This blog has become about getting involved in an informed way. To that end, dialogue is helpful. Please add your comments to any or all posts and let me know what you think. I value your contributions even if it is just to tell me a bit about yourself and/or why you stopped by.
Feel free to follow me on twitter as well @bgilgoff.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks.
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As of June 2011, I am a retired teacher dedicated to my family and a number of personal interests including supporting activists for change. I currently serves on the executive as the web adminstrator for PAGE BC, the Peace and Global Educators of British Columbia Provincial Specialists Association of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation. I am a passionate advocate for social justice.
I was an Inservice Faculty Associate for Field Programs at Simon Fraser University when this blog was first published in 2008. My work there focused on Teaching and Learning with Technology and Teaching and Learning from a Global Perspective.
In June of 2009 I left SFU in order to travel extensively in Europe, Mexico and Central America with my husband Robert and our youngest daughter Hannah. The goal was to experience a different side of life, see a bit of various education systems, improve in Spanish and learn about living life gracefully in another culture. Although looking back it sometimes seems that during the 10 months away I really only mastered sleeping in late and not even thinking about dinner until after 9 pm at night, I did at least manage to keep up a daily blog journal, and hopefully improve my writing.
In September 2010 I was excited to return to the classroom and be able to draw on the wealth of experience that traveling provided. My position at Queen Mary Elementary in Vancouver teaching in the Vancouver School Board’s Multi-Age Cluster Class Program fit well with her passion for teaching with technology in a more systemic, global style. During the year some of the grade 6/7 students were involved in a variety of class blogs and other action projects, including spearheading a school leadership team. I have had over 15 years of previous experience in gifted education with the Vancouver School Board, working in MACC Programs, and Challenge Center Programs, as well as a position as the Coordinator for the VSB’s University Transition Program at the University of British Columbia, Canada’s only rapid acceleration program.
Hi Betty from BC. I am a fellow Canadian from Cambridge Ontario.
It appears that we are both concerned for our planet. I have had several sites over the past 25 years. I always come back to the same idea and that is that we need a world wide movement.
I was asked to condense my ideas into 350 words or less by a young lad who has a site called Global chorus.(http://globalchorus.ca/)
I will paste it below- I would like your thoughts on how one might proceed with the concept.
Cheers
Matt Foster
STOP – Save This Our Planet – Please
The people and planet have many dire problems. We must accept that there is only one key with which to effectively tackle these problems. We have given the scientists, corporations, politicians, and the UN, the opportunity at resolving the global social/ecological crisis; now it is the people’s turn to step directly into the process in a more effective way.
From the Rio Earth Summit/1992, until now, we’ve seen little meaningful progress. We must ultimately react more quickly and resolutely.
We know the issues; we have unlimited knowledge accumulated within several million NGO data bases; we have the means and knowhow to communicate globally; we know the power of social media.
We are fragmented and all trying to be heard in our various political systems which are unfortunately highly influenced by powerful international market forces and are unreceptive to our concerns. It is indeed a bad situation in which the whole world shares, but it is not hopeless. Collectively we can propose and significantly influence meaningful changes if we can simply get organized into a cohesive, worldwide movement and —
• Develop a social media site dedicated solely to social/environmental issues.
• Incorporate multi-language capabilities to communicate with the world.
• Categorize all social/ecological issues into manageable groups (26 Max)
• Prioritize the issues in each category through debate and consensus and put them into a 20/25 year plan.
• Use the new site, and/or allied sites, to put the issues to the world`s people for approval in a logical format with a consistent approach. (I.e. One issue in each category every two weeks equals the addressing of 26 separate issues per year)
• Forward the duly considered petition, with the names of the signatories, concurrently to the legislatures of all nations, as this is a crucial worldwide emergency that affects everything.
• Require every category unreservedly to have equal weight and equal opportunity to put its particular issues to the public for debate and consideration each year in its turn.
• Accept that time is our unforgiving enemy.