Ben Bernake and Other Reason's Why I'm Glad I Teach in Alberta

I guess it had to come out sooner or later, sometimes while doing chores or other putzing around at home I like to listen to Alex Jones at infowars.com. His particular brand of conspiracy theory and political commentary is fun to listen to, and (please don't judge me) often enlightening. Plus the advertisements for emergency ration kits and diamond gusset jeans can't be heard anywhere else.

He had a guest on, don't remember who or when, that said over and over and over (that's kind of his shows m.o.) "please read this Ben Bernake speech from 2002 before the National Economics Club." Deflation: Making sure It Doesn't Happen Here is a particularly scary piece of conspiracyness, if you are an American.

Ben Bernake calls the shots?

Now I'm not saying I even remotely understand what is happening in global financial markets, I barely understand his speech. What I do understand is the way things look from here, the situation for most Americans, does not look entirely great for 2012.

Which is why I am glad I am teaching in Alberta, Canada.

Proud Albertan?

While 2011 saw the rights and social value of teachers in the U.S. drop rapidly, Alberta was paying and valueing it's teachers almost more than we are worth. Look at what happened to the bargainging rights of teachers in Ohio and Wisconsin and around the U.S. last year. I remember reading the vitriol and hatred towards teachers that was coming out of some American blogs and thinking, damn we gots it good here in AB. We even recently elected a Conservative premier that believes in continued long-term stable funding for education. It's like we took a great situation and made it greater.

Funding education and other public institutions is very popular  at Canadian Conservative Economic Groups in Canada?

The bottom line is this, teachers in Alberta have it better than almost any other teachers in the world, and I plan to not waste this opportunity. So here is my commitment to public education for 2012 or my long-winded introduction to my New Year's Resolutions:

1. I need to innovate my approach so that I can find a more effective and widely used asynchronous method of communicating with students and parents outside of the classroom. Any ideas? I loved how moodle's start page was a message page where the first thing that I saw when I logged on was outstanding messages from students, that were usually really good questions from students about homework, important dates, exam questions. I have yet to find the equivalent in google docs or anywhere outside of moodle. I am reluctantly thinking a "Mr. Greene" facebook page, but I don't want access to student's personal garbage. Is there anything in Google apps? Email is cumbersome. I need a live always up messaging board. 
2. I want to say, I will work more productively with my PLC on our ELO's but that sounds like AKBS. So I will say this instead. I will focus on and find direction for where my career is going to go next. I sincerely believe that I personally can offer more to education in Alberta, but I do not know how or where to direct my energy. I will start by consulting with my informal Mentors, particularly those in my admin. team and in edtech. at EPSB. By March I will decide on a path and work towards the next stage in my career.
3. So far I've got communicating, professional advacement, what else??? Oh yeah TEACHING. I am going to be an even more effective teacher this year. Every day my students will learn through reading, viewing, discussing, thinking and creating. Every class will give each student the opportunity to learn through each of the above modalities. My days of "this is a work period" are over. Students don't want to work in a group for 50 minutes. They want to read, view, discuss, think and then work in as an individual and in a group creating meaningful objects that display their learning. Everyday and every class that is what will happen in my classroom.

Guess what else Alberta let's me do in the classroom? I am allowed help students learn the harmful environmental impacts of fracturing for natural gas, I can encourage students to consider the environmental and the economic impact of completing the Keystone XL pipeline, I can provide students with the opportunity to invent a new device that could help decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, and I can inspire them to see the spiritual beauty of our own existence.

So in Alberta, I am not worried that some unelected official is going to devalue the Canadian Dollar to the point where I have to sell my house, all in order to get the 1% even richer. That barely registers in my reality. Instead, I am secure in knowing that our elected officials are going to ensure my job is here, and my collective bargaining rights will remain unassailable. 

For those that question Alberta, and for those that think we are hyper-conservative oil-loving rednecks that got all our values on backwards I say to you, "come and teach here."

Alberta's Ben Bernake?