring cooperation that is the overriding factor in nature. Like a beehive, things hum along nicely when everything works together toward a common purpose.
3. Don't take more than your fair share. Excluding the human animal, other creatures do not consume more than they need. If they did, their ecosystem would crash and the population could not be sustained. Nature deals harshly with the over-harvesting of resources.
4. Don't struggle. Water flows along the path of least resistance. It doesn't fight the rock in its way - it finds a way around it. Somehow, when you let go and let your life begins to flow like water, things always manage to work out. Nature's abundance provides when you let it flow into your life.
5. Do what you can with what you have where you are at. When the seed of a tree falls to the ground it uses what it has to grow at that spot. I have seen trees growing in the most challenging of locations, including in cracks in the rock high up mountainsides.

All your relations are waiting for you in their beauty and wisdom. All it takes is a few minutes of down time in order to have a quiet meditation on the natural world, of which we are but one part.

It can be done anywhere, anytime. Watch and learn. Feel the joy, the delight.

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."  
- Kahlil Gibran

Committing Critical Thinking

It is hard to believe in global capitalism once you start
critically thinking about it

North America, in my experience as both a student and a teacher, has always been proudly anti-intellectual. Why? Because decision makers have always known that an uneducated, uninformed population is easier to exploit and manipulate.

The blissfully unaware are easier to lead to their mundane jobs, and then to the mall after work. Such a population won't notice the degradation of the environment or personal freedoms.

I used to look south across the border and cringe at the anti-intellectualism of the Bush years because it went way beyond the usual dumbing us down routine. Now my own country has been invaded by a leadership that preaches the uselessness of critical thinking of any kind, and then formulates new laws to back up the sermon.

In response to the horrific Boston bombings, Canada's Prime Minister basically responded by telling us now was not the time to think (or "commit sociology" as he inanely put it), but to look around for the biggest stick we can find and start bashing suspicious looking foreigners.

Is there ever a time to not think? Isn't that what has gotten us into the messes we currently face on a global scale? So much for being proactive and practicing evidence-based prevention to ease and perhaps solve our pressing problems.

I found the following open letter at straight.com (a local online news source) that reflects my frustration, embarrassment, and shame in the great leaps backwards that our current anti-intellectual government has been taking us on every front.

Open letter: Thou shalt not commit sociology (or critical thinking of any kind)

by Staff on Apr 29, 2013 at 4:36 pm

The anti-intellectualism of Stephen Harper demands a reply. In face of global capitalism’s mounting crisis, critical interrogation of social phenomena, causes and consequences is urgently needed. We invite Canadians to ‘commit sociology’ and indeed ‘history’, ‘literary criticism’, ‘philosophy’, ‘political science’, ‘anthropology’, ‘critical legal studies,’ ‘political economy’, and ‘feminist studies’. 

The latest attack on independent research and scholarship is part of the current Conservative government’s attempt to keep Canadians in the dark. Since at least the 1960s and 1970s, evidence-based research in the humanities and social sciences has illuminated pervasive injustice and inequality.  In Canada, long-standing colonialism in dealing with the First Nations, the ‘patriarchal dividend’ in employment, politics, education, and social security, the gulf between rich and poor, the scapegoating of racialized immigrants and foreign workers, the criminalization of the poor, and the hollowing out of the middle class have been confirmed.  To a significant degree, anti-racist, feminist, and other critical scholars have shaped policy and improved outcomes for the less powerful. Their scholarship has also encouraged social movements such as Idle No More and Occupy, which reject the market capitalism embraced by the right as the solution to global immiseration. 

Harper’s administration and its allies have mounted a general attack on critical research, be it in the humanities, the social sciences or the sciences. They want data-based interpretations of Canada that document elite, corporate, European, and male abuse to disappear. Their assault on the humanities and social sciences, like that on the sciences, began with censorship. Statistics Canada, archives, libraries, and parks and historic sites, not to mention programs of scientific research, have been hobbled.
National history is one special target of conservative efforts to cleanse Canada of proof of inequality and injustice. Ottawa’s 2011 “Discover Canada” guide to the citizenship test and 2012 immigrant guide, “Welcome to Canada,” foster a deliberately naïve patriotism.  Political decisions to turn the Canadian Museum of Civilization into one of History, to embrace reactionary commemorative practices, to militarize patriotic mythology, and to attack Library and Archives Canada, the principal depository of our history, aim to dumb down the electorate. 

The contest for hearts and minds goes far beyond anti-intellectualism. Current government practices form part of a broader process of public ‘de-gendering’ that aims at the systematic elimination of gender, racial, and class justice from public policy. That result threatens hard-fought struggles by Canadians of every description and scholarly investigation of every variety. 

In face of a world that is so self-evidently badly served by reactionary forces, we rededicate ourselves to committing critical scholarship.  We also support scientists who document the precarious state of the environment.  Like them we embrace the ‘sin’ of employing data in aid of a proactive public policy that fosters a sustainable and equitable planet.  We urge all Canadians to do the same.

The open letter was signed by 80 concerned critical thinkers from universities across the country.

When the leader of any country tells the population "now is not the time for thinking" it means they are hiding something and now is the time for thinking. It means that critical analysis and sanity is under threat.

It means that they know there are more of us, and that in spite of their attempts at obfuscation and befuddlement, we are educating ourselves. We are becoming aware of what is going on, and we don't like it.

With awareness comes the knowledge that we can, and will, stop the things that assault human and environmental rights. Like the fanatical right wing governments that are trying to take over the world and perpetuate their self-serving, harmful ways.

I hope Canadians will lend their critical thinking skills to our current management's manipulations, and help oust them all at the next election... if not sooner.

Reading And Literacy Monday

My current library books

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” Jorge Luis Borges

I am a voracious reader. So much so that I have been known to read cereal boxes or shampoo containers just to get a fix. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm, though, which is a shame - reading is a major conduit to learning, joy, and freedom.

In 2008 a poll revealed that more than 25% of Americans had not read a single book in the previous year. Since then things have improved a bit.

The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project found in 2012 that 83% of Americans between 16 and 29 read a book in the past year, and 60% visited their local library. 

Among those 30 and over, 81% reported reading for pleasure. 

The Nation's Report Card on Reading found that more fourth graders reported reading for fun in 2011 than they had in 2009, and the number stood at an all time high of 46%. OK, that is better, but what are the other 54% doing?

Literacy Facts

• About 14% of Americans can't read. 
• 63% of prison inmates can't read. 
• 774 million people worldwide are illiterate
• Two-thirds of the world's illiterate are women 

From:  ProLiteracy

Turn off the TV, enjoy a good book

Reading and Leisure Time

Reading for pleasure may be up, but little screens still dominate our down time. The 2011 American Time Use Survey uncovered this trend.

Unsurprisingly, watching TV was the number one leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for about half of total leisure time, on average, for those age 15 and over.

And then there are those lucky seniors. On an average day, adults age 75 and over spent 7.4 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities - more than any other age group. On the other hand, 25 to 44-year olds spent 4.2 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities - less than other age groups.

Time spent reading for personal interest and playing games or using a computer for leisure varied greatly by age. 

Individuals age 75 and over averaged 58 minutes of reading per weekend day (the most for any group) and 21 minutes playing games or using a computer for leisure. 

Conversely, individuals ages 15 to 19 read for an average of 7 minutes per weekend day while spending 1.2 hours playing games or using a computer for leisure.

What is your family reading?

It Is Possible To Change Everything

Are humans devolving? In many important ways we seem to be going backwards in time to the bad old days.

It's not like we haven't had help from the ancients to guide us safely along our collective path. The Mayans taught us lessons hundreds of years ago that many of us have yet to learn:

"We are responsible for the condition of the Earth. We are the ones who are responsible and we can change that. If we wake up, it is possible to change the energy. It is possible to change everything."

When in the chrysalis, the caterpillar's body completely liquefies into an unrecognizable blob before emerging a few days later as a butterfly. Does the caterpillar believe it is possible to change everything?

American writer Richard Bach said, "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

We are all destined to evolve into butterflies. And when we change, everything else will change.

Silly With Seuss Monday

Laugh and put things back in whack

"What would be wrong with a goldfish the size of a house?" my dad would ask me when I was a little guy. "You couldn't buy a fish bowl big enough to put it in," I would respond, and we would both laugh. Such were the silly, life-changing interactions we would have while reading Dr. Seuss classics such as A Fish Out Of Water.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born March 2, 1904. Whatever was out of whack before he came into the world, went back into whack with his arrival. His books stressed thinking and imagining without limits, for the greater good.



Perhaps people aren't reading enough Seuss lately because such skills are lacking among decision makers forming today's tragic tale. Things seem to have gone out of whack again, and our children's future is in peril.



Geisel did not have any children of his own, saying "you have 'em, and I'll entertain 'em". But it was never only about entertainment - I learned a lot snuggled into the crook of my dad's arm reading and re-reading books like Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop, Are You My Mother, and The Lorax.



Mostly I learned: 1) to be myself, 2) to fight for what is right, and 3) to not take life (or myself) too seriously.



Even in today's technologically 'advanced' world, I would challenge any electronic medium to deliver anything even close to the experience and potential of sharing a good book with someone you love.


Especially a nonsensical, brain-enhancing story that makes you laugh while you learn. So simple. So in whack.


Wake up your brain cells and those of your kids. Read. Imagine. Get silly. Laugh. Care.


Re-write the story - make things better together.

Non-Stop Activity is Not Sustainable

We have to stop and relax, observe, have fun, or just be

In our doing obsessed culture we rarely, if ever, stop. We rarely stop for fun, and more than likely we never stop just to be. Kids are pretty good at just being, and can teach us a lot about what we have lost as adults.

One year while teaching elementary school, I was out on the playground at recess supervising. For me doing supervision was enjoyable because I could get outside and see the students in the more natural settings of play and "kid world".

Supervision consisted of strolling around, scanning the area, and being an authority figure that was at the same time safe, strong, and approachable. You certainly didn't play while on supervision, although it was difficult not to get caught up in the energy and joy of 200 little people getting their sillies out.

While passing a line of children penduluming back and forth on the swings, I eyed an empty seat. I dashed for the swing, sat down, and started pumping and pulling my way into the sky.

I was flying with everyone else when I was jarred out of my soaring sensation by a student yelling, "LOOK!"

I stopped pumping my legs and saw the student on the grass in front of the swings pointing at me and admonishing the kids gathering around her.

"Look!" she shouted again, mouth hanging open, "a teacher having fun!"

The children around her also gaped as they watched me slow down, jump off the swing, and straighten my coat before continuing on my supervision. Perhaps they had never seen such an outrageous sight in their brief period of existence in "adult world".

A small group of stunned kids followed me around for the rest of recess, and for a short while I was the pied piper of fun.

Perhaps the students at that school still tell the playground tale of the mythical adult AND teacher that dared to stop and have fun for one brief, glorious, playful moment.

I will certainly never forget it.

Just To Be Alive Is A Grand Thing

What is life? It is the breath of the buffalo in the winter time.

Linda was sleeping beside me when it happened. First the bed shook in gentle, rhythmic waves. Then the whole building creaked as if stretching its dry bones. My heart started thumping at my chest. Then I heard/felt a low, ongoing rumble. I knew that if the rumbling faded, we would be alright.

But if the rumbling continued, or worse, intensified, it would be time to evacuate our home (we live in the tsunami zone). That is a particularly scary situation with Linda relying on a wheelchair. Thankfully the rumbling, and shaking stopped, the result of a 3.3 earthquake with an epicentre about 60 km east of our location. Linda didn't even wake up so I had to calm my heart on my own.

The late night earthquake not only made me go over our emergency plan in my head, but it was also a powerful reminder of the brief and fragile nature of our tenure on earth. Although it is the fashion lately to consider ourselves omnipotent with technological wonders, the fact remains that we are under the sway of much more powerful forces than our puny little gadgets.

With all the things that can go wrong, weather, natural disaster, or health-wise, it is a wonder that anyone is ever safe or carefree for any period of time. When we do experience long stretches of security and good health, we should pause to consider our good fortune for it could change in just one moment.

Even when things aren't going so good, we can still take solace in the fact that we are alive. Not one to waste this precious gift, Agatha Christie said, "I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, and racked with sorrow. But through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."

Because I have the time to do such things, today I ruminated on the humbling rumbling last night. I was feeling an increased vulnerability and humility, but also an awareness of the transitory nature of life.

It made me think of one of my favourite quotes from Chief Crowfoot of the Siksika First Nation, who on his deathbed in 1890 asked, "What is Life?" His answer was,

"It is the flash of a firefly in the night. 

It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. 

It is the little shadow which runs across the grass 

and loses itself in the Sunset."

I didn't do much more than relax and meditate on life today, because I could feel that just to be alive is a grand thing. I am committed to enjoying it fully while it lasts, however long (or brief) it may be.

Amazing Feats of Simplicity: The Ancient Teachers

Lao Tzu riding his ox, a symbol of strength, patience and benevolence

Have we collectively failed as students in the school of life? Should we have our knuckles wrapped for not listening to our teachers? I am not a proponent of pain, but eons of ignoring our lessons must be rectified before we are sent to the detention room indefinitely.

I don't know of a single teacher worth their salt, historical or contemporary, that has espoused the positive aspects of wealth accumulation and worldly goods. Similarly, ancient texts generally do not record the 'excellent' results of greed and individual acquisition.

Nor does ancient wisdom advise that future generations exploit nature to the point of collapse.

Unsurprisingly, virtually all ancient teachers that are still remembered today, taught through their lives and their words, the value of living simply in harmony with each other, and the world around us.

Kagemni, an ancient Egyptian philosopher, wrote a text to help students select the right teacher. It reads like a template for the teachers of the past whose teachings have endured.

The Egyptian philosopher's ideal teacher:

• performs good deeds without expectation of reward
• respects their responsibilities to the community, and focuses on service to others
• has compassion for all living creatures
• accepts joy and sorrow with equal mind
• is always happy, and
• lives according to their guiding Principles.

To the good teacher, Kagemni tells prospective students, "gold and dross are as one, nectar and poison are as one, and the king and the beggar are as one".

The following simplicity-related wisdom is from ancient teachers of which I am sure Kagemni would approve. Perhaps if we had heeded their message earlier, we would live in a more enlightened, evolved world today.

Lao Tzu

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”

Epictetus

"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."

Confucius

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."

Plato

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little."

Jesus

"And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?"

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor.”

Socrates 

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

Buddha

“To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.”

Muhammad

“The worldly comforts are not for me. I am like a traveler, who takes rest under a tree in the shade and then goes on his way.”

Can we learn our lessons on time and avoid endless punishments in our cages of ignorance? Our teachers can only open the door - we have to make the choice to enter ourselves. 

No Exploitive Drudgery Monday