GOODBYE MAGGIE

       I don't know how many posts I've started with "I was a teacher." Then comes another teacher story.

       During my career I had about 20 student teachers. They came from the University of Alberta and did a 6 week practicum. Sometimes this was split with another teacher. I enjoyed having student teachers as I could keep my eye on what methods were coming up. For most students, you knew they were ready to go. I would check the lesson plan and leave the classroom. They needed space to develop confidence. 

      One of the students I had was Maggie who got her degree at age 40. Maggie had many hardships. Some she bought on herself and others hit her. However,  Maggie had turned her life around and finished an education degree with very high marks. And she came out to do her practicum with me. Maggie struggled with her practicum. She just wasn't confident enough to mix it up with the kids. However, she passed the practicum. Our school hired Maggie on a contract. The principal had confidence that with experience Maggie could teach. 

    Maggie made the decision on her own not to continue teaching. She found something that was very suitable for her. She was hired as  marker for the local college and loved this position as she was much more suited to the college level. The remainder of her career was spent at the college. 

     Maggie struggled with some health conditions. She had fiber myalgia and several other conditions that influenced her quality of life. 

    Even though Maggie lived in town, I didn't see her very often. When we met it was mutual pleasure to have a good visit. 

     Last week Maggie passed away . She knew some terrible struggles in life and also some major achievements. 

YELLOWKNIFE RETURNS

      On Aug . 28 I wrote about the evacuation of Yellowknife because of wildfires. 

     Today I can tell you that the evacuation order has been lifted and people are able to return to their homes. 

    A combination of things happened to make the area safe. They had some heavy rainfall. The winds blew in the right direction and the firefighters did and amazing job                                                                                  People have been in Yellowknife for the last few days getting things organized. They have to make sure that water and sewage are working. Some of the hospital is ready for patients. Electricity is running properly. Businesses like grocery stores have to have stock  so that people can buy groceries when they get back. 

    The road back will be less chaotic. To go out they were  mostly going at once. Now some people say they will wait a few days so that traffic isn't as heavy. Maybe things will be better organized if they wait. 

    All people can breath a sigh of relief that there wasn't any damage.

NO SCHOOL TODAY

     Yes , I spent my whole career teaching. I loved it most of the time!

     So , today kids here started back to school. When I first retired this tie of year held a lot of emotion and I thought I should be there doing something to get ready for school. It took a long time before the feeling left me.

     Now I'm aware of what time of year it is but it doesn't get me thinking about preparation. 

    When I was teaching I would spend time at school in August getting books and material ready. When I was department head I had the responsibility to help teachers find materials. It was a time of year that I enjoyed even if the Micro Manager didn't enjoy it. 

    So today I thought about how long I've been retired. I've been retired for 26 years. I'm approaching retirement time that is equal to teaching time. I taught for a little more than 37 years.

    So today I gave a quick thought to school starting, looked out the window to see kids walking by on the street. Then it was back  to retirement. 

I LEARNED SOMETHING NEW TODAY.

     My son in law teaches French and Spanish in a large high school. He is very good at teaching languages and learning them. 

    When I talked to him this morning , he had just finished his German lesson. So every Sunday morning he has an hour of conversation in German. He is very fluent in German. 

    Then he told me that he had an hour learning Czech. This is a  new one to me but I wasn't surprised. So I asked him a naive question. Does knowing German help in learning Czech?   Oh no he said. Czech has nothing to do with German. Czech is an Indo European language

    Then I started going through all the European languages to see the relationships. I had thought that all European languages were related. So there are Germanic languages such as Austria, Germany. There are a number if Indo European languages. There are the romance languages that come from Latin which would be France, Spain, Portugal, England. . There are Norse languages in northern Europe. I was surprised that Dutch is the closest language to English. And then I thought oh what about Hungarian. Hungarian is a northern language closer related to Northern languages. This one really surprised me. 

     What he told me makes perfect sense but I had just never bumped into the idea before. 

    I had to take French as a first year class. I tried to become fluent in French but I never got there. Today , I remember very little French. 

    So I wonder what he's going to teach me the next time I talk to him.

MILEAGE

       Many times I write a post and then see that I missed some information. In my last post I didn't miss something. Some added information would make things clearer. 

      I live in Red Deer, Alberta Canada. My province is 1200 km(751miles ) from north to south. It is 610 Km ( 410 miles east to west. )

    It's the 6th largest province in Canada. 

    Travelling to Inuvik we always stopped for fuel in Yellowknife. I also attended 2 conferences there. In the early 1960's it was very much a frontier town. It was established as a gold mining town. Oh yes, I got a tour of one of the gold mines.

    I hope that this helps to make sense of the distances involved in the evacuation. 

WILD FIRES

     Since the wildfires in Canada and Alberta  make the news, people sometimes ask if I'm safe or how far away the fires are from me. Then there are the people who have to put up with the smoke from our wildfires. 

      The last week or ten days much has been in the news about Yellowknife which is the capital of the Northwest Territories. The population of Yellowknife was evacuated. That's 20000 people who had to take a two lane highway. There were fires along the way and it's such a long distance that you make sure that you fill the gas tank at the few gas stations. 

     These people made it to various places in Alberta where accommodation was available. 3000 came to my home town of Red Deer . Finding accommodation was difficult as other areas had been evacuated from other fires. 

    Hay River has also been evacuated. 

     Now these places are a very long way from me. 

      Driving to Yellowknife from Red Deer is 1602 km ( 995 mi). Driving time is 16 1/2 hours. The direct line from Red  Deer to Hay River is 958 km (595 mi). It's 772 miles by car. 

      So you see that these areas are along way away.

      However, there are fires between Red Deer and those fires. 

     Now in the cities we have to worry about fires in the urban forest. This city is heavily treed and wildfire is a definite probability. 

     We've been fortunate to not have too much smoke. 

     So I am safe but quite worried as to what will happen as the fire season continues. 

    In the 1960's I visited both Yellowknife and Hay River a number of times. I drove to Hay river twice and flew into Yellowknife many times. 

CONTROL OF SPEEDING

       Speeding has to be controlled. It is too dangerous to have speeders and, in particular, very high speeders. Too many people are killed or injured because of speeding. 

       In my last post I dealt with present day situations. We have a hit and miss ticketing system. Only a very small number of speeders are caught. Should all speeders be caught? What percentage of speeders should be caught? How much would road safety be improved with stricter enforcement. 

    Last day I was thinking about present day enforcement methods. What about enforcement tomorrow?

   We now have the technology for self driving cars. We have AI. Would it be difficult to put a chip in each car and follow it. Okay, I know this is terribly invasive and has great issues around it. A modified plan could be used. You mess up with your driving and then you get the chip and your diving is monitored. We now have devices that prevent drunk driving people from driving if they've been drinking.

    I know some people will not like the big brother idea. But how many people have to be killed or injured because of speeding? 

   Cars could be programmed to not go over he speed limit. Traffic could be monitored for other things and traffic volume could be controlled. 

   What other high tech devices may be developed?