Homework Exists for a Reason, Despite Some Parents’ Beliefs

There are many things in a child’s life that are supposed to be non-negotiable. Bed times, eating vegetables and baths all come to mind. But one family in Calgary has decided to spare their children the horrors of one life’s most unquestionable duties- homework. Tom and Shelli Milley recently signed an agreement with their children’s school that states Spencer, 11, and Brittany, 10, do not have to complete, hand in, or be marked on any homework assignments. The entire Milley family, along with the kids’ teachers, signed the no-homework contract after the family lobbied the school for two years. Tom Milley claims that thanks to all of their children’s extra-curricular activities and family chores such as making supper, the family simply dreaded working on school assignments in the evening. Apparently the Milley’s have never looked into the definition of “extra-curricular” activities; otherwise, they would know that things such as speedskating practice and music lessons are supposed to be in addition to activities required by law, like, oh say, school.

Yes, homework can require a lot of time and energy from both parents and students. Yes, it is important that children have well-rounded lifestyles that include healthy activities such as sports or dance lessons. Of course every parent wants their child to possess some life skills other than being able to count and say the alphabet. But there are other, more responsible options, than simply eliminating mandatory homework from a child’s life. Children who show enormous potential in one specific activity such as music or hockey can attend special schools that help students excel while balancing school and activities. Kids who have trouble fitting in dozens of extra-curricular activities alongside school work might consider home-schooling. If parents find that their children often struggle with homework, they may want to hire a tutor for their child. But allowing children to take the easy path in school by not completing homework that will increase their knowledge and prepare them for future schooling is not acceptable. It’s lazy and sets an ugly precedent for other students. In fact, it even sets an ugly precedent for Spencer and Brittany. Spencer was nine years old and Brittany was eight years old when their parents started lobbying the school to allow their children to be exempt from homework. How much homework could an eight-year-old kid have possibly had? What extra-curricular activity trumps learning in the Milley family? Will this no-homework agreement continue on when Spencer and Brittany are in high school? Tom and Shelli Milley say they will quiz their kids at home to help them prepare for tests. However, if the family cannot find time to do school assignments now, what will motivate the kids and parents to do non-required learning at home now that they don’t have to do it?

How will these children deal with the mountains of homework they will have to scale in college or university (assuming those slackers even make it to a post-secondary institution)? All university programs require a great deal of studying, writing and reading. A general rule of thumb for university students is to expect to do at least three hours of homework for every hour of class you have a week. Full-time post-secondary students take at least four, if not five, classes a semester. That equals about fifteen hours of class a week, not including time spent in lab classes. Post-secondary students with a full class load can expect about six-and-a-half hours of homework a day, seven days a week. Imagine going from little to no homework in high school to being buried under books for 390 minutes every day for four years! Homework, as annoying as it can be, serves a purpose. Not only does working on math problems, learning geometry and reading books on a regular basis help students learn, it also prepares them for future studies. What if students have no intention of going on to post-secondary education once they are finished high school, you say? Learning new skills and taking courses is often required for many jobs, even those that do not require a university education. Besides, what 10-year-old kid can rule out post-secondary school for certain? Studying hard in school and learning at an early age leaves doors open for kids. Telling kids it is okay to stop doing something, such as homework, because it is an inconvenience not only teaches kids bad work habits but also slams doors shut in the future. Children should never be taught that learning should be negotiable.

Holiday Madness? You Mean Holiday Magic!

It always starts innocently enough. You start November by trying an eggnog latte from Starbucks. Then you notice holiday gift wrap is on sale and you pick some up. After all, what’s the harm in starting your Christmas or Hanukkah shopping a little early? But before you know it, you’re listening to Mariah Carey’s Christmas CD on repeat while downing chocolate liqueurs and hanging Christmas stockings. It’s official: you’ve started the holiday season.

Don’t worry; it’s not your fault. After all, how is anyone supposed to resist the magic of the holiday season with reminders of all things Christmas-y everywhere you go? Most stores start putting out their holiday merchandise at the earliest possible moment. Take a quick stroll through Walmart on the evening of October 31 and you are likely to find equal parts Halloween and Christmas merchandise. Suddenly shoppers have a choice: either stock up on discounted Halloween candy for next year, or get a head-start on Christmas shopping. After all, Christmas is right around the corner. And as appealing as thrusting your way through a crowd of your fellow desperate, frenzied shoppers at West Edmonton Mall the week before Christmas sounds, it can be very relaxing to finish your shopping early. Besides, the holiday rush is not confined only to the week before Christmas at West Edmonton Mall and other shopping centres. The malls get claustrophobic at least one month before Christmas, especially on weekends.

Starbucks is next on the list of chains that squeeze as much holiday cheer into the winter as possible. Starbucks begins offering their Christmas drink items and merchandise in the first week of November every year. Not only that, but they even decorate! After all, would you know Christmas is coming if there wasn’t a red and white Starbucks drink menu board to remind you every time you need caffeine?

Holiday parades also often come early, with the Toronto Santa Claus parade happening in mid-November each year. Edmonton requested Santa’s presence on November 14 this year during the Christmas on the Square Holiday Light Up. The Leduc Santa Claus parade will be spreading holiday magic down Main Street November 27 this year. However, the Village of Thorsby is showing some restraint by waiting until the beginning of December to celebrate Christmas in the Village. Isn’t it a little early for Santa to be making the rounds, you say? Shouldn’t Santa and his elves be hard at work in the North Pole non-stop until Christmas Eve? Hell no! The undeniable bonus of having most outdoor celebrations outdoor in November and December is that it is generally actually warm enough to attend said events, particularly this year. Sure, it’s unfortunate that a nice mist of sparkling white snow didn’t grace the streets of Edmonton for this year’s Christmas on the Square Holiday Light Up, but I doubt many folks are complaining. Not having snow is a small price to pay for not losing any bodily appendages to frostbite while standing outside hoping for a glimpse of Santa.

Holiday madness, as overwhelming as it can be, is really just holiday magic in a frenzied disguise. I love starting the holidays at least one month before Christmas officially happens. I usually don’t mean for it to happen, but when it does I embrace it. As crazy as it sounds, something as small as seeing that Starbucks holiday-themed drink board or eating a gingerbread man always brings a spark of Christmas spirit to my heart and usually gives birth to a frenzy of early holiday shopping. I, along with many other suckers, am a marketing executive’s dream come true. But I don’t care, because I love it all. I love the light-up reindeer chilling out on people’s lawns. I love that it becomes sociably acceptable to add Bailey’s to a beverage at any time during the day. I love picking out the perfect gifts for family and friends. I love Christmas carols and candy canes. I love the spirit of giving that truly does envelop people throughout the world. Of course, many people think it’s ridiculous to begin the holiday season in November and despise those who insist on starting the merriment as soon as their Halloween costumes are put away. But everyone should embrace the holiday season, whenever it begins. Reminders of Christmas, Hanukkah or Chrismukkah are already everywhere. The only way to avoid early holiday cheer is to hide in your house until December 24. So choose to embrace the holiday season and start spreading the joy early!

Conservative Party Afraid of Change

Change is good. Unless, of course, you happen to be a Conservative Party convention delegate. On November 7, 2009, 77 per cent of Conservative convention delegates cast a vote in favour of keeping Premier Ed Stelmach in power by voting against holding a provincial leadership election. I was shocked at the results. I shouldn’t have been. Of course the Conservative Party stood by Stelmach. To do otherwise would be to turn their back on their party, their policies and their political belief systems. However, by supporting an ineffectual, uncharismatic and increasing unpopular premier, the Conservative Party has turned its back on the province of Alberta. The Conservative party may need Stelmach, but the citizens of Alberta could certainly do without him.

Voting to hold a provincial leadership election would have been the same as Conservatives admitting that their party is in trouble. If Conservative Party delegates had turned their back on Stelmach, it could have been the kiss of death for a party that is in desperate need of a face-lift. If the Conservatives had chosen to vote for a chance to elect a new leader, they would have confirmed what the rest of us already know: that the government of Alberta is broken and in desperate need of change. That much-needed change could have potentially come from the Conservative Party if they had made the brave choice to elect a new leader. However, since Stelmach remains at the helm of the Conservatives, it is Danielle Smith, the new leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party, who will have the opportunity to be the change Albertans desperately crave. Smith is charismatic, young and bold; in other words, everything that Stelmach is not. Conservative convention delegates chose to save the Conservative party rather than please voters by getting rid of a party leader few people are happy with. Ironically, this may lead to the demise of the Conservative party in Alberta anyways. Many Albertans may vote for the Wildrose Alliance Party simply because they want a government that is different from the current one, much like when Americans overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because they wanted a leader who was different from George W. Bush in so many ways. Is this a smart voting strategy? Perhaps not but it is what will happen come election time.

Conservative party members knew that if they did not show their support for Stelmach, it would send a very strong message not just to their party leader but to all Albertans, along with the rest of Canada. If the Conservatives do not believe in their leader, why should the rest of Alberta? But Conservatives did choose to “believe” in Stelmach and they will need to live with the consequences of that decision, as will the rest of us. We will all have to deal with the fact that we live in a province that chose to give H1N1 vaccination shots to professional hockey teams before all high-risk citizens could be vaccinated. We will have to accept that we have a premier who did not ask for the resignation of Alberta’s Health Minister Ron Liepert but allowed two Alberta Health Services staff members to be fired for something that was likely not entirely their decision. We will have to settle for a health care system that is falling apart and a disorganized health minister that cannot settle on a clear vaccination plan for Albertans.
Albertans put their faith in Stelmach and the Conservative Party during the 2008 provincial general election. Less than two years later, many Albertans are questioning Stelmach’s leadership capabilities and the shelf-life of the Conservative Party in Alberta. Any party that has been in power in one place for 38 years risks becoming stagnant and inefficient. Younger, hipper government parties always have the opportunity to swoop in and steal the hearts and votes of citizens. Between the recession, the deficit, H1N1 and the global climate crisis, the Conservative Party (and all political parties) certainly has some major hurdles to jump over gracefully in order to prove they deserve our support.

The Conservative Party chose to keep Stelmach in power; this we cannot change. But thanks to democracy, freedom of choice and rational thought, we can choose to end the madness in 2012, during the next provincial general election. Of course, plenty can change in two years. If the Conservative Party wants to retain power in Alberta, those changes must include booting Stelmach and finding a party leader with a little more panache.

Legalize the Sex Trade to Keep Women on Streets Safe

People keep disappearing. Women, in particular, go missing all the time, never to be seen again. It seems inevitable. In Canada, over 1500 women are officially considered missing persons by the police, according to a recent article in the Edmonton Journal. But data tells us that a certain segment of the population goes missing more often than others. Sex trade workers, or “prostitutes,” as they are more vulgarly known, are at high risk for disappearing because they are one of society’s most vulnerable sectors. Edmonton is a prime example of what can go wrong when sex trade workers do not have advocates on their side looking out for those who have to live on the street and encounter strangers on a daily basis. For years, missing sex trade workers have later turned up dead, desecrated and forgotten in farmers’ fields outside the city. In British Columbia, the victims of Robert Pickton still remain on many people’s minds. It is a grim truth, what can happen to those people that have no one looking for them.

Changes need to be made to ensure that sex trade workers do not continue to go missing. A sex trade worker may only be a “hooker” to many people but to someone, she is family. She is a daughter, a mother, a sister, a friend. But the sad truth is it can be extremely difficult to keep track of someone who lives on the street. Women who work in the sex trade industry are often missing for a long time before anyone notices or thinks to report it to the police. Legalizing prostitution would allow sex trade workers to work in brothels without fear of police raids and jail time. By legalizing prostitution, the government could also regulate the sex trade, allowing for more protective measures to be taken to ensure the health, safety and well-being of all people involved in the sex trade. Legal brothels would give sex trade workers a place to check into every day, ensuring that someone would notice within a day or two if a sex trade worker went missing. Legalized prostitution would mean the government could implement a health check system that would send nurses to test sex trade workers in brothels for sexually transmitted infections and other health-related problems. This, in turn, would make working conditions not only safer for sex trade workers but also for their clientele. If prostitiution were legalized, sex trade workers would not have to hide from police. Instead, sex trade workers could feel more comfortable reporting any john who mistreated them or abused them.

Yes, legalizing prostitiution sounds crazy to some people. It’s a simple but extreme solution to a problem that is anything but simple. Sex trade workers often stay in the sex industry because they don’t know any other way of life. Last year I spent six weeks interviewing a sex trade worker in Halifax for a class project. I tried to learn every detail of her life; when I returned to my safe, warm home after every interview, I felt like crying. The women I interviewed dropped out of school in Grade 9 and had been arrested many times for solicitation. She had been beaten and broken and left for dead. She told me she could not leave the sex trade because she could not even get a job at Tim Hortons because of her criminal background. She had no options. The system had failed her, just like it has failed all women involved in the sex trade.

Relegating prostitution to a dirty, illegal realm has not made the sex trade disappear. Instead, it is the women who are involved in the sex trade that are disappearing. Sex trade workers are a marginalized group simply because society treats them as such. Sex trade workers are forced to remain separate from the very society that allows them to exist in the first place. The sex trade only remains alive because there are always customers willing to pay for sex. Ignoring the problem hasn’t made it go away. Ignoring the women in the sex trade has only made the problem worse. In order to keep sex trade workers safe, we must first begin to see them as people, not as outsiders. In order for that to happen, in order for sex trade workers to matter to society, the government needs to legalize prostitution. Too many women have gone missing; too little has been done to stop it. Legalize prostitution, regulate brothels and give sex trade workers a safe place to call home.