In this article, Howard Doughty examines how today's technological devices alter and increasingly substitute for one's body/mind, sociality and (a)morality. He claims that today, under the crushing weightlessness of virtuality, citizens are less confident, more willing to retreat into the idiocy of private life. He goes on to address the…

Postsecondary teacher, Howard Doughty, has been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only working with the empirical analysis of political behaviour and the normative analysis of political theory, but also in the practical activity of promoting understanding of what is frequently called civic…

The report entitled, "OECD Economic Surveys: Canada 2012," offers an exceptionally rigorous, in-depth, well-informed and well-documented review of policy and performance of Canada's economy and postsecondary system. The report is divided into three parts. The first part contains an overview of the Canadian economy, a summary of the rest of the…

From time to time, every educator asks the question "why am I doing this?" Some of the answers may relate to personal goals or needs, but some are invariably focused on beliefs about the impact their work has on learners. For postsecondary educators, those answers may include thoughts about increased employability or better citizenship or mastery…

To build postsecondary institutions that educate responsible citizens as well as competent employees and consumers, it is important that people must teach and learn themselves about the context--domestic and global--in which work is to be done, and the purposes which economic and technological development serve. One aspect of that context is the…

In this article, the author stresses the danger of losing the concept of education in favour of lower notions of instruction and training. By "training" he means a process that suggests the acquisition of skills and the enhancing of performance capacities. By "instruction" he means learning facts and new information--the results of retention. Too…

Walter Benn Michaels has argued that higher education policies have been fashioned through a diversity fetish, rather than grappling with class inequities produced through neoliberal restructuring. When the author was asked the question of whether Benn Michael's analysis pertained to Canadian higher education, she found herself writing the present…

Innovation should be about procedures and methods. Little thought is given to proximate, much less ultimate aims. In this article, the authors invite educators to take a break and explore the educational enterprise to which they devote their life's work. They discuss two bits of excerpted writing, both over half a century old. One comes from Jack…

Global warming, deforestation, destruction of the oceans, hunger, poverty, human rights abuses and war crimes will, at best, be redressed by empty words and token gestures unless the public imbibes massive doses of caffeine. Unfortunately the public's attention seems to be focused elsewhere. Blackberries, cell phones, social networks on the…

Douglas Coupland, a prolific author/artist/lecturer and now prognosticator, is in the forefront of the arts movement in both Canada and the US. His works, starting with his breakout novel "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture," have consistently worked as a bellwether of current perspectives and values, both noting our cultural…

NIMBYism, the popular and short form for "Not In My Back Yard", describes the resistance and outright opposition by residents, either within a distinct place such as a neighbourhood, or, more broadly, in a larger civic area right up to a town or city level, against some planned nearby facility, service, or changed land use. NIMBYism is also about…

The aim of this anecdotal essay is to encourage college lecturers and classroom teachers to examine and articulate their personal instructional theory. This is important for two reasons. One, doing so brings an awareness of personal instructional practices, and two, it is an important facet of the scholarship of teaching and learning. To achieve…

In this essay, the author shares some thoughts about teaching and technology and focuses on how technological changes have (or have not) changed teaching. He asserts that technology, and it's role in teaching, has been evolving throughout recorded history. Technological change is not new; if there is any significant difference in the past fifteen…

Education is many things, but it is primarily the mode of production and reproduction of socially sanctioned knowledge, including the technical skills and sustaining ideology needed to maintain cultural continuity while adapting to social change. To teach creatively and to explore and shape knowledge amidst vast technological changes is the test…

This essay addresses a critical problem in today's college classroom: dealing with unmotivated and under-motivated students whose inclination toward learning stems from both academic and social factors that the faculty must effectively address to meet teaching-learning goals, meet course requirements, and his or her responsibility in contributing…