The boy soldier and the teenager

I recently had the opportunity to read A long way gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah. It's an amazing, thought-provoking, tragic, and at times gruesome, story of Beah's time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone.

I won't go into how awesome the book is - you should really check it out for yourself. What I will talk about is the reaction of one of my students to the book.


I tutor a few kids a week in English and one of them is reading a novel about child soldiers in Uganda. I started to tell him about Beah's book and he begged me to read him a description from the book. He wanted me to find the goriest part and read it (I didn't). He thought it was so cool (and so do his friends from class) that kids in other countries actually get to use guns and kill people.

Needless to say, I stopped reading pretty quickly. I'm still not really sure as to how to react. I'm disturbed that he couldn't relate to this being real and not fiction.

I'm contemplating having him read Beah's book once he's finished the novel, to give him some perspective and do a mini research project on the Lord's Resistance Army. Maybe then he won't be so quick to wish we were at war so he could fight.

Be true to yourself ...about yourself

I recently finished Kathy Pike's book Hope... from the Heart of Horses and found one part in the book in particular caught my attention and held it:

"A human who is in an incongruent state of being - thinking one thought while feeling a different emotion, or carrying an agenda and trying to hide it - gives off the same vibration or stress signals as a predatory animal in the wild. ...Horses couldn't care less what you are trying to appear to be; horses sense what you are feeling, who you are, even if you are unaware of it yourself." (p 49)

It's true. A horse won't care what your agenda is or who it is you're pretending to be - they only care about the true self. That's what makes horses so great to work with when it comes to therapy: you know pretty much immediately if someone is hiding something based on how the horse reacts to them.

Take my last group demonstration for example: I was having a bit of a crappy day and tried to fake it with my group. I wasn't able to get my demonstration done initially because Jamie, the Standardbred horse in the photo, was anxious and a bit fidgety, sensing my emotions. After taking a minute to sort out my feelings and show Jamie that everything was okay, he responded well and did everything I asked him to do.

I guess I, and pretty much everyone else out there, need to take a minute and remember that you can't lie to a horse so you might as well be honest with everyone in the first place.

Of seven year olds and pole dancing

I came across this thanks to the Toronto Star.



I'm going to start by saying that I do not endorse this style of dancing by girls so young, but I found the whole controversy surrounding the issue quite interesting. Parents are outraged that their children, usually daughters, are learning erotic moves and wearing smaller, sexier outfits.

The more interesting question that this whole scandal has raised (for me, anyway) was at what age is it appropriate to teach these moves and introduce these costumes? When is it okay to teach girls that grinding, groping yourself, and doing moves that would usually require a pole are dance moves that are competition or dance-floor appropriate?

We'd like to think that kids can be kids until they have to grow up, but is 7 years old really the time for them to have to grow up?

Another year, another Relay for Life

Recently I had the opportunity to participate both as a team leader and a committee member in the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life. Having been a participant for the past few years, it was interesting to see the other side of things.

A large portion of my evening was spent walking around the track at Brampton's Fair Grounds taking pictures of teams in costume and generally making sure that everyone was having a good time. (Pics can be seen at the Brampton/Caledon/Georgetown/Dufferin County Unit's Facebook page.)

The main thing that I noticed about this year's Relay compared to the last few was that the focus had shifted from individual team members to families. There was a sports area set up for kids as well as a bouncy castle and even a clown doing balloon animals. Having all of these things made the event more kid-friendly and I saw that a lot more families were present for the event, compared to last year.

I think it was a brilliant move on the part of the committee to have more kid-friendly activities. Apart from drawing more families to the event, it made the whole evening feel more like a social get-together where the focus was on celebrating victories over cancer, remembering those who have lost the battle, and symbolically fighting cancer as a community.

Congrats to the Unit's successful event and I'm looking forward to next year's.

The benefits of online learning

I thought I'd take a different spin on things this week and talk about education. It tends to be a favourite subject of mine, considering the amount of time I've spent in school (7 year post-secondary and counting!). Today, however, I will be waxing on the awesomeness that is the University of Guelph's online equine programs. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am currently a student in these programs and have been taking these courses for two years.)

Courses offered range from Exercise Physiology to Equine Event Management. The great thing about the programs is that you can learn nearly everything you need to start out in the equine industry from the comfort of your own home. Obviously it's a good idea to have access to horses for the duration of the courses, but it's not an absolute necessity.

The courses are taught by professors with years of experience in the given topic and are from different parts of the world, so variety is definitely the spice of these courses. Guest speakers are drawn from all sorts of different walks of life and are available to answer any and all questions for at least a week. Assignments given tend to be practical and can be tailored to be useful to anyone even after the course is finished.

These courses build an international online community of people who love horses and want to learn more about them. It's great for learning and networking.

Thank you Equine Guelph.

Why the PR Game Shouldn't be Played by Science

Wired posted this great article on Monday "Why Science Needs to Step Up Its PR Game" and while I find the premise quite intriguing, I have to disagree strongly. As a PR professional myself, it's quite easy to get frustrated with the lack of success in persuading public opinion that science often has.

The point, however, is that the purpose of science is not for persuading. The facts should be unbiased and speak on their own. It is the job of activists and PR-type professionals to persuade, it is the job of scientists to provide the material with which persuading will occur. If scientists were to start employing PR professionals to "sell" their ideas, the objectivity of the scientists would be lost and their information would be biased. If information can be argued to be biased, it can be dismissed and, despite the potential validity of this information, it will not be able to be used as for further research purposes and therefore will be ignored and valuable resources will be wasted.

I would argue that instead of using PR to promote science, we should be using PR to change the perception of scientific research and to help the public to better understand just what it is that science really is.

Lessons from Monty Roberts: Teaching vs. Learning

I finally got around to reading Monty Roberts' book "The Man who Listens to Horses" and I must say that I'm very impressed. The book is part biography and part tantalizing hints about horse behaviour, all wrapped up in a neat package.

If I try quoting each part that has stuck with me, I'd probably need to write a book of my own, so I'm just going to quote one:

"Knowledge, she told us, ...needs to be pulled into the brain by the student, not pushed into it by the teacher. Knowledge is not to be forced on anyone. The brain has to be receptive, malleable, and most important, hungry for that knowledge... To use the word 'teach' implies an injection of knowledge... there is no such thing as teaching, only learning." (The Man Who Listens to Horses, p87-88).

Now the great thing about this statement is that it can be applied to both people and horses. In fact, Roberts uses it as part of his teaching philosophy with horses. I'm in the same mindset as him; it's impossible to teach either a horse or a person something if they don't want to listen or learn. The trick is to get them interested and wanting to learn. Usually this will involve making learning fun, rewarding (either in the physical sense, with praise or treats, or mental sense), or easy. Or it could be a combination of all of the above.

What I'm really getting at is if you find yourself as the teacher getting frustrated with your students, be they two or four-legged, take a step back and ask yourself "Am I helping to facilitate learning or am I forcing knowledge right now?"

Call it a hunch, but some of my sessions with my students will probably go a lot easier from now on.

The importance of confidence

I was working with a particularly difficult horse today and the more frustrated I got, the less she responded to what I was asking her to do. I had to let her be for a few minutes while I got myself calmed down. Finally, I got back in the ring with her and projected a calm, confident aura to her and she responded positively to me and did what I asked her to.

This whole experience has reminded me of the importance of confidence. Confidence is one of those things that you take don't really notice when you have it and desperately want it when you don't. This is particularly true when dealing with horses. Horses can sense and respond to the energy that you're projecting and it's particularly helpful when you're projecting confidence.

It makes me wonder how much more effective I'll be in working with horses when I've done more leadership training. Maybe boosting my confidence in myself is what I need to be more confident around horses. I'll let you know.

Maxwell House brews up some good feelings with a bitter aftertaste

I was watching TV last night when one of the Maxwell House commercials came on and I actually paid attention for once. It's a bit old (2008) and is referencing their "Brew Some Good" campaign (orchestrated by OgilvyOne Toronto) where Maxwell House donated $226,000 to nominated charities instead of spending it on a commercial.

The reason that I paid attention was because Maxwell House donated to C.A.R.D. (a.k.a. the Community Association for Riding for the Disabled), which just so happens to be a pet cause of mine. The ad had me completely convinced that I should support Maxwell House at least by buying their instant coffee when I'm going camping. (I'm very particular about buying whole beans instead of ground coffee, so switching over completely isn't feasible.) However, after a little research, I found out that the donations and their Brew Some Good Week were a one-time deal in celebration of their reformulated 100% Arabica bean coffee.

If Maxwell House really wants to celebrate by rewarding "Canada's top do-gooders", the donations should be on-going or at least offer yearly competitions, and Brew Some Good Week would also be a yearly thing organized by Maxwell House. If the company can afford to throw that kind of money at charities once by reducing costs on their commercials, logically speaking they can do it again. And again.

Nice PR stunt Maxwell House, but I'm not buying.

Rupert Isaacson and The Horse Boy

Last week, I was fortunate to be at a screening of The Horse Boy in London followed by an appearance by Rupert Isaacson for a Q&A session. Isaacson runs a centre in Texas for autistic children and their siblings to socialise and interact with each other in a fun, low-stress setting.

I won't wax on how amazing the entire story of taking his autistic son to Mongolia to visit various shamans was, because of course it's amazing and if you're really interested, the book and film are available from Isaacson's website. What I will talk about is something that Isaacson said during the Q&A session after the movie.

Isaacson posed the question, why shouldn't we teach children where they want to be taught instead of using traditional methods where they have to be in a classroom? Why can't the outdoors be the new classroom? At his New Trails Center, children are free to choose where they want to learn, and as a consequence, the lessons are easier and tend to stick better. The key message that I took home was that autism is just another way of seeing the world, not something that should be seen as devastating and a disappointment. If you can learn to accomodate for a child's particular quirks, you can learn a lot.

Check out the short version of the story in Isaacson's own words:

Updates and apologies

You've probably noticed that this blog has been, well dead. So as stated in the title, I've got both updates and apologies.

My life has been quite chaotic up to the point of disrupting my work life. I've been working as a communications consultant while juggling other responsibilities, so unfortunately this blog was left on the backburner to burn.

But no more! I will be doing my absolute best to post on a minimum of a bi-weekly basis about PR in the news.