Did a teacher really need to be disciplined for bringing peanuts to school? And other letters
Some interesting city news in the links
Enjoy the winter weather quick before it goes away! Winterfest is an option. So is getting into nature.
There’s some interesting reading in the quick news section but before that, let’s dip into the mailbag. I am terrible at responding to emails, but I really do enjoy them, so o thank you to all who write.
Have a happy Family Day and talk Tuesday.
Street art authenticated
I was wondering if this piece of street art was indeed from Prince George. Torie Dactyl writes:
I know exactly where that street art is! lucky enough to see it every day! Theres also a strong likelihood I took this photo......
Everyone take photos of cool street art. It’s the best.
Did a teacher really need to be disciplined for bringing peanuts to school?
On the topic of the Prince George teacher disciplined for brining peanuts to school, Lindsey writes:
As someone who works within the healthcare system and how has a child in the school system I find myself drawing comparisons between education and healthcare often when it comes to issues facing both industries, such as workforce shortages and, in this example, safety. I was shocked to read that this teacher was disciplined for their actions.
While I recognized the risk this behaviour could have had for this child who is known to have a severe nut allergy, this was a near miss incident (the child did not eat the chocolate).
Public healthcare in BC has adopted a 'culture of safety' system in which errors, incidents and even near misses are reported through established processes to be framed as learning opportunities, regardless of the severity (from near miss to causing a death).
Unless this teacher's actions were malicious (which I doubt they were), I am having a very hard time understanding what is to be gained from taking disciplinary action (suspension without pay).
Given the dire staffing situation that SD57 finds themselves in, I do wonder if a shift from 'shaming culture' to a 'safety culture' might serve SD57, it's teachers and it's students a bit better.
The 1982 snowfall
In reaction to the old story of kids being paid to shovel snow off the roof of Pine Centre Mall, Prince George expat Sheila writes:
The winter of ‘81-‘82 was my second year in PG. ‘80-‘81 was mild. Then between Christmas and New Years in Dec ‘81 we got a foot of snow. And another foot about two weeks later - and another and another…..
By April there had been 12 FEET of fallen snow. The Pine Centre roof may may have been shoveled more than once. I know we did the roof of our house twice, as did most of our neighbours.
The city plows “banked” snow wherever they could. The heap in the centre of our cul de sac was so high you couldn’t see the houses across the street from the second story.
Needless to say I’ve never seen that much snow ever again.
The Esther of Esther’s Inn
In response to me re-upping this post about the origins of Esther’s Inn, Dorothy writes:
Esther Creuzot is now 102 a do still Living here in Prince George. She is still in her own home.
Land Act changes
On the discussion about the political brouhaha over proposed Land Act changes, commenter 4streegrrl says:
As the former Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, Rustad's comments about the Land Act and DRIPA are puzzling, inflammatory and a wee bit conspiratorial. Well, less puzzling given that I am 99.9999% certain that the pull of more political power is behind his talk. So if anyone wants to review the proposed changes on the Land Act and provide comments, please go to the engage.gov.bc.ca website. I believe it is open to public comments until the end of April.
Weekend discussion
Paul S writes:
Perhaps of interest:https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/community-personality-study
I wonder what PG's personality type would be?
The full paper is here. There are a ton of variables — honestly, humilty, open-mindedness… in armchair terms I’d guess Prince George is just avove the norm on both open-mindedness and extroversion. But I also have no idea how to parse it.
Quick news:
The city of Prince George has been invited to a crime severity conference in Saskatoon. It is intended to bring cities that regularly rank near the top of the Stats Canada crime severity index a forum to talk about the negative impacts it has on their reputations and ways to put the stats into more context rather than just raw numbers. I’m intrigued.
Meantime, biathlete Emily Dickson is headed to the world championships in Czechia.
A former Prince George Cougar is part of a class-action lawsuit against the WHL and CHL.
CNC wants public feedback on growing and buying locally produced food.
UNBC Women’s Soccer team set to head to Hawaii for friendly matches.
Quesnel and Williams Lake are competing for the same hockey team.
An interesting bit of discussion about Fort St. John’s civic mascot, Frozen John.
Coldest Night of the Year to support unhoused is next Saturday (the 24).
Today’s song:
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