Clicking the logo will bring you to the United Nations’ site for the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights – specifically the page that outlines each country’s entry into the UN. You can access HR reports for each country.

I think about higher education and learning a lot. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in school, and I have a number of years of teaching experience in a variety of settings with different populations of people. I’ve spent a little time studying standardized testing, and how to operationalize traits such as intelligence and creativity. I’ve also studied how people learn informally and how knowledge is ‘captured’ for later use by others. Lately, people around me have been bringing up the topic of education, and I find their opinions quite fascinating. Some of the major issues that seem to come up when education is talked about are a) purpose, b) cost-benefit, and c) quality.

Purpose

My poll concerns this aspect of higher education, primarily (hint, hint… please give me your two cents at the end of this post!). It has seemed to me that most people have given up on the notion that higher education is for sharpening and expanding our minds. I think that particular purpose is a thing of the past – a time when most professors were focused on teaching rather than publishing, and most students weren’t there seeking a better economic life. Now that philosophy, which in its broader sense includes ethics, basic science, and the like, is missing from most students’ education, there is little sharpening and expanding going on. In the 10 years or so of post-secondary education I’ve put myself through, there have been very few courses that actually challenged me as a thinking, philosophical being.

I also get a strong sense that these days (and nowhere is this more apparent than in rapidly-developing developing nations, such as China) that education is seen by the general public as the key to more money and a better life. Personally, I think that is a complicated issue, and that any correlation seen between the two is not as straightforward as one might like to think. I believe education can help you to a certain point. Advanced degrees (beyond a bachelor degree) are dangerous ground, in my opinion, and can put you in as precarious a marketability situation as being uneducated can be. I’ve read a lot of material written by highly educated people of my cohort and younger who have found that a) they are unable to find work in their fields following graduation, and in broadening their searches, b) they are faced with serious unemployment as potential employers make often unfair negative judgements about them based on their education. I certainly have found this to be the case.

Costs and Benefits

Related to the ‘purpose’ topic. Education is seen as an investment, and I’ll even go so far as to say that education has become a bit of an enterprise, run on a pseudo-business model. I would argue most people involved in the education machine, including government subsidizers, college and university decision-makers, and those paying the tuition (in some cases, students, and in others, parents) would see it as an investment. The expectation is that the costs, in the form of tuition and books as well as lost wages, pension contributions, etc. will be repaid many times over in the form of better pay and more rewarding and stimulating work. It is that model that keeps the student mill a-churning.

Is it the case though? Why are so many secretaries women with university degrees? I’m not putting down secretaries, but having done that kind of work myself, I can tell you that that work does NOT require a 4-year university degree. And once you land yourself there, ladies, it is a well-known fact that you end up stuck in the ‘pink ghetto’ (I first heard women talking about this phenomenon in 2000 amongst female government workers in British Columbia in Canada). Would you call this good ROI (return on investment)?

In my own situation, I made the decision to return to school to do a second masters degree in 2005, and I can say with absolute certainty that it was the worst economic and career decision of my life. I was at my highest hourly rate just prior to going back to school, and that second masters has been my Achilles heel professionally and economically. This is a much more complex issue that may get talked about in another post at another time. If you are interested in the topic, there are plenty of articles and blogs out there. One example (from the law profession): Overeducated and Underemployed: Does That Make You a Philanthropist?.

Quality

It has been suggested to me recently that because of the smaller group of ‘kids’ entering adulthood, governments and universities have started panicking about enrollment rates. Creative licence has been granted to program developers in order to attract people who might not traditionally be drawn to the hallowed halls of academe. To put this in simpler terms, university as an institution has been dumbed down, gotten silly and embarrassing, and perhaps degrees aren’t worth as much as they used to be. One interesting example comes out of British Columbia. A few years ago, the provincial government, in an effort to appear more attractive to foreign students (who pay much higher tuition and are thus very attractive to business-minded educators…) , decided to turn a handful of community colleges into universities. Roughly speaking, in Canada, community colleges are geared towards practical programs and the trades while universities are geared towards theoretical programs and the professions. So now, in British Columbia, you can study to become a welder or hair stylist and you get yourself a University diploma (not a degree).

But quality affects the bona fide university programs as well. I’ve taught university students in both Canada and the US, and it is absolutely shocking to me how poor writing skills are. Not just grammar and spelling and ability to construct a complete sentence, but in organizational skills, logic and ability to put together an argument with support. What is more shocking, however, is that poor writing skills are still getting grades in the A and B range (not in my class…).

Anyhow, I’m going to end this post with my poll. For those interested, I have written a fair amount about the Chinese education system in earlier posts (check out my list of categories in the sidebar). It is vastly different than the North American system, although, I don’t think I can actually tell you which one is better/worse.

I’ve been watching some of my videos lately – I’ve posted some of them on my Good Villager Youtube channel, if you care to take a peek – and it amazes me how short a time ago it was.

Anyhow, I found these great photos of some fisherfolk taken in rural Hunan. Only once in 8 months in the countryside did I ever see people with any kind of fishing net gear. The town was inland, and the lakes/rivers didn’t exactly run through the town (none that I would fish in, that is). So, I was all over these people. Unfortunately, they spoke a dialect, and I couldn’t communicate with them to find out whether the fish they were unloading were river or lake inhabitants.

Please click the photos for enlargements.

Part of living as a good villager, or responsible citizen, is standing up for human rights. The legal system, even in self-righteous Canada, is flawed. Even when inarguably bad things happen to people, more often than not, there is no legal way to pursue justice and to ensure that those bad things don’t keep on happening. Sometimes, it even seems that existing laws serve to protect abusers of basic rights and freedoms, and that those who fall victim to those abusers have no voice at all. I hadn’t intended to start my series on workplace abuse to coincide with Human Rights Day, which incidentally, is December 10. Human rights day is every day as far as I’m concerned.

Social Media – The Blessings and The Curses

With the advent of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging platforms, etc.,  suddenly, the general public has a voice – whether they realize it or not. Some folks act responsibly, educate themselves on rights, and make effective use of these tools to fight for the rights of the voiceless millions. We’re seeing this now with the deliberate posting of amateur videos of abuse of innocent citizens by the very people paid to protect us, for example. On the flip side, people often get themselves into trouble by making careless (even if legitimate) comments about people online without realizing that it isn’t just their friends accessing the comments. A basic example of shock and confusion over this issue can be seen in the comments section of the post of this blogger, who like me, posted generally on defamation law (albeit in Malaysia – I learned and have posted my disclaimer…).  It is a massive issue. The key point is that, deliberate or not, and legitimate or not, you should know and understand what you are getting into when you post potentially public information. Unfortunately, the laws that govern us are neither easily accessible nor easily understandable by the average person.

One major area of concern is employee disparagement of employers on social media. There appear to be heaps of lawyers ready to defend employers against wrongful termination lawsuits initiated by employees who’ve been caught employer-bashing online. But what happens when:
a) you’ve been badly abused by an employer and/or co-workers and don’t feel safe,
b) you have been fired when you try to stand up for yourself or report the problem,
c) you live in a place where employers don’t legally need a reason to fire you, and
d) you have tried to go through the available channels to be heard and to prevent the abuse from happening to anyone else only to find out that you don’t have a ‘good enough’ case or there are no legal bodies in your jurisdiction that deal with your type of issue?

Most employees finding themselves in abusive situations don’t have the resources available to pursue legal action against an abuser. Further, legal aid doesn’t cover workplace harassment cases.

Some people go public.

So, one major question, to put it in layperson’s terms, is: “How do I know if I’ve dissed someone in a way that can get me in trouble?”

First, let’s define some terms:

Defamation: Written or spoken attack on or injury to an organization or individual’s reputation. In Canada, defamation law is administered provincially and territorially.

Slander: Verbal defamation.

Libel: Written defamation.

Free speech: The freedom to speak publicly without censorship. We don’t have total freedom of expression in Canada. We don’t have a ‘First Amendment’, and our national Human Rights Commission doesn’t seem to have an understanding of what free speech means either. I am not going to get into a lengthy discussion here, but see writings by others working in the field for more information and examples.

Human rights: Can I even simplify this topic? Hmm, human rights are dealt with through documentation existing on several political levels. Human rights are generally categorized into five groups: civil, political, cultural, social, and economic rights. Some rights are given more importance or attention in different jurisdictions. Further, some ‘rights’ are open to heavy debate. In Canada, provinces and territories have their own Human Rights Commissions and Human Rights Acts. Working together with the provinces/territories is the federal Canadian Human Rights Commission. A few interesting things about these bodies, a) it is very, very difficult to make a case under human rights law, and b) cases must pertain to abuses that are committed against members of specific groups (sex, age, race, etc.). You have no case simply being a human whose rights have been abused. Some places in Canada deal with harassment and safety issues that don’t require group membership to be legitimate, and thus, you can have your general ‘human’ rights dealt with there. On the federal level, The Centre for Occupational Health and Safety exists, and they have explicit documentation that deals with harassment as what I would call a ‘human right’ and they would call ‘worker safety’. In the Yukon, where I reside, however, the equivalent body doesn’t appear to deal with general workplace harassment as a safety or human rights issue. More investigation needed.

Moving Ahead with Your Public Comment/Story

So, back to the question I posed earlier: getting in trouble for public commentary. One thing to always keep in mind, especially when you are writing (and I would argue that this is probably good advice for all writers regardless of the genre), is your goal. Why are you writing what you are writing? If your goal is to hurt someone – malicious intent, in other words – you could be putting yourself into a dangerous legal situation, especially if you have a tendency towards embellishment of facts…  There are other reasons for writing, however and a number of ways people have defended themselves when accused of libelous writing. I will cover two of them here, but here is one site that can provide more details on situations that don’t apply to what I’m writing about specifically.

• Truth:  If the statements you are making are true or justifiable, you have a defence for what you are saying. The better able you are to prove the truth of your statements (ongoing patterns of behaviour, witnesses, video, email/other writings, anything that can corroborate your story), the better your defence, of course.
• Freedom of speech (aka ‘fair comment’): Again, tied to truth. We are allowed to comment on things in public, but these comments need to be based on fact/truth, and cannot be motivated by malicious intent.

A few things to note in Canada, if a person accuses you of libel, they do not need to provide proof that they have been injured/damaged. Further, when an accusation of slander/libel is made, it is the defendant that must prove the statement is true. The statement is assumed to be false until proven otherwise. On the other hand, when accusing someone of libel, especially when the facts that have been publicized are true, there is a great risk of having the rest of the nasty iceberg exposed to the world. Seldom is the whole story of bad behaviour revealed in the libelous material, and truth will out.

Just a few things to think about. Stay tuned. There is more to this series on Workplace Abuse coming.

—-

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Professional researcher, policy analyst, librarian, yes. Lay human rights supporter, yes. Lawyer, no. That should tell you everything you need to know… but what’s clear to me isn’t always clear to others. So, to be clear. I am writing about something I’m interested in and that I do ongoing reading on. I am not here to advise or counsel anyone on their online messes. I am providing layperson information and insight into my own personal experience, only. Goals: a) to provide another means for people to educate themselves, b) to let people know they are not alone if they have experienced something they think is defamation or human rights abuse, c) to help prevent future problems in my local neck of the woods.

Just so you know.

First, I’ve had a flurry of email activity in the last few days with someone I used to do business with. At the the end of this electronic word-storm, he asked me where I saw myself in the future and whether I could articulate my needs and dreams. You know, at points in time, I can do that. I did have something I dreamed about clearly about 2 years ago. But I wrote back and said that right now, I think with recent events, I feel dreaming is futile, and that my needs are currently pretty basic: a) survival, and b) to not be treated like garbage. On the other end of this, I’ve really been putting an effort into objectively looking at my progress on some of my personal projects, and I think about how far I’ve come on some of them. Bees Alive! has grown a lot in the last year, for example. So has this blog.

This week, I stopped going in to the bakery. I was fired recently for standing up for myself after three months of sex discrimination, bullying, verbal abuse, and finally, physical intimidation. I have worked so hard, physically, these last 3 months, that this week, I feel lazy. But I actually have done a lot. I’ve put my brain back in gear. I’ve been processing my early Whitehorse experience. I had one significant outing this week, and that was the hour I spent with the Human Rights Commission filing a grievance against the Alpine Bakery. Despite the legitimacy of my complaints, there are no laws that can help me. Men can still abuse women in Canada, in public, in a workplace. No consequences. It is disturbing, and it has given me a lot to think about. It has given me a lot to write about.

As much as I enjoy posting on scenery and food/baking, one of the underlying reasons for this blog is to talk about living responsibly. Part of living responsibly is actively not doing harm to others. It blows my mind that people who try to portray themselves as community-oriented and social justice-minded can be some of the biggest abusers of all. My recent experience has fed the idea mill, and I will write. It is important to do a mental self-check-in once in a while.

Upcoming posts:

• Corporate social responsibility
• The mechanics of exploitation
• What exactly are human rights according to Canadian law?
• Slander and libel

English Language Coordinator for my school: “Just relax. Don’t take the job seriously.”

Me: “But I take all my jobs seriously.”

The conclusion of Part One of a conversation with the Chinese English teacher who was also in charge of dealing with the foreigners. We were given seemingly impossible jobs with no materials and no support, and it was glaringly apparent that we only existed to make the school look good. Unfortunately, we signed on for real teaching jobs.

English Language Coordinator: “You must teach your class perfectly even if there are no students present.”

Part Two of the above conversation. Classic Chinese logic. Don’t take it seriously, but do it perfectly. At the same time. Of course. It’s great when you can take the great “If a tree falls in a forest…” deep thought and apply it to your own little corner of the universe, isn’t it?

Student: “Teacher, can I kiss you?”

Me: “No.”

Student: “Why not?”

Me: “I am your teacher.”

Student: “But I thought all foreigners kissed their friends.”

Me: “No. That is not true. And students do not kiss their teachers.”

A conversation I had (multiple times) with one of my 18-year-old male students. Common misconceptions about how people do things in foreign cultures often centre around sex and violence. Much of this misinformation comes from bad American films, and unfortunately, from the teachers who are just as misinformed as the students, but whose authority is unquestioned in Chinese culture. I can’t count the number of puzzled looks I got throughout the year as I tried in vain to correct an often scary stereotype taken as truth by my students and various teachers.

Student: “I think that if China were a really powerful country, we would do bad things to other people, too.”

I have to give some background to this comment because it absolutely floored me when the student said it to me during a quiet conversation together. The speaker was a 15-year-old, shy, pensive, sensitive boy who was part of our English Lunch Club. There is a widespread hatred of Japan and the Japanese in China, mainly due to the atrocities committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). The hatred is perpetuated in high school teachings, and I get the sense that despite the vast amounts of material taught to Chinese students, they are still offered a highly skewed view of the world (which is no better or worse than the sadly lacking curriculum and resulting sparse student knowledge base present in, say, American school systems). Anyhow, this 15-year-old boy, instead of swallowing facts mixed with communist/nationalist propaganda, had actually put some thought into the situation and had tried to see an outside perspective. Impressive, especially in my rural school. Of course, what he must not have realized was that China is, in fact, powerful, and they have been doing and still do horrific things to people. One of my favourite students, though, and I hope he gets the chance to take courses in philosophy and human rights and can go on and do good things for China.

Student: “Teacher, do you want a boyfriend?”

Me: “I don’t know. Sure.”

Student: “What kind of boyfriend do you want?”

Me: “Well, he should be funny and smart.”

Student: “Yes, the man must be smarter than the woman.”

Me, laughing: “Well, that’s going to be impossible then.”

A lot of people credit communism with bringing equality to women in China, but in reality, women are still second class citizens. The more education a woman has, the less attractive she is a potential wife. As I commented on in another post, a popular saying is, “Women have long hair and short brains.” And with the ongoing one-child policy, female fetuses are still being aborted so that a son might eventually bless the family. I hope I made a few girls think while I was there, but I’m sure I was written off as a strange, pathetic unmarried foreign woman. No husband, no children, no life.

I post good experiences; I post the bad ones too. My underlying or overarching (whichever view you like to take) point is always that all of it contributes to life experience and rounding out/expanding one’s view and understanding of the world. I have learned so much, and I still know so little…

The Yukon is a fantastic place for outdoor sports, especially walking and hiking. There is a lot of rugged terrain for the more advanced, but there are also marked trails for those with less time, physical limitations, and/or a less ‘adventurous’ spirit.

For the more adventurous: Walking the Big Wild

As a Whitehorse resident limited by the fact that I don’t have a vehicle, I am fortunate to have the nearby Millennium Trail for my outdoor/exercise needs.

The 5-km trail came about as a result of French missionary, Father Jean-Marie Mouchet, and true to his vision, the trail is easily accessible to people of all abilities.

The trail encircles the section of the Yukon River between the the Robert Campbell Bridge and the Rotary Centennial Bridge. (A map of the trail can be found here.) It meanders through stands of birch trees, and offers spectacular views of the Yukon River rapids and the hills surrounding the city of Whitehorse. Along the trail, there is even a demonstration garden featuring edible landscaping. At points along the river, you can see kayakers, fish runs, the Yukon Energy Corporation facilities, the Bert Law island park, and famous Whitehorse landmark, the S.S. Klondike. Enjoy the photos below – each has a title which will show up if you run your mouse over the photo.

My post title was a bit of an exaggeration. I am going to give you one good use for a hairdryer.

I have been meaning to deal with my house’s windows, and by ‘deal with’, I mean ‘put plastic on them in an attempt to prevent some of my heat from escaping’. I borrowed a hairdryer from my landlady in order to do this. The process involves applying two-sided tape around the window, cutting a piece of plastic slightly larger than the window, getting the plastic lined up and stuck to the tape in as straight and flat a way as possible, and then blow drying along the edges to shrink the plastic and create a tight seal.

But if you leave it as long as I have, you have to remove the ice from the inside of your home before affixing the tape to the window casing. Tape doesn’t stick to ice or water for some reason.

I had done two of my windows at the end of my work week. I left the rest for the next day, as it is a bit of an ordeal, and I was tired. Through the night, the temperature decided to plummet to somewhere around the -40 Celsius mark, and things were cold. My morning priority suddenly became shrink-wrapping the rest of my house…

But what I really wanted to point out when I said, ‘You see that hill?’ was the indentation in the snow running practically vertically down it. It’s not any random indentation. It’s also not a toboggan (sled) run. It is a path, and I swear as I stepped outside my house the other day and looked at this hill to find out what the noise was, there were a woman and a dog running/skidding/laughing/barking all the way down it. Deliberately.

Welcome to the Yukon