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| From the Editor Conference '99 By all accounts, Conference '99 was tremendous success. Well over 500 people registered for this year's event, held at the Dartmouth Holiday Inn. The theme of “Student Mental Health” proved to be of great interest, and drew attendance not only from classroom teachers, but also administrators, guidance councillors, people from the health field, and parents. Our thanks to you, the members of ATEC, for helping to make this conference such a success. It was very encouraging to see such active interest and participation by all of you. Our thanks also to those who filled out the evaluation forms following the day's events. During the day of the conference, we always informally canvass people to get a sense of how they are feeling about the speakers, the content and the smaller details that go into the overall presentation of the event. But we recognize that it is in the written evaluations that people are more forthright in stating how they really felt. The Executive members read and discuss these forms following the Annual General Meeting, and it was very gratifying to see that the overwhelming response was a positive one. Our presenters were seen as being informative, professional and interesting, and even, in some cases, entertaining. At this writing, we have tentatively booked the Dartmouth Holiday Inn for Conference 2000. (There's something about the sound of that “2000” that gives one a sense of something powerful and significant in the offing.) The theme for that conference will be determined in the very near future, and will be presented in the next newsletter. One of the main tasks of the Annual General Meeting was to conduct the election of officers for the ATEC Executive for the 1999-2000 term. They are listed in the sidebar. Any member of ATEC who has an interest in serving on the executive is welcome to put his or her name forward. We would really like to see some new faces added to our roster. Any executive member may be contacted, so look at the list to see who might be in your neighbourhood. (Of course, email and fax machines put us all in the same neighbourhood, so feel free to contact any of us electronically.) Bil MacMullin, |
ATEC Executive President
Barry Crozier Past President Mary
MacCallum Vice President Frank
Howell Secretary Louis
Detienne Treasurer
Rick MacKinnon Newsletter
Editor Bil MacMullin Members-at-Large
Cathy Cotton |
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| Book Reviews Following are two reviews of two totally different types of books. The first is a serious and informative work on issues that may be of interest and concern to many educators. The second is also a serious work, but also provides a look at what may be seen as a more entertaining side on linguistics. These reviews are provided by an outside source. We would heartily welcome reviews of books or articles by some of our members. Let us know what you have been reading lately and your recommendations and/or comments. The Future of
Academic Freedom A Book review by Danny Yee Louis Menaud opens The Future of Academic Freedom with a brief survey of some current issues surrounding the concept of academic freedom: the effects of postmodernism and multiculturalism, disciplinary and administrative crises, and the problems of extending academic freedom to include students. The next two contributors debate the epistemological status of academic freedom. Richard Rorty argues against the idea that it has philosophical presuppositions, in particular against the idea that it is undermined by the rejection of correspondence theories of truth. Thomas L. Haskell disagrees, but, in the longest piece in the volume, he goes back to the origins of the modern American University, to the Ross incident and the writings of Pierce and Lovejoy, before offering a critique of Rorty and Fish. There are two essays on hate speech codes. Cass R. Sunstein begins by arguing that only very restricted constraints on hate speech are constitutional; he goes on to explain, however, that this is largely irrelevant to the rights of colleges and universities to restrict speech for educational reasons. For Sunstein, academic freedom embodies “a modest form of liberal perfectionism, designed to exemplify and to promote individual autonomy”. In a longer piece, Henry Louis Gates Jr. evaluates critical race theory and the hate speech movement. He is not unsympathetic, but his appraisal is ultimately more damning than any simplistic diatribe would be. He demolishes attempts to put the theory on constitutional foundations (using the Beauharnais and Chaplinsky cases on group libel and “fighting words”) and argues against the rejection of “neutral principles”; he also points out that the movement is bad politics, having fractured the civil rights community. Joan W. Scott sees academic freedom as an ethical practice, a “commitment to time and to history” and a “relentless striving to close the gap between what is and what ought to be”. For Ronald Dworkin it has a value rooted in ethical individualism rather than in its instrumental contribution to the discovery of truth: this limits its applicability. Evelyn Fox Keller writes about the “science wars”, debates— or rather failures of communication—between scientists on one side and historians and philosophers of science on the other. And Edward W. Said examines connections between nationalism and the university system, with a comparative look at universities in the Arab world. The Future of Academic Freedom provides original and provocative perspectives on some of the foundational issues in the complex of ideas that is academic freedom. Its contributors approach the subject from fairly abstract philosophical, legal, and ethical positions, so those after a rousing call to arms or a close analysis of specific cases may be disappointed. The Future of Academic Freedom is, indeed, very much an academic work - and one which exemplifies many of the qualities associated with the freedom that is its subject.
The Great
Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax A Book review by Danny Yee Starting in 1983, Geoffrey Pullum published a series of informal columns in the journal Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, under the title, “TOPIC.... COMMENT”. The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax is a complete collection of these, with new introductions. The original audience consisted of professional linguists and a number of the columns do assume some background in linguistics. These include comments by Spock (of the Enterprise) on an interview with Chomsky, attempts to trace the origins of the unaccusative hypothesis and the discovery that natural languages are not necessarily context-free, and complaints about linguistics' obsession with philosophical issues and the demise of formal linguistics. Other columns, while they will have particular appeal to linguists, should be enjoyed by anyone involved with academia. These include discussions of the failings of scientific journals and a short story about three academics working on a book while at a conference. The majority of the columns will have quite general appeal. Among other topics, Pullum deals with the stupidities of libel law (a textbook censored because its examples were considered libelous), the foolishness of certain typographical conventions (punctuation inside quotes), the ubiquitous nonsense about the number of Eskimo words for snow, and the dangers of the English First movement in the United States. Clever, amusing, irreverent, and often informative (at least to this non-linguist), Pullum's columns definitely deserve their appearance in book form. I recommend The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax to anyone with an interest in linguistics (and a sense of humour). |
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| CEREBRAL PALSY Fact Sheet What is cerebral palsy? Cerebral palsy is a functional disorder caused by damage to the brain during pregnancy, delivery or shortly after birth. “Cerebral” means brain, “palsy” means a disorder of movement or posture. Cerebral palsy is classified according to movement:
Cerebral palsy is often accompanied by seizures, swallowing, drooling, incoordination, abnormal speech, hearing impairment, visual impairment, and/or mental retardation (mild to severe). Facts
How can cerebral palsy be prevented?
Can cerebral palsy be treated? A child with cerebral palsy should be helped to reach his/her potential. Effective programs use doctors, therapists, nurses, educators, social workers. In some cases surgery is effective.
Specific resources United Cerebral Palsy
Association of Washington, (206) 632-6191. |
ATEC Journal Our annual publication, the ATEC Journal, is in the final stages of preparation and, hopefully, will be in your mailboxes in December. This will contain articles prepared by a number of Nova Scotia educators, as well as information gleaned from a variety of sources further afield. If you have an article, essay, story or lesson plan that you would like to have published in this Journal, you have missed the boat. But don't despair. Shorter pieces can be included in our Newsletter, which comes out three times annually. Also, any piece of writing can be sent in for the next Journal. That's my subtle hint to you to send in submissions. The Journal provides us with lots of space for lengthy articles, but no piece is considered too short. Think about it. If you do have
a submission for publication or a comment about either
the Newsletter for the Journal, there are several ways to
contact me. I have two email addresses you should be
aware of. My old email address at Millwood High School
has been replaced with web based email, and the new
address is: My home email
is: My school fax number is (902) 864-7567, and my home fax is (902) 434-3409; my mailing address is 19 John Cross Dr., Dartmouth, NS B2W 1X1. |
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| The ATEC News is published by the NSTU for the Association of Teachers of Exceptional Children, Bil MacMullin, Editor. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Editor, ATEC or the NSTU. | ||