Even erudite flies get smashed now and then for sounding too ‘school smart’. As one of many AU students not immersed in an academic social sphere, Jason’s ‘Fly on the Wall’ column seeks to aid and abet the success of others in his cohort. We won’t always be understood when we speak of what we are learning in school but we can rest assured that our education still has value.
His lighthearted approach to sociological philosophy stems from conducting field research at bush parties and working his day job reforesting the mountains of BC. Born in the city of Vancouver and raised on a farm in the Fraser Valley and an orchard in the Okanagan, he attained a diploma in Horticulture in the Creston Valley and then returned to school as a Sociology major. Today’s he’s an AU Master’s of Integrated Studies student who spends his spare time enjoying nature walks, snorkeling and reading whatever philosophical and sociological tracts capture his fancy.
Jason is fascinated with the micro-sociological thoughts and interactions that frame and demarcate our experience of daily life as well as the philosophical realm considering essential questions about what it is to be a human. It’s dense brush but Jason seeks answers where murkiness holds sway.
A Few Theoretical Influences: Louis Althusser, Isaac Asimov, Jean Baudrillard, Simone de Beauvoir, Aime Cesaire, Carol Clover, John Cummings, Kurt Cobain, Jacques Derrida, Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Thomas Hobbes, Agnes Martin, Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Max Weber
Tonight I glanced over at a video game and saw a cowgirl riding a pale steed. Upon commenting on the quixotic thematic realities of a heroine riding a white horse I was informed that, in fact, the player herself was situated abreast a brown horse. But it sure looked like a white horse to me…. Read more »
This morning the first thing that captured my senses was a baby crib shaped like a shark’s mouth. A Quebecois TV announcer was discussing this odd family product. It occurred to me that, the night before, I’d been watching ’Pirates of the Caribbean’ on the French channel. Not because I speak more than a lick… Read more »
Like a shadow, a Biblical feeling passes over me as I thin apples in my orchard on a bright summer afternoon. I think back to Sunday school and the book of Matthew where it says “every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew, 7:19, New International… Read more »
Like a shadow, a Biblical feeling passes over me as I thin apples in my orchard on a bright summer afternoon. I think back to Sunday school and the book of Matthew where it says “every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew, 7:19, New International… Read more »
Standing in the shower reading the label on my hair conditioner, it occurred to me, as I’m sure it has to many other humans, that at some level we are the guinea pigs who hair care products are tested on. At a common sense level the hair conditioner chemicals are harmless, of course, yet there… Read more »
This article originally appeared February 19, 2010, in issue 1807. It seems doubtful that any teacher in Canada would deny that an important aspect of education is to mould young people into well-rounded adults. A holistic approach combining practical with interpersonal knowledge is generally espoused by well-meaning educators as well as by parents. Yet there… Read more »
A few days ago I lost my wallet and it was turned into the flower shop here in town. Then, a helpful RCMP constable delivered it to my door. After thanking those involved I started thinking of what had seemed like a fortuitous outcome to my own carelessness. Did the person who returned my wallet… Read more »
In my elementary school the seventh grade was the last before entering high school. This was a fact our teachers ceaselessly reminded us of. One of the sternest warnings we received was about what a sociology text might call ?the rigidity of bell structures.? In other words, tardiness was not tolerated. I still recall my… Read more »
In my last article I described how Israeli settlers overcame the dichotomy of school smart/life smart by forming communal farms known as kibbutzim. In the lands of Palestine, which are currently occupied to varying extents by the state of Israel, education has taken a different turn. Perhaps nowhere else can postmodern social theory be better… Read more »
The concept of ?school smart? as compared to ?life smart? permeates every corner of society and the schooling that takes place within it. From elementary school onward, students feel a conflict between what they will actually use in the ?real world? and what they are being taught in class. It is interesting, then, to find… Read more »