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Editor of Editor
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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - April, 2006 Turn Off the TV – April 26, 2006 A Life That Mattered – April 25, 2006 Born in Pennsylvania and later a resident of New York City, Jacobs moved to Toronto in the late 60s with her family in order to avoid her sons being drafted into the Viet Nam war. She said later that she’d fallen out of love with her country. However, while living in New York, she successfully stopped the construction of a neighborhood-damaging expressway, and she repeated that activism in Toronto as one of the leaders of the movement to stop the construction of the Spadina Expressway, which would have destroyed wide swaths of old neighborhoods in the downtown part of the city, where she lived until she died. Her first book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, was a bible for urban organizers, favoring the small scale of low-rise local neighborhoods, which include both commercial and residential activity. Neither right wing nor left wing in her “small-p” politics, she favored grassroots action over big government. She also, like me, scorned many “isms” and was, I think, anti-expert, saying more than once that ideologies are blinders. She was a magnificently successful example of passion and intellectual curiosity being the road to self-education. Beyond a few courses at Columbia University, she was self-taught and reportedly turned down many of the honorary degrees that were offered to her late in life. David Crombie, a former may or of Toronto and a long-time friend and admirer, has described her as a “Harvard refusenik.” A friend of unschooling proponent John Holt, Jane
attended and spoke at a memorial service that some of us organized for
him in Toronto in 1985. Like Holt, she was an authentic thinker who avoided jargon and
questioned received ideas that were presented as fact. She had a great
and creative life, one that mattered in very many ways. And besides her
books and the non-existent freeways, she has left a huge legacy of
ideas. In 1997, the City of Toronto sponsored a conference entitled “Jane Jacobs: Ideas That Matter.”.
One of the results of the conference was The Jane Jacobs Prize. It
includes an annual stipend of $5,000 for three years to be given to
“celebrate Toronto’s original, unsung heroes – by seeking out citizens who are engaged
in activities that contribute to the city’s vitality.” Upon
announcing her death today, her family issued a statement that read in
part: “What’s important is not that she died but that she lived, and
that her life’s work has greatly influenced the way we think. Please
remember her by reading her books and implementing her ideas.” And, I
would add, by replicating her ever-questioning, independent way of
thinking about the world. Expert Power – April 24, 2006 I had to chuckle because the poor guy had no way of knowing how many of my buttons he was pushing during that brief phone conversation. And the main one was the “expert” button. I admire those who have studied something in depth, and those who have a passion about something. But I get easily irritated when people claim to be experts, to have all the answers. Inevitably, they are trying to sell something. I know that because I’ve marketed myself as an expert – used the media’s description of me as an “award-winning journalist”, or a “homeschooling guru” in order to sell books or get speaking gigs. Being an expert gives you power. But it’s usually
the “power over others” type, rather than what the writer and
activist
Starhawk calls “power-with-others” to accomplish good things or to
effect change through working together. The expert mentality also
personal power, that ability to be self-reliant, to believe in our
ability to take on new challenges, to learn new things. Success by Six – April 23, 2006 A recent newspaper article quoted Peel District School Board Education Director Jim Grieve as saying that up to 30 percent of children in his area aren’t ready to learn to read when they get to grade one. So he has helped spearhead a community initiative called “Success by 6”, which seeks to solve that problem. I guess allowing all those kids to learn to read at their own speed isn’t an option in Mr. Grieve’s world. The daycare funding policy reversal is expected to
cost tens of thousands of promised daycare spaces. And that’s too bad
for those families who want or need to have someone else look after
their kids in a regulated facility. And the $1200 a year the government
is planning to give families is a joke – too little to allow anyone a
real choice about childcare (especially when the spaces aren’t
available). But this over-heated rhetoric about the lack of daycare
damaging kids because without it they won’t be prepared for school is
misguided. It’s also contrary to the fact that many Canadians would,
if it was economically feasible, prefer to have one parent stay home
with small children. In fact, a recent
Ipsos Reid study called “The Pulse of Canada” found that about half
of us feel that way. And, at the same time, only 40 percent believe that
the public school system provides a good education. Hmmm. For a
refreshingly non-partisan take on this subject, visit the Kids First
Parents Association of Canada
website. Reconnecting With What’s Important
– April 9, 2006 This categorizing of work and non-work is the bane of our society. We work all day until we can go home at five o’clock (or later, depending on the demands of our jobs) to move into family mode; we work all week in order to play on the weekend; we work until we’re 65 in order to enjoy retirement. We divide our time into various parts, based on the activity that’s undertaken during that time period. And we learned to divide our time in that manner very early – when we were in school, studying first one subject for an hour, then moving on to another, apparently disconnected, subject. So there is no surprise that, as adults, we find it difficult to integrate all the parts of our lives and to enjoy them simultaneously while concentrating on each in its turn. As for me, I’m taking a one-week
break beginning on Wednesday. I’m off to Nova Scotia
to visit my youngest daughter and her partner. And they’ve arranged a
retreat by the ocean for the three of us over the Easter weekend. I plan
to walk on the sand and watch the tides, play Scrabble with two of my
favourite people by a fireplace, read some books I’ve been staring at
on the shelf for months, and practice the mindfulness that will,
once again, allow me to enjoy and be satisfied with my work. Time
Flies – April 1, 2006 Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2007 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm Reading: The One Who is Not Busy by
Darlene Cohen (2004, Gibbs Smith, Publisher) ~ What
I'm Listening To:
The Silver Collection:
Stan Getz and The Oscar Peterson Trio (Verve, 1958) ~
Fav
Bookmarks:
Radio Free School ~ Fav Quotes:
Art, Writing, Creativity
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