Anonymous gay sex, abortion, and GUNS for teenagers...another fine day on Facebook!

Yesterday was a really interesting day, in real life and on my Facebook page...

You can find me here, but I already have 5,000 followers (actually, I'm often over their limit. SHH!). 

But I'd love to "meet" you: please subscribe to my posts and/or follow my book page: http://www.facebook.com/TheMeaningofChildren.

But I--as I am so often wont to do that my friend Sandy Dubya (also on FB--SHH!) sometimes accuses me of having ADD. Oops: so distracted by the subordinate clause (or whatever), I forgot to add "digress."

Started off the day by accompanying hubby at 6:30 am (okay, 6:40, but who's keeping track?!) to the Concordia University PERFORM Centre, their absolutely gorgeous new athletic centre! I was sorely tempted to skim Facebook while I was on the eliptical...but to tell you the truth, it's damn hard to type while moving on those machines (I suppose they should look into that...no, not really!)

Here are a couple of photos of the place, courtesy the University (actually, I just lifted them, but I don't think they'll mind!):

I'm not sure this inside view does it justice...let's just say it reminded me of Montreal's new concert hall...something about the blond Formica. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But it was 6:40 am--I can be forgiven for making strangish associations.

Then it was on to a couple of hours of mundane daily tasks until it was time for the day's notable event: an interview with Jeanette Kelly for CBC Radio's Cinq a six show.

Should air Saturday between, you guessed it, 5 and 6 pm. We talked about my ebook experiment, and I revealed how many copies I gave away in 24 hours last Saturday...bypass the middle man, I say. For

They are some of my most fun--sorry, funnest--posts today:

"Very grateful to the CBC Cinq a Six people for having me in today...here's a photo of my CBC Prize Pack, with some careful product placement, bookwise. First person to name all books & authors pictured gets my Mike Finnerty pinup magnet (must say, Mr. F is looking pretty buff in this photo...)"

Here's a better shot of Mr. F, slightly fuzzy, but what can you do (maybe he was unclear on some concept or other when the photo was being taken):

 

In any event, all are cordially invited to listen to my conversation with Jeanette Kelly, tomorrow (SATURDAY) on Cinq a six! (show is 5 to 6 pm), 88.5 FM or live streamed at http://www.cbc.ca/cinqasix/ 

Sign up on Facebook--I'd love to know you'll be listening! Here's hoping I sound half-way intelligible...

(Here's the link, in case you'd like to forward it to someone:

http://www.facebook.com/events/415324261815476/).

The event blurb: 

"Listen up, starving authors. The revolution, she is HERE!" In which I (try to) explain to Jeanette Kelly why I GAVE away 120 copies of the Kindle version of The Meaning Of Children last Saturday, March 24th (and will do it again!).

One writer, desperate to control of brilliant career, lol, while living to enjoy the process!

Give a listen, I hope it doesn't sound too totally weird. (But weird can still be fun, can it not? Witness the career of Steve Buscemi...)"

The guns for teenagers advice comes from Canada's answer to Charlton Heston, Gary Breitkreuz, Member of Parliament from Outer Boondocks, Saskatchewan (with apologies to his constituents, I know that's not where YOU live...but I think it's where HE lives. Metaphorically speaking. Or maybe more like outer space...in terms of understanding gun crime in Canada). 

A pithy quote from my piece: 

"Though our Prime Minister may refuse to face it, rifles and shotguns are the firearms used most often to threaten women and children, and the weapons of choice in the murder of police officers."

Okay, so that's guns, the CBC...I am running out of steam here.

Abortion: 

Gay sex: my interest was piqued by a Salon piece (sorry!) praising roadside rest stop sex...

Don't forget, possums,  

The Meaning Of Children is now half-price on Kindle! 

THAT'S 75 % OFF THE PAPERBACK PRICE!!

Ta ta for now...

The Case Against School Uniforms

A few years back, my then-high-school-attending son received a detention. Not for inappropriate language or behaviour, but solely because his shirt-tail was untucked. Although I allow some room in his narration of his universe for embellishment and even, at times, truth-twisting, I believed him on this one. And that is because, over the several years previous, I had become acquainted with the Uniformists.

My children all went to public schools, and their elementary and high schools promulgated strict dress codes. From the outset, I was never completely in favour of all this uniformity. Being a child of the 60s, I was required to wear a tunic for precisely one year, which was abandoned after it was “recognized” that this “stifled self-expression and creativity.” I use quotation marks because the received wisdom in these Oh-Oh years is quite different – now, uniforms are supposed to “create an environment conducive to learning,” a sense of “community among students,” and, not least, a muting of the intense competitive consumerism that lurks among the bad memories of we who are now parents ourselves. Fair enough; the schools my children frequented were good schools, and they were fixed (fixated?) on uniforms. So I could hardly join these communities hoping to make them conform to my thinking. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t ask questions. And, with that detention fresh in my mind, the question became: How uniform is uniform enough? One of the schools insisted on a certain type of shoe, the other that white oxford-style shirts or t-shirts are no longer acceptable, only polo shirts, with the knit collars and the three buttons. There was always some newer affectation, for example that shirts be monogrammed with the school name/logo.

Our high school is blessed to have a devoted cadre of volunteers who organized and ran the uniform store, generating tens of thousands of dollars a year, all of which was spent on the kids. These monies provide many bits and pieces which are really the school board’s sadly neglected responsibility (new musical instruments, a paint job more often than once every seven years, equipment for classrooms, computers, libraries, etc., etc.) and some true luxuries (lavish graduation exercises, an unbelievable number of academic prizes for graduates, international exchange trips). So uniforms also functioned as an invisible school fee, over and above the taxes that we all contributed. Fair enough, but maybe we should be more up-front about this. Maybe, too, we should organize to demand more money from our governments, or for better use of the existing funds from our school boards.

Another thing about these uniforms really bothered me -- their monochromicity. Why should our schools be sensory deprivation zones? Why white and grey? Why can’t a shirt style be prescribed, but blue, pink or yellow versions be permitted as well, in addition to the white? I never used bleach before my kids entered school! And though it was a minor concern on balance, I regret the environmental degradation these white shirts necessitated.

The truth that surprised me most was that nearly every parent I spoke with felt blessed by uniforms: they were relieved to be delivered from daily arguments about appropriate dress, or from the need to replace each fashion fad their children Exhausted. School officials wanted the monogrammed shirts in part, it seemed, because many of the young women at high school routinely buy extremely tight, skimpy versions of the currently requisite button-down oxfords. No one ever adequately explained to me why, beyond colour and low-heel requirements, a particular brand of shoe was necessary.

Why can’t we parents face head-on the challenges that uniforms are supposed to address? If we have a problem with the sluttish dress of some of our daughters, or the exorbitance of the latest trend in jeans, we should face these issues forthrightly, not cover them over with grey flannel! Buck up, I say! Learn to say “No, that is not appropriate dress for school.” No further explanation is necessary. Our authority can be as arbitrary as “We are teaching you how to live up to society’s expectations. When you are a responsible adult, you can chose to conform or not, but at least you will know how to dress like a middle class prig.” If our kids will not obey our edicts concerning tattoos, body piercing or outlandish hair colour, are we really doing them any favours by abdicating our authority in favour of the school bureaucracy?

Finally, let me tell you about an unfortunate secret truth which lurks beneath the thrall of the Uniformists: it is the way it makes public schools and their students resemble, in the most superficial of ways, the exclusive private schools that pepper my Montreal neighbourhood. And that is a value that I do not share. We should be proud that our kids go to public schools, where all races, religions and socio-economic groups are represented and form a community, just like the real world to which they aspire. If there are improvements necessary in our schools to positively influence behaviour and comportment, let’s make these changes deep ones, not as superficial as the clothes on their backs, or colour of their hair.

My kids love their schools. And I’m grateful for all the hard work put in by the decimated custodial staff, the devoted teachers, concerned administrators and dynamic parent volunteers. I know by the middle of high school, my son shouldn’t be wandering about with his shirttail hanging out. But can you blame me if I wish the administration was more concerned with the originality of my kids’ minds, and less concerned about the conventionality of their dress? In the final analysis, shouldn’t their education be more about content, and less about form?

Bev Akerman, formerly a molecular genetics researcher, is now a Montreal writer. The Meaning of Children, her award-winning first book is available from Amazon)

(This essay was published in The Montreal Gazette, Maclean's Magazine, March 7, 2005, in Cynthia A. Bily, (Ed.) Students’ Rights. Introducing Issues With Opposing Viewpoints. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press. 2009, and elsewhere)