Minimum Wage ≠ Living Wage...

The daily Life................

Minimum Wage  ≠ Living Wage...

Yesterday I took a walk in the morning... and near my house, 4 houses away, a tree had fallen on a car. The car was rushing to work, but nature said... "No rush!" ... It created huge traffic... and the police came to the intersection, just two houses away from where I live, and directed traffic... 

This is the scene while city workers are attempting to cut the branches and free the damaged car...It was a huge part of the tree growing on the side walk...It was a municipal tree growing on the sidewalk... and it was huge and it had rested on top of the hood of the car...Just in the middle...No human injuries...Nature works in mysterious ways...

It took more than an hour to clear things and traffic began to move again...

The funny thing is...the workers freed the car, but left all the branches and the huge trunk of the tree on the sidewalk...They did not clear that...Apparently that's the task of another department...

In previous blog post, I have refereed to where I live as if it is a park...I have often mentioned that my house looks like it is in a big park... So while I was mesmerized by the fallen tree...I took a photo of my next-door neighbours pomegranate tree... Every day during my daily walks I pass by it ... several times per day ...and every time it enchants me by its beauty... 

And so as you will not dwell on the negative side of nature and the fallen tree...I decided to include the beautiful pomegranate tree too...

Check the smiling pomegranates hanging from the branches...Check the glowing red...like Chinese lanterns...Nature makes me happy everyday... Whenever negativity starts building up inside me... I get rid of the toxicity by taking long walks...The more toxic the situation...the longer my walks...

You should try it...too... It is lovely and therapeutic too... nature always is ....

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Yesterday a big branch of the tree fell on the car...
Yesterday also, throughout Canada and U.S. people demonstrated to raise the minimum wage...
 Yesterday people went to the streets and demanded a living wage... After all, it is very depressing to work all day, sometimes 10-12 hours and go home without being paid adequately...
I remembered many of my students from my last school... Many of them work... and they are exploited few times over...
1. They devote their time to earn pocket money...but since they are not paid adequately...They work longer hours...to buy the Ipad that they want ... to pay for the phone that they have... They are kids...and they want to be like the Johns's... They want to show off... They want to be admired...
But they are paid the minimum wage...which is not enough...
2. The long ours that they allocate for work and peanut pay...they take away from their study time...So next they they are both sleepy and not properly prepared for the discussion in the classes....

And I though... What a superb time to raise some social issues while teaching math...and the other courses too... 

Discuss the problems raised by the Minimum Wage Protesters...Post on the boards some of the photos from yesterday's papers... Download the photos from the the internet...There are tons of them...
Make the students discuss the issues and write essays...make math problems and let them budget their money to survive...

Minimum Wage = Living Wage

Minimum Wage creates hungry kids who attend school without breakfast...

Break you silence and support your students ywho work on minimum wage...

Canada and the U. S. joined forces and initiated civil disobedience and demanded living wages...

Teachers must be on the front line of these battles for social justice...

Teachers must initiate a meaningful discussion in the classroom and let students b engaged in the current issues and in that way let make them more interested in the learning process...

But teachers are disengaged most of the time...Learning from the textbooks fossilizes the brain...

Learning from the current issues in the world and in the neighbourhood will make the students see the relevancy of their teachers and their textbooks...

Otherwise mediocre people will create mediocre generation...

But at the end ... the adults have demonstrated again and again that they are more supportive of old fashioned "education" from the book...
May the the young people will be able to liberate themselves from the shackles of the Big Brother... May  be the youth will form discussion groups and lead the way... instead of following their teachers and elders...May be the youth can lead us all into a better future...