The times they are a changin'.  Big Time.Should we as a society be able to decide who is fit to be a parent?  I'm sure your first instinct is to say no.  That it's not even possible to do so.  And if it were, it would be immoral or unethical.But it is possible, at least partially.  Thanks to fertility treatments.I just read this article, Who Decides The Makings of a Modern Family?, in the National Post.The article examines how fertility treatment is changing the face of the family.  It is fairly widely accepted, and there is evidence, that gay and... More »

January's issue of National Geographic is all about twins.  I'm all over it.  There are some amazing portrait series.  And there is also the main article which is fascinating.Epigenettics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the DNA sequence.  Epi comes from the Greek, meaning over, above, outer.First you have to hear about the "Jim Twins".  Identical twins boys raised apart.  They were both named Jim by their adoptive parents.  When they were reunited at the age of 39 they learned about some startling similarities in their lives:growing up they both... More »

Here is the rest of the post I started the other day.  Why I want to punch Bill Gates in the Face (sometimes) because of the 11 Rules Your Children Have Not and Never Will Learn at School.6.  If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.  Yeah, OK, except that parents often do set their children up to have a closed mindset in which they don't take risks because they don't want to make mistakes.  This is done unintentionally through praise, which you can read about here.  Also, this seems... More »

This photo was making the rounds on Facebook.  And it pisses me off!  Tell me why you say?  OK, I will.Bill Gates, although well meaning, is misinformed about what makes good education.  He thinks that standardized testing is the way to assess teachers.  And that is not true.According to Diane Ravitch:Gates seems not to know or care that the leading testing experts in the nation agree that this is a fruitless and wrongheaded way to identify either good teachers or bad teachers. Student test scores depend on what students do, what effort they expend, how often they attend school, what support they... More »

Havana is an incredible city.  Our day there was the highlight of this trip.  The architecture; restored in the touristy areas and crumbling into disrepair everywhere else.The old cars, still running due to Cuban ingenuity.The street art - unbelievable.The nightlife (apparently - we didn't partake - next time).Again, I'll let the images speak for themselves.  But I will say, one day is not enough and we will return to Havana.Photographs by Ursi.Music:  La Habana Vieja (Old Havana) by Buena Vista Social Club.... More »

Well we had an amazing time.  This was our first family vacation with all six of us and it was grand.  Everyone loved the resort and our excursions.We went to Havana (which will be a separate post, so much to see).We swam with dolphins - I still have mixed feelings about that as they are kept in pretty small pens.We rode around the countryside in a "Jeep Safari" - a cheap 4 x 4 car in a caravan with guides.  It was fun and informative.  We visited a farm, a cave with a fresh water pool we swam in, we... More »

Ever since I became a teacher I've been thinking about how children behave.  One theory is like Pavlo's dog, that rewards and punishment drive our behaviour.We learn in Teacher's College that classroom management is partially about a system of rewards and punishment. Of course the first job of a teacher is to make the lessons so interesting that everyone is so engaged all of the time that there are not off-task or disruptive behaviours - good idea - in theory.The thing is, I don't believe in rewards in I think they only work in the short term.  With my students'... More »

To Cuba.  Here are some of the places we are planning to go.First up is our hotel, The Blau Varadero.  Highly recommended by Sara.  We stayed at the Blau Colonial in Cayo Coco last year and loved it.There are so many excursions to do we are having a hard time deciding what to do.  We can't do them all as we want some time to just chill out on the beach.We are hoping to go to the Saturno Cave where you can snorkel or dive.I'm struggling the idea of swimming with Dolphins at the Delfinario.  I know the girls were be... More »

And it wasn't even Christmas Day yet!  I wish I had a recording device built into my body so I could record my girls in an instant.  They say the cutest and the funniest things.  Really.  But by the time I go and get my phone or camera to record them, the conversation is over.  Or they notice me and start hamming it up.  So this one is not the one I wanted to record.  They were painting rainbows with watercolours.  They were discussing the order of the colours and asking me to confirm for them (they know the order... More »

Tonight is the Winter Solstice, the day the sun stands still.  Solstice comes from latin, read the etymology here.  (How geeky is it that I LOVE etymology and did a happy dance when I found the etymology online dictionary).Tonight we celebrated the Winter Solstice with other families in our community.  Almost all Northern cultures have Midwinters Day celebrations and traditions.  Romans celebrated Saturnalia.  Houses were decked with boughs of laurel and evergreen trees which symbolize life's continuum.   Lamps were kept burning to ward off dark spirits and family and friends visited one another delivering gifts.  People wore masks and darkened... More »