“We begin with equality, that’s the origin isn’t it? That’s justice.” – Abraham Lincoln, “Lincoln”

I was asked to speak about myself at a business luncheon recently. I talked about about growing up with medical issues, about being being an Aboriginal adopted into a non-Aboriginal family, and about work I’ve done with at-risk youth. There was a question and answer period after my initial talk and one of the questions asked was “how can we make Hamilton (Ontario, where I live) a better place?”

I took a few moments to try to formulate an answer and I finally said “that’s a damn good question.” I told those present, many of whom have experienced a good degree of success in their lives, that there is no easy answer. I told them that it’s not enough to simply donate money to causes or build more infrastructure or even get involved in local community events. I said that the real starting point lies in becoming and remaining open-minded to seeing the qualities in those different from us. What did I mean by “different from us”? I meant that it’s far too easy to dismiss someone based on any criteria we choose.

We can dismiss someone on gender, age, race, sexual orientation, religious background, education level, clothing choices, music preferences, really the list is endless. I’m sure we’ve all had times in our lives where someone has based our worth and what we have to offer on something that really has no bearing on our ability to help out or achieve a specific goal. That there are differences between people should go without saying. We should embrace those differences because they mean the chance to expand our outlooks and social education.

As I answered the question of “how do we make Hamilton a better place” I realized that I myself am guilty of putting people into preconceived categories. I am ashamed to admit this but I can’t deny it either. And even though I know it’s not exactly in the spirit of community building, there are times when I’m walking through the downtown core of Hamilton that I can’t help but think I’ve somehow stumbled upon the world’s largest trailer park because of how run down the core has become. Unfortunately that run down feel has attracted more than it’s share of homeless, street youth and those who’ve otherwise seemingly given up on themselves.

I use the word “seemingly” on purpose because it can be too easy to dismiss someone based on a first impression or because they don’t measure up to some arbitrary standard. It can be too easy to look down on someone because they don’t share the same goals and ambitions that you do. We have to keep in mind that the things we want, the goals we set, are based on our specific life experiences. It’s not too far-fetched to believe that if you had a different set of experiences up until now, you would currently have a different set of goals and desires.

I see this as being true from my own life. As I mentioned before, I’m an Aboriginal who’s been adopted by a non-Aboriginal family, into a culture that is not my own. I’ve come to realize that if I hadn’t been adopted, many of the things that I hold dear, such as my circle of friends, my education, the hobbies and recreations I enjoy, would be vastly different. I do realize certain things would have most likely been the same, such as my love of reading and playing sports, but the difference between who I am and who I would have been if I hadn’t been adopted lies solely in the opportunities I’ve had. I can only imagine what opportunities life would have presented me if I hadn’t been adopted but when I do theorize, I come to see that the greatest difference has come from the impact my adopted parents have had.

The difference between my birth family and my adopted family is night and day. The family values are almost completely polar opposites of each other. I follow my adopted family’s value system but that doesn’t mean I look down on my birth family. I’ve realized growing up that things in my birth family’s history such as alcohol and drug addictions and the abuses of the Residential School system have taken their toll. My birth family works from the moral and social education they received from their experiences. If I had grown up with them instead of my adopted family, I would most likely have that same social outlook.

The reason I talked about this is to show the different paths that a single person can take, given the circumstances they find themselves in. More than most, I’ve seen with stark reality the road not taken and the potential for what I could have been like. Given that difference set of circumstances, those in my life who’ve affected me the most, that I’ve loved, that I’ve been mentored and influenced by, would have been replaced with a different set of people who in turn would have influenced me along different paths and choices.

When I think about the question I was asked at that business luncheon, “how can we make Hamilton a better place”, I realize there is no easy answer because in giving a definite “this is what we must do” answer, I force everyone and their experiences to now fit a specific set of rules and guidelines, and all it will cost someone is their individuality, heritage and social education up to that point.

So where do we start from? How can we make somewhere with so much diversity better? How do you build a stronger community as a whole while respecting the individual communities found therein? I believe the only place we can start from is understanding that each community we come across has innate value, just like each person we come across as innate value. If we’re willing to put aside our differences and embrace our similarities, amazing things can happen.

But is it enough? Looking past our differences is a good start, but it requires more than that. It requires love, and love in the purest form requires self-sacrifice, a letting go of our own desires so that a greater good can occur. It can even require us to see the value in those we consider an enemy.

This is where it can get uncomfortable for a lot of people, including myself. People have an innate need for justice when something bad happens to them. We yearn for the good to be restored and the bad to be punished. Unfortunately that need for restoration can give way to a need for vengeance, regardless of the guilt or innocence of those we think are responsible.

It’s too easy to look at some wrongdoing say “Aha! That is why this happened!”, while completely disregarding the underlying circumstances and evidence. I believe part of the need to blame, especially when it comes to events involving those different from us, is so that we can say “I’m not like that”. If the person is different enough, you can justify away that you and those you associate with couldn’t and wouldn’t break whatever social and moral rules have been broken. You can continue to believe that you live in a good and just society, and that when bad things happen, it’s because those responsible are not part of your society.

But society doesn’t work that way. In places of diverse cultural heritage, like Hamilton, society ceases to be comprised of a few specific cultural heritages and becomes a melting pot of many different ways of life. Unfortunately when this happens it can be too easy to claim that we no longer live in a good and just society because our values are no longer are own because they’re now made by everyone else. It’s an attitude I’ve seen expressed in many different forms since 9/11 and with immigration issues coming to the forefront in both the United States and Canada.

Here’s the thing though: the problem isn’t that we don’t live in a good and just society. The problem is that comparatively we do live in a good and just society, which means there is no excuse for those who are most at risk to be slipping through the cracks. It is only our choice not to do something, to say “someone else will handle it”, that allows injustices to continue.

Nelson Mandela once said “A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones”. For those who are most at risk in our communities, whether they are the poor who’ve become the victim of economic forces beyond their control, or minorities who’ve been born here into less than the North American ideal, or immigrants from around the world who’ve come here believing they can find the freedom they can’t find at home, we need to keep in mind that they still have something to contribute, if only given the chance.

Looking at the choices my adopted parents made towards me, to choose to take into their lives a child that they didn’t have to, makes a profound statement to me. That statement is that each of us has the power to completely change the lives of others for the better if we so choose. My adopted parents could have said “someone else will take care of him”, and they wouldn’t have been wrong. Someone else would have come along, whether they be new foster parents or a provincially appointed social worker. But because they made the choice to take on the financial and, more importantly, the moral responsibility of taking me into their home and treating me as an equal, my life was set on a completely new path. To paraphrase Robert Frost, they took the path less traveled by and that has made all the difference.

So here’s the question I leave with you: how can you make where you are a better place? How can you make life better for those around you? It doesn’t have to be something huge and world-changing. It doesn’t have to be planned out. Maybe all that’s needed is simply stepping outside of a comfort zone and making a stranger feel welcome. Rarely do we change someone’s life because we’ve planned to.

Perhaps the best way I can sum every thought I have tried to present here is a quote by philosopher Albert Camus:

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

“And you become a monster so the monster will not break you” – U2 “Peace On Earth”

When I look at my forearms I see a lot of burn marks and scars, reminders of past experiences that have quite literally left their mark. While some of those marks are from me being my usual “logic and safety have taken a holiday” self, a fair number of those marks are from my time working with street youth. And where I live, in Hamilton, Ontario, there are a lot of them. If you take a walk through the city core, you’ll see groups of street kids fairly frequently. One of the harsh realities of Hamilton is that it has a higher rate of poverty, higher rates of youth drug and alcohol abuse and lower rate of school attendance than many other cities in Ontario.

This sets the stage for where so many of the youth I’ve worked from have had their beginnings but there are two other big factors in why there are so many street youth in Hamilton.

The first is that Hamilton has a very high immigrant population. This isn’t to say that immigrants are purposely creating a problem but rather that immigrants tend to have lower incomes and fewer opportunities due to being new the area. This creates the conditions for at-risk youth to emerge from.

The second factor is that Hamilton is what I call a “triangle city”, in that because of it’s geographical location, it tends to get youth from three directions: those from the southwestern, mostly rural area out towards London, those from the Niagara region directly south of here, and finally those who want to make it in Toronto to the east of here but ultimately can’t. In some ways it’s almost a perfect storm for creating a toxic environment for at-risk youth: a place with a high poverty rate, low incomes and a centralized location.

When I think back to many of the kids I’ve worked with, a very similar set of traits emerges: these kids are usually from low-income families, are often from broken homes, and have been exposed to alcohol and drug addiction as well as different forms of abuse. Their behavior is often very similar: a strong mistrust of any form of authority, such as the police or social work agencies, frequent use of recreational drugs and alcohol as ways of coping, and aggressive behavior when they feel threatened or disrespected in even a minor way.

One of the more unfortunate side effects of Hamilton’s economic and social structure is the prevalence of gangs in the city, particularly the downtown core and east end. There’s a misconception that gangs are always territorial, that it’s about “turf”. In my experience the gangs have been much more fluid, often operating in diverse parts of the city. I’ve heard of gang members going to entry points such as a border crossings and airports to pick up drugs and weapons smuggled into the country, then running those weapons and drugs to various points around the Hamilton area. Do I want to know if it’s true? Well, I’d prefer to think in this case that ignorance really is bliss.

It’s easy to turn a blind eye to what these kids go through, to say “their circumstances are of their own making”, and while that is partially true, many of the kids I’ve worked with are where they are because of socio-economic forces far beyond their control. I’ve often found the kids were much more intelligent than you might expect. What surprised me also is when I’d tell them this I’d often get the same reply: “No one’s ever said that to me before”. It would seem, unfortunately, that intelligence has been seen as a commodity on the streets, just like anything else.

I was inspired to write about Hamilton’s at-risk youth because of two occurrences recently. Within a couple hours of each other I had two friends ask if I would come in and speak to them about at-risk youth and street gangs. I agreed to both but was surprised because I haven’t worked one-on-one with the kids in a few years. I spent time looking into the facts and figures about Hamilton and street youth, gang culture and was saddened to discover that despite the passage of time, nothing much has changed.

Was I really expecting there to be any big changes? Well, no, not really. I know that sounds pessimistic and even cynical, but I have my reasons. For all the different circumstances, backgrounds and personal differences there were, two symbiotic beliefs made themselves known time and time again. The first belief is a positive one: “there is a better world out there than what I currently know and am living in”. It’s the secondary belief, however, that makes all the difference: “For whatever reason, be it social standing, past choices, lack of education, criminal convictions, I don’t deserve and can never achieve that world”.

The kids echo thoughts expressed by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who wrote in Development as Freedom that the lack of freedom to make meaningful choices, to be able to change one’s situation, is the distinguishing feature of poverty. The kids don’t believe they can change their life, and in that choice have unfortunately made what will most likely become a self-fulling prophecy.

One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with is seeing kids being given everything they need to rise above the despair, such as a safe place to live, a stable source of money, and education or work opportunities, and then seeing them choosing to throw it away. Why would someone do that? It can be that being in a new, safe environment is too overwhelming because you’re always expecting something to go wrong, that there has to be some catch to the opportunity. Another reason for throwing it away is the fear of losing those you’re close to, that you won’t fit in anymore if you start getting your life on track. There is also a fear many of us know: the fear of the unknown. One way of phrasing this is “I’ll take the pain I know over the pain I don’t”, even if that unfamiliar situation will ease after some time to adjust is taken.

The reason I found that was most common among girls was a guy would come along, say all the right words, and then the guy became their whole world. Too often I heard guys saying to these girls “I love you”. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to what “I love you” really turned out to mean.

Another problem I encountered with trying to help kids rise above was that often a family member, usually a parent, would do whatever they could to get their hands on any social assistance the youth might be receiving such as an allowance from the Children’s Aid Society or welfare or disability payments or a work program. Whether it was disguised as “you should pay your fair share around here” or “think of all the things I’ve sacrificed for you” or a similar guilt trip, too many times the money meant for helping an at-risk youth find stability went to feed the family member’s need for drugs, alcohol and other vices. Why did the kids usually willingly allow their money to be taken? Simple: who, ultimately, doesn’t want to feel their parents love them and need them?

This misuse of money often had a heart-breaking consequence for the youth in question. I’ve known youth to start prostituting themselves out to get some money for food and clothing. I’ve more than once turned a blind eye to kids dealing drugs, knowing it wasn’t about becoming a big time dealer but simply about getting enough money to get something to eat and somewhere warm to stay.

Unfortunately for the kids, having a family member steal their money was actually a desirable occurrence compared to some of the situations I’ve seen. In trying to help the kids find a better life, I’ve had to deal with parents who were drunk, regardless of what time of day it is, weapons pointed at me as soon as I entered the door, threats and ethnic slurs yelled at me and cigarettes put out my skin as form of intimidation. I knew of one youth who had a roommate who would chain and padlock the fridge so no one else could get any food. My wife and I would occasionally buy extra food when we’d go grocery shopping so that he’d have something substantial to eat.

With the odds seemingly stacked against them, several of the kids I knew turned to gangs as a way to survive on the streets. The idea of joining a gang was glamorous. It was the promise that if you join up, you’ll be respected, if not feared, and that whatever you want, whether it’s money, cars, clothes, jewelry, or sex would be yours for the taking. Unfortunately too many of the kids who turned to gangs found out too late that this promise was a false one. To give you an idea of gang life, initiation would often consist of you fighting three gang members simultaneously for as long as you could. If you held out long enough you were admitted in.

Joining a gang, where working with street kids is concerned, often had consequences the youths never intended. More than once I knew of kids who were beaten up for being mistaken as opposing gang members simply for being in the wrong area at the wrong time, or dressing the wrong way. Another consequence is that youth shelters and programs were considered off limits. The thought among gangs was “why would you go to them when we give you everything you need”. I can recall more than once very scary incidents were members of different gangs did show up at the same youth-oriented program. Luckily none of those times ever escalated beyond posturing and trash talk but the possibility of real violence, with innocent kids caught in the middle, was very real.

I know the picture I’m painting is bleak, but I want you to fully understand how real and dangerous things can be for youth. I want you to truly grasp the unfortunate nature of poverty when it comes to youth. There are upsides though. For example, there were (and still are) many people in the downtown core who devoted their lives to trying to make Hamilton a better place and providing opportunities for those most vulnerable to poverty’s destructive consequences. From social workers to police officers to even some shop owners, I met many people who believed in the potential of the street kids they saw every day.

One question I often get asked is “how do we solve this problem? What solution is there to helping Hamilton’s street youth?” and I always find myself answering “honestly, I don’t know”. I do know that there isn’t some magic cure-all, some silver bullet that will end poverty and it’s affects on youths once and for all. The sad fact is that despite being in two of the wealthiest nations on earth, child poverty is a very real fact across Canada and the United States.

I’ve often been told “well, if we build more infrastructure” or “if we set up more programs” or “if we just got more funding”… and while those things sound good, I know in my heart that those good intentions won’t make a great difference simply because what good are programs and funding and infrastructure when those you’re trying to help have a strong mistrust of anything to do with “the system”.

I’ve known teen moms to skip child custody hearings simply because they don’t trust the legal justice system. I’ve known youths to skip probation hearings because they believe the cops will plant evidence on them. In both situations the same thing happens: the case is decided against them and the court decision they wanted to avoid happens anyway, reinforcing the youth’s belief there is no justice or fairness and making them even more bitter against those who could offer them a chance at a better life.

When I started this article, I said “When I look at my forearms I see a lot of burn marks and scars, reminders of past experiences that have quite literally left their mark”. “Reminders of past experiences”. Past tense. Some of you might be asking why I don’t work with street kids still. Well, a big part of it is I was getting burned out. As time went on, I found myself exhausted physically, emotionally and even spiritually. I did get injured working with street kids, especially when dealing with those involved in gangs and dealing drugs because they were often the most aggressive and the most likely to carry weapons.

That kind of environment wears on you. It’s telling that two professions with very high rates of burn out are policing and social work. And it doesn’t just wear you down, it can wear down those you love. I had a long relationship end because my girlfriend was tired of the stress of worrying about how things would go with the youth. “What if a fight breaks out”, “what if one of them is armed”, “is that neighborhood really somewhere that’s worth going, even if it’s to help someone out”. I completely get where she was coming from.

Working with street youth is honestly something I don’t always miss. It’s surreal to walk into an apartment complex and immediately hear people yelling out their windows at me “are you a cop? Because if you are, you need to leave or else”. That has happened to me on more than one occasion. It’s tough to want to keep trying when all too often all the hard work, time and effort you put into helping someone is just tossed aside when it’s time for the youth to do their part.

All that said, I still advocate whenever I can for the places the street youth frequent, such as The Living Rock. Sometimes the best way to help someone is to shed light on their struggles. The more people that know about a situation, the more likely someone will take action to find a solution. right?

My heart goes out to the kids I’ve worked with because many times they’re in the situation they’re in because of circumstances far beyond their control. I try to remind myself of that when I find I’m frustrated and losing my patience with them. Even when I look at the scars they’ve inflicted on my body from physical attacks they’ve done, I have to keep reminding myself that they’re acting out of the social education they’ve received and that, almost always, it’s nothing personal towards me. I can’t be angry when I know they’re acting out of a deep hurt and mistrust.

I remind myself that they’ve gone into bad situations and gangs for the hope of finding a way to shield themselves from the pain and fear that so often dominates their lives. I remind myself that when you strip everything away, all the bravado and swagger, all the gang colors, euphemisms and weaponry, you’re left with kids who ultimately want to know they matter, that they have worth and that they can be loved for who they are. Too often I’ve found it to be that the kid has put up this tough exterior because they don’t want to break.

Isn’t that ultimately why we do so many things we know deep down will hurt us… because we’re scared of breaking?

*Author’s note: if you’re interested in further reading, please check out these two links:

Amartya Sen’s summation of the problem of poverty and crime

The John Howard Society of Hamilton’s gang prevention guide

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” – Mark Twain

For the followers of Shaneisms (all two of you), you’ll have heard me mention Dan Mullin, he of The Unemployed Philosopher fame. Not only are we best friends, but we were college roommates and, during most of our time, our university’s sole philosophy majors. We both took a certain pride in that fact, making sure that we were faithfully representing the grand tradition of Philosophy, even if Dan was more in the tradition of Kant and Hume and I more in line with Jonathan Swift.

Recently Dan has been writing about leaving the academic world and becoming a post-academic. From the talks we’ve had, it’s been a decision that weight heavily on him, one that took many long nights of contemplation to reach. We’ve had long talks about “what now?” and what the future holds for someone who, for many of the years I’ve known him, has looked at the academic world as somewhere he was was supposed to be.

For all the similarities we have, a big difference is that I’ve never seen the academic world as somewhere I’d end up. This isn’t to say I don’t value education and don’t love learning about everything I can. The constant, seemingly never-ending pile of books cluttering up my desk says otherwise, but as I’ve read Dan’s posts as he reflects on his academic journey, I can’t help but reflect on my own.

While Dan has gone on to get his doctorate in Philosophy, I never finished my undergrad degree. While I had my reasons, my own decision to leave was based on something different from the reasons why many people leave university.

I have always had a very hard time in an organized school setting, from grade school to university. Technically, I have two learning disabilities, even if for all practical reasons they’ve never interfered with my actual learning process. Case in point, I taught myself to read at three years old with minimal help. When I say “taught myself to read”, I mean I could read at a high school level by Grade 3. More than once I was given the opportunity to skip a grade in grade school. In her wisdom my mom didn’t take those offers, and I thank her for that. My learning disabilities would have manifested that much worse if she had agreed to skip me ahead.

The first problem I have to contend with is dyslexia. For me, it exists mostly in transposing letters in words or words in sentences. Public speaking has helped me immensely with the verbal part of it but if I’m tired I have a harder time controlling it. While dyslexia hasn’t affected my grades for the most part, higher math, such as algebra, is an issue for me. In university a friend in the math program discovered I could solve complex algebra equations just by looking at them, but when I tried to actually show the steps in solving it, I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried. In high school, I lost marks in math classes because of this, since the marks were assigned for showing the work more than getting the correct answer.

The second learning disorder is far more problematic. I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which makes sitting still for a prolonged period very arduous for me. While I can absorb and memorize large amounts of information in a very short time, I’ve always found structured class settings very difficult. The best way I can phrase it is that the class was far too slow for me. I can remember many times in university, the professor would start a lecture and within a few minutes I’d figure where he was going with it, and I would zone out and let my mind go on tangents. However, this left me lost if the professor would suddenly ask a class question.

With ADHD, when I get bored, I get restless and fidgety. When I get fidgety, bad things happen. In grade school I’d get up out of my seat and wander around, start rummaging through my backpack or a textbook, regardless of what was going on in class. This led to my mom homeschooling me for my high school years. Grade wise there was a meteoric improvement, from low 70′s in a normal classroom setting to mid to high 90′s homeschooling. Without the structure of class holding me back I could do an entire day of schooling before noon. When I went to university, the problems I had with being in a classroom setting crept up again.

In one of his posts, Dan quoted The Dark Knight Rises, writing “As James Gordon tells John Blake, structures can become shackles”. This is the best way I can describe what sitting in a classroom setting was like for me. The structure became a shackle. I’ve never been on medication such as Ritalin, so I’ve had to find other ways of coping with ADHD. One way I’d try to compensate for it in class was having a snack such as chips or peanut M&M’s on me to munch on whenever I’d start to feel myself losing focus.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with my view towards the academic world, those two learning disabilities made the academic world a place where I felt I never fit in. While in terms of brainpower I have no problem keeping up with high academic scholarship, I find it too dry, too focused on what I feel are small details such as footnotes. The resolute focus on form is something I have a very hard time doing. It’s telling that I wrote my philosophy papers in a way that almost never used footnotes.

I realize that I lucked out in terms of the professors I studied under. My philosophy professor, the late Theodore Plantinga, gave me a lot of leeway in my papers and class behavior. He knew I had a strong handle on the material and he recognized the challenges I faced in dealing with dyslexia and ADHD. A good example of this understanding is that when we had to write papers for him, we had to hand in an outline so he could tell if we were on the right track or not. Half the time I’d hand in a one or two sentence outline, as opposed to the more detailed outline we were required to do. Once I handed in an outline in the form of a beatnik poem, complete with spaces for finger snaps. When he handed it back to me, his only comment was “Groovy, man!”. He showed me similar leeway in my paper construction. While we were supposed to use proper APA format I usually ignored that and wrote in a style he referred to as “like reading a History Channel show transcript”.

I minored in Theatre and English, and here as well I had understanding professors. The English professor would often let me hand in my own original fiction in place of reviewing a play. The Theatre professor let me hand in film projects instead of theatre ones as he wanted to nurture what he saw as a gift for filmmaking. Even in these less structured classes my learning disabilities caused some issues. I’d often forget to read an assigned story or poem for various English classes, often reading them in the few minutes between the time I sat down for class and the time class started.

Theatre assignments would occasionally be forgotten as well. A good example here is we had to recite a poem in front of the class, done in the style of a dramatic reading. The professor pulled names out of a hat to decide who went first. Guess who got called first. While the other students were armed and ready with passages from Shakespeare, Keats and Wordsworth, I had completely forgotten about the assignment. I stood up, and recited the first thing that came to mind. Unfortunately that ended up being the Dukes of Hazzard theme song. My fellow students looked horrified as I went on but the professor was laughing hysterically. If you’re wondering about the grade… I got an perfect mark, with the professor commenting “Easily the strangest, most unexpected and most entertaining presentation of the class”.

As much fun as I had in my classes, by my third and fourth year I felt more and more that the hallowed halls of academia weren’t for me. And, despite knowing I could mentally could do the requirements of a post-grad program, I knew I didn’t have the discipline, or rather, I knew I couldn’t reign myself in to what I knew would be a much more structured environment than what university was. I never finished my undergrad program because by the middle of my fourth year I felt I had gotten what I had come for: the education, the knowledge, the opening of my mind to new horizons.

Am I saying drop out of university? By no means. I have nieces and nephews taking their first steps into the world of university and I’ve always encouraged them to get the education they need and stick it out, no matter how boring they might think university can be. Hypocritical? Probably.

I do remind them that while school has never been my strong point, I’m always reading whatever I can get my hands on. While structured academics isn’t for me, it doesn’t mean I ever plan to stop learning. I applaud those, like Dan, who can push themselves through the rigors of the academic world because I know I would go insane within a few weeks and probably go to the university library and start rearranging all the books just out of spite.

Would I ever go back to the academic world and finish up my degree? Probably not. At this point I find keeping myself reading on diverse topics is what works best for me and how I learn. I’m quite content with knowing that the only degree I’d ever get would be an honorary one. If that happens, cool. If not, no worries.

I wish Dan all the best as he charts his new course after having left the world of academia. Oh, and if you’re wondering what he thinks of the strange situation of having a doctorate in Philosophy while his best friend is a university drop out… he gets a certain perverse glee out of it.

I think the German philosophers had a word for that: Schadenfreude. I can’t be sure though… I’m not an Academic.

The Heart Of A Teacher

My close friend Amanda Scarlett has been teaching in the remote town of Fort Albany, Ontario for the past two years. Frequent readers of Shaneisms might recognize her from my piece on Idle No More from a couple months back.

She’s started her own blog, The Heart Of A Teacher, which is a candid look at her experience teaching and working through the ever increasingly complex teacher’s system here in Ontario. I thoroughly encourage you to check out her blog at The Heart Of A Teacher!

“Let’s Go Blue Jays!”

The following is what happens when my love of baseball collides with me having too much free time…

So now, along with The Grumpy Christian I present to you, in participation with MLB.com’s Blog Central, The Blue Jays Way! Even if you’re not a fan of the Blue Jays, or Baseball, what will follow will the same informative, if not irreverent, styling of Shaneisms. I’ll be covering the upcoming season, going over the past 35 years of Blue Jays history, delving in to the history of baseball in Toronto and profiling past and present Blue Jay greats like Joe Carter and Jose Bautista.

And just to whet your appetite here a couple of random baseball facts about Toronto:
Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run in Toronto on September 5, 1914. It would be the only minor league home run he’d hit.
Before Toronto was awarded the Blue Jays franchise, a group of Canadian investors almost bought the San Francisco Giants and moved them to Toronto. The deal was averted when Bob Lurie bought the team and kept it in San Francisco. Toronto was given a major league franchise later that season, along with Seattle.

Check out the results of having way too much free time and stay tuned for more Shaneisms!

The Grumpy Christian

In my quest to slowly take over the blogosphere and create my own media empire I’ve started another blog! If you’re interested in a different take on Christianity, one that’s not afraid to ask hard questions and even admit there are no easy answers, check out The Grumpy Christian! While I know it’s not for everyone, you might be surprised at where it goes!

“Just because you’re unemployed, it doesn’t mean that you’re out of work” – Dr. Daniel Mullin

I was watching an episode of The Simpsons recently where Homer ends up becoming chief of police after Chief Wiggum is forced from office following a public scandal. During the episode Homer says “You know, I’ve had a lot of jobs… boxer, mascot, astronaut, imitation Krusty, baby-proofer, trucker, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carny, mayor, grifter, bodyguard for the mayor, country western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber, farmer, inventor, Smithers, Poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker, fortune cookie writer, beer baron, Kwik-E-Mart clerk, homophobe and missionary. But protecting Springfield, that gives me the best feeling of all”.

It made me think of the employment struggles that so many of people I know are currently going through, myself included. While I know that there are many factors in the employment troubles I and my friends have been experiencing, I can’t help but wish that life was like The Simpsons, where random, unlikely, and often bizarre circumstances culminate in the procurement of an exciting career opportunity.

But, alas, I don’t live in a strange, fictional cartoon world, despite what some of my friends might say. The world I inhabit is one of sharp economic downturn, financial uncertainty and wage cuts in the face of a rising cost of living.

My best friend Dan, he of “The Unemployed Philosopher” fame, recently successfully defended his doctoral thesis. Unfortunately even with his new found title of Doctor of Philosophy, he still finds himself as an unemployed philosopher. He and I have talked many times about our struggles to find stable, long-lasting employment. Please notice that I left “meaningful” out of that phrase. It often feels now that wanting it to be stable, long-lasting and meaningful is wanting too much.

Amongst my friends I’ve noticed a trend. Many are either taking whatever they can or they’re going back to school in the hopes it will give them more options. It’s disconcerting the number of friends I have who, despite being armed with university degrees, have ended up working in fast food places. I can’t shake this feeling that it wasn’t their intent to spend several years and tens of thousands of dollars so that they can say “would you like fries with that”.

There are many factors working against those who are job seeking. The most obvious is the downturn the economy has taken. Companies are trying to find a balance between minimizing costs, maximizing profits and still putting out a solid product. Another factor is people are working longer and delaying retirement more than ever. Whether it’s the feeling of being able to keep up the job demands at an older age or the desire to make more money in order to stave off retirement financial issues, people are staying in the workforce longer, meaning less vacant positions in the workforce.

In North America, more and more jobs are outsourced because the cost of labor is cheaper overseas. With the rise of the internet and instant communication from all corners of the globe, it’s no longer necessary for you to be where your job is. All one has to do is take a look at the rise of teleconferencing to see the truth of this. Teleconferencing has advanced to the point where even doctoral visitation and diagnosis can be done remotely.

At this point I want to talk about the role education plays in the job hunt. Education is important, but it also needs saying that not all degrees are created equal. An example that comes to mind is the story of someone I know who flunked out of one college’s early childhood education program with marks in the low 30′s and went on to an ECE program at another college and graduated with marks in the high 90′s. So why the sudden huge improvement? It all came down to the course requirements. The college the student flunked out of had requirements that demanded much more of the student in comparison to the second program they entered. When a mutual friend who was in the ECE program at the first college heard the requirements of the second college’s ECE program, their reaction was “Why am I working so hard at my program when I could switch colleges, do a minimum of work and still end up with the same degree?”

My friend raises a good point: why work so hard when you’ll end up with the same degree as someone who’s doing next to nothing by comparison? It’s true that different universities and colleges hold different weight in terms of how they’re viewed by employers. And it should be that way. A degree in business from Harvard should carry more weight than one from a local community college because Harvard has better resources and higher expectations of their students.

But this raises a secondary problem with education: let’s say you have two students in the same program at the same school. The first student is getting high marks on all course requirements and exams and pushing themselves to excel in everything they do. The second student is barely passing their courses and exams and doing the bare minimum required to graduate. Eventually both do graduate and start applying for jobs and positions in their field. The problem that arises now is that, on paper at least, both are graduates of the same program and would essentially be equal in the eyes of prospective employers.

Are they equal in what they can bring to the workplace? No. Not even remotely. But that doesn’t matter because until they get called in for an interview, they are on equal footing by having the same degree. Other resume factors, such as prior work experience, internships, and volunteering could work in favor of one applicant over the other, but it still depends on what the prospective employer is looking for on the resume.

There is often no distinction made between qualifications on a resume and what a person is actually capable of. It might sound like I’m talking about the problem of being considered under-qualified but I’m not. While one’s qualifications is an important consideration in filling a vacancy, I’ve found being considered overqualified to be just as much of an issue. The idea of being rejected because of being “overqualified” doesn’t make any sense to me but I’ve experienced it and I’ve heard many friends talk about being rejected for the same reason.

Logically, being “overqualified” should be a good thing. It implies that less training is needed, the learning curve and adjustment period will be shorter, productivity will be higher and less supervision is needed, resulting in more office efficiency. However, in my experience, it seems to also mean you have higher wage expectations, the desire for more benefits and vacation time and general attitude of entitlement. The irony is that I, and most of my friends who’ve been told “you’re overqualified”, don’t have those entitlement issues. We just want to work. After all, some income is better than no income.

Sometimes it feels like the employers have a specific, idealized candidate in their mind, and will just wait it out, knowing that the odds are in their favor for finding that person because of how specialized education has become.

There is an argument to be made that with the ever-increasing course specialization available in colleges and universities, we’re hitting a point where we’re becoming too specialized. This is something Dan has been facing in trying to find employment in the academic field. Between more professors opting to put off retirement and the ever increasing number of graduates with Masters and Doctoral degrees, the number of applicants is far outpacing the number of open positions. For Dan, this is forcing his hand in that he’s been investigating alternate routes of employment that while still involving his Philosophy degree, don’t involve teaching.

I’ve been doing similar things that, while involving my skills as a filmmaker and my knowledge of media creation, doesn’t necessarily involve filmmaking itself. And while trying to find a steady paycheck through media endeavors, I’ve found myself taking on work as a renovator and carpenter in an effort to try to make ends meet. Is there anything wrong with renovation and carpentry? No. I grew up doing it but I still find myself wanting to do something that engages the more creative and academic parts of my brain.

My wife, Michelle, is facing a different obstacle as she looks for work. She’s working on completing a degree in Art Therapy after graduating with a dual degree in Art History and Psychology. The obstacle she faces now is that art therapy is a relatively new field, which is translating into there not being a lot of positions open for her as an art therapist. Her plan is to eventually open up a private practice, but for now she faces uncertainty and I face the prospect of many more meals consisting of eating Spaghetti-O’s because that’s all our budget can afford, with bills and school fees always jumping for every dollar we have.

I know that in time the job hunt frustrations I, and so many people that I know have, will get better. The economy will eventually correct itself, as it always does given enough time, and things will turn around. Dan will eventually find his niche in the realm of philosophy and ethics, and Michelle will eventually find her niche in art therapy. They’re both too smart not to.

As for me? Well, I’m betting I’m just off-kilter enough to find my niche. I’d prefer if it has to do with filmmaking or writing or media in general, but maybe I’m being too picky. Perhaps my destiny does lie in asking if you’d like fries with that. I can handle that, can’t I?

Aww, who am I kidding? I’d go crazy as a fry jockey. Give it a month and I’d probably attack someone with the fry chipper. I guess this means I’ll have to keep looking and holding out hope I’m someone’s perfect job candidate.

Oh, that episode of The Simpsons I mentioned at the beginning? It ends with Homer deciding being police chief is too dangerous and saying he’s going to give his badge to the first person he sees. That person ends up being Chief Wiggum, who takes the badge and says “That’s funny because this is how I got this job the first time”.

Hmm… living in a cartoon world gets more appealing every day…