Cyril O

Apr

2024

Debate Team… Or Home School?

Learn Both Sides of Subject

Or At Least Try To…

Home School? Or can this be done in public or private schools?

I was a Youth Group sort of conference recently. A number of the students spoke on the subject of Climate Change.

I have pretty strong views on the subject. But that is not the point of this essay.

Three students were speaking on how important it was to do something about climate change. Got me thinking back to my school years.

Way back when… we had debate teams. Now, if you are a late comer then you may not know how this sort of thing worked. I won’t go into all the rules, and there were lots. There would be a suggested subject such as ‘climate change’.

Students were assigned to one side or the other of the argument. As a student, you might be assigned to the opposite side which you felt was right. It was pretty random.

Screenshot

That, for me, at the time, really sucked. I had no idea how to think like that. How to take the other view and properly research it. And defend it…!

There would be some sort of point system and one side or the other would win based on this. For me, looking back I wish I could have thunk through this. Now, on the other hand, I’d have a great time with it.

It was effective in getting students to look at the other side of an argument.

I read a lot and encourage others to do the same. Research. If you send your student to search the internet, Wikipedia, etc., they will get a very one-sided view of pretty much any important subject.

Take climate change as one example. Do any internet search and the first fifty listings will pretty much tell you that we are all gonna die. If you go someplace like Amazon even or search some other databases, you very likely will find some scientists that disagree with what is commonly promoted about climate change. There are just as many scientists that disagree with the idea that ‘we are all gonna die’. Or at least any changes do not have anything to do with humans. Or maybe they aren’t as harmful as most think. All things that should be investigated.

I’m not going to put forth any arguments against these common agreements on the subject of climate change. My point here is that students are fed one side and are not encouraged to discover if true or not. Lots of information on both sides.

I would love to have each of the students that spoke on the subject research data on the ‘other side’ and make an argument that way.

What an exercise that would be!!

I’m a huge proponent of Home Schooling. Most home schoolers will at least attempt to have their children decide for themselves what is true and what works for them. The whole point for many parents is to have their children able to think for themselves and not just regurgitate what the teacher tells them.

If you had two teachers in a public school that had complete opposite views on important subjects, taking turns teaching the same class, this, to me, would be ideal.

Imagine how beautifully confused some students would get!

I mean, ideally, a teacher would not be wanting to import his or her beliefs onto a student. The ideal teacher would help a student evaluate information for him or herself to the truth of it. Is it true for me? Does this make sense? Or am I just aiming to please my teacher or whomsoever is running the show here.

But if you home school your kids, you don’t have to deal with all this.

Authors/Books on the subject:

Anything by John Taylor Gotto

Anything by John Holt

And for sure check out Classical Learner https://classicallearner.com/

Feb

2024

Adult Swimming Lessons – Masters Swim

Adult Swimming Lessons - Teach The Basics

I was at the pool a couple of days ago working out. Saw a guy get in the slow lane and kind of go back and forth in the slow lane. He was there for a fair bit.

I completed my laps and headed for the sauna. There is a window that over looks a short bit of the shallow end of the pool where this fellow was struggling.

After my twenty minutes sweating, I just couldn’t withhold myself any longer. I went out and over to him as he was standing against the end of the shallow end of the pool debating what to do next.

I went over and told him that it was painful to watch him suffer like that. Would he like some help. I asked him what he did for a living. He is a software programmer. I pointed out to him that he had likely learned that skill by at first learning the language and learning parts of the skill. That is was unlikely that he sat down the first day and just started in full tilt.

The same would go for a plumber or carpenter or a doctor. A carpenter would have to learn how to measure and cut first. You would not want to start building a house without learning some basics or parts of the activity first.

He was trying to do the whole stroke and being very unsuccessful. No progress.

I gave him two basic drills. Then a third. I told him to do these drills at least twenty times first thing in the pool every time he entered.

When children are learning, we teach them the ‘dead man’s float’, gliding and such things.

First drill: Push off the side and glide. Arms out in front, legs stretched behind. Thread the needle. Go as far as you can like this. Stand up. Come back. And do it again. And again.

Second Dril: Stand against the side of the pool. Feet on the bottom, bent over with arms on the sides of the pool. Face in the water to start. Turn your head and body to the breathing side slowly. Lift that arm a bit if you need to as you turn your head and body. Breath in. Turn your face back into the water. Lowering your arm back to level. Breathe out under water. Repeat twenty times.

Key here is to turn sideways, not to lift your head frontwards.

My new friend in the pool told me that I was a much better teacher that the person that he was taking lessons from. Much simpler.

If the person that you are working with is not winning, having wins at swimming, then, you, the coach or teacher, are doing something wrong. Not the person.

Always one thing at a time.

More: Swimming

Jan

2024

From Whom Do You Take Advice

Advice

I was in Costco the other day and walked by a mother and daughter standing at one of the little food kiosks that are sprinkled about that store. Everyone getting their snack fix on their walk about the store.

I heard only a snippet of the conversation - was really hard for me not to hear - as I was coming around the corner.

The daughter was anywhere from 17-22, I can’t tell anymore. The employee was advising the young lady on the subject of men it appeared.

I might have slowed down a bit when I heard some of what she was saying.

First thing I heard was “You don’t need a man young lady. You can do everything yourself.” She continued to sound derogatory but I missed the rest of the next sentence. It was pretty obvious to me that this woman did not like men. Was so difficult for me staying silent.

I have no real issue with the employee stating her opinion. It is her opinion from her experience and her right to communicate. It is pretty obvious that her opinions are not those of the store so I’m not worried about that argument at all.

My hope is that the young girl will look elsewhere for advice or in some way keep her own counsel on this.

Again, if you are going to take advice from someone, where do you go for it?

If I’m looking to get my car repaired, do I go to someone that is good at repairing cars. Do they actually like the work of car repair? Is that evident in the fact that they are good at their job? If you were going to learn how to swim, would you learn from someone whose students end up drowning consistently?

I think not.

If I had seen this young lady and her mother in the store again, I might have stopped them and suggest that if she really wanted or needed some advice that she find someone, or better still a number of people, that had a fairly successful relationship for a period of time.

If she asked a bunch of people, and was wise about dissecting the answers, she might be lucky enough to glean some of the more successful aspects of a relationship.

You want to learn photography, you learn from a number of successful photographers. Then take what you can from that to make it work for you. That would go for any skill or profession, I would think.

And no less for relationships.

Oct

2023

Haunt Manor Niagara Falls, Ontario – Some Photos

Haunt Manor Actors

Check out my other website for a bunch of Haunt Manor photos. I've been having a blast taking photos of the actors and actresses with make up and costumes. Using Photoshop to plug in some background photos. Mostly using pics from my travels in Amsterdam and Prague. Some local from Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls. This is the last weekend of the even this year but if you can make it for next year, it's a blast.

A couple of pages and a couple of blog posts: Here is a 'Haunting' One

Aug

2023

Review of ‘Inconvenient Facts’ by Gregory Wrightstone

Does the information exist if you can’t find it online?

Try reading a book.

Review of ‘Inconvenient Facts’ by Gregory Wrightstone

Climate change: did a search online for alternate views on climate change - impossible to find. Or at least very difficult. Knowing there are other views and just simply by my observation of a lifetime of seeing climate predictions fail, I had to look further. So, what do I do when I want to learn about a subject: I read books. I go to the library or Amazon. In this case, at Amazon I did a search on ‘climate change hoax’. Might as well get right to it. A list of books comes up. I am wondering when the powers that be will ask that these be removed. Though, that said, the majority of the population, in most of the world now, will not look for books to be informed. They will look online. And, again, many people will believe that if they cannot find the information online, then it does not exist.

I saw a clip of an Under-Secretary of the UN being interviewed about climate change. She said "we own the science".

"We own the science & we think that the world should know it’ so we partnered with Google’ to ensure only UN climate results appear…”

“We partnered with Google, for example, if you Google ‘climate change,’ you will, at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources. We started this partnership when we were shocked to see that when we Googled ‘climate change,’ we were getting incredibly distorted information right at the top. So we’re becoming much more proactive. We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do.”

Melissa Flemming, Under-Secretary for Global Communications at the United Nations at WEF ‘Disinformation’ event.

When I hear something like this, “we own the science”, it makes me cringe. And it should do the same for you. That is not science.

Anyone wanting to learn about a subject should be able to research both sides. Or more than two views on a subject if available.

For example, with regards to health: food or exercise. One size does not fit all. Diet, medicine, vitamins exercise, every individual is different. A high carb diet might be good for one person and not for the next.

An intelligent doctor might have two people with similar symptoms and with proper diagnosis finds two different causes. Different for each patient. So he or she may recommend different solutions for each. And many variations on this.

That is proper research and proper science.

‘Owning the science’ on something would be like saying that you are allowed to purchase and own only one type of computer or car. Don’t look any further, don’t read the reviews or do your own research.

My trust of governments has long since evaporated. When I hear politicians claiming there is only one way to do something and they want one size to fit all, I’m outta there.

Politicians lie. It is their stock in trade.

I thought it pointless to read material by someone like Al Gore and others whose predictions were so far off the mark. In the 70 plus years that I’ve been around, I’ve witnessed way too many ‘end of the world’ climate predictions. And I know a bit of history. Because I read a lot. Which made me aware that much of the ‘climate’ information out there is false. Just simple observation.

I started with this book: ‘Inconvenient Facts’ by Gregory Wrightstone

This isn’t the only book I will read on the subject. The author goes through all the ‘everybody knows’ so called facts and is able to, in my view, make a good argument for the benefits of CO2.

I hate generalities, which are oft spewed by politicians and corporate moguls. Some grand statement intended to block or bar any discourse.

I like reading the digital version of books like this as you can easily click the hyperlink to access the references. And Mr Wrightstone has all his facts well documented.

There are some important graphs of historical temperature trends that he also exposes as falsehoods. He shows how important historical climate data is very simply overlooked or suppressed enabling certain really scary ‘end of the world’ predictions.

Also, it is not a terribly long book and is written in a pretty straightforward easy manner to read.

Learn Both Sides of Subject

Or At Least Try To…

Home School? Or can this be done in public or private schools?

Authors/Books on the subject:

Adult Swimming Lessons - Teach The Basics

Advice

Haunt Manor Actors

Click on a photo for slide show

Does the information exist if you can’t find it online?

Try reading a book.