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Articles by Geoff Johnson
Homeopathy Video By Geoff Johnson
A series of short videos have been put together by a collaboration of the School of Homeopathy and Homeopathy Action Trust, to give the profession a voice. This next video is by Geoff Johnson, Principal of Wiveliscombe Homeopathic Surgery, who talks about homeopathy with animals, antibiotics and homeopathy beyond the placebo effect. Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP09_3lbRvQ&list=UUkXvIlcSLGHlLfpKn3hDMvg&index=7&feature=plcp
Geoff Johnson: Why is music always first in line for cuts?
Having been a wannabe musician most of my adult life and, as a teacher, having experienced the kind of kids music programs inevitably attract, I have no idea why, when school trustees are looking for a way to balance the budget, music is first in line to be excised — an easy nicely defined target maybe, but one that is mostly misunderstood by trustees. Cutting music programs makes no sense — educationally, developmentally, even culturally.
Claims Webster Council, Mayor “Out Of Touch”
I was happy to see the Feb. 16 WKT story “City Remains Mum On Reasons Behind Peoples’ Resignation.” I’m happy the Times continues to hold the city accountable despite Mayor Arnold and Councilman Franklin’s gaslighting attempts. Let’s look at what we’ve been faced with ... 1. A city manager (Marie Peoples) who brought on her convicted friend (Eric Peterson) with no prior financial experience to run the city budget. 2.
LIV Golf Adelaide 2026 Tickets On Sale with New Fan Experiences
LIV Golf Adelaide, the event that redefined what golf can look like, is back and ready to raise the bar once more in 2026. Returning to The Grange Golf Club from 13 to 15 February, the global phenomenon will open ticket sales to the public at 9am ACST this Wednesday — and if past years are anything to go by, demand is set to explode. After consecutive wins at the World Golf Awards as the World’s Best Golf Event, LIV Golf Adelaide has grown into much more than a tournament.
The Power of a Cooperative Partner
“The cooperative difference.” I’m sure you’re all familiar with that phrase. More than likely, you’ve said it yourself a time or two. It is one of our industry’s strongest mottos. We plaster it on our marketing materials, in our mission statements, and even on our branch walls. But what does it mean? What truly is the cooperative difference? Can you identify it?
More Than Marketing: Cooperative CUSOs Have Been Supporting Credit Unions for Decades
As technology propels forward at breakneck speeds, credit unions often feel an overwhelming pressure to invest in new technologies to keep on par with the competition and ensure relevance and success in today’s market. However, such technology comes with a hefty price tag, not to mention the vendor due diligence and regulatory compliance that accompany these products, that smaller institutions simply do not have the means to infuse money into.
Joaquin Niemann’s Flawless Sunday Leads to LIV Golf Glory
Joaquin Niemann staged an impressive final-round performance to capture the LIV Golf Adelaide individual title, while Fireballs GC celebrated their dominance in the team competition. Starting Sunday three shots behind the leader, Niemann delivered a flawless bogey-free 7-under 65, securing a three-stroke victory over Fireballs GC’s Abraham Ancer and his own Torque GC teammate Carlos Ortiz.
Geoff Johnson: Parents the simplest way to protect kids from online danger
Last month, Australia passed into law a social-media ban for those under 16, setting a benchmark for jurisdictions around the world with one of the toughest regulations targeting Big Tech, which, until now, had no reason to limit access to social-media platforms. The Social Media Minimum Age bill sets Australia up as a test case for Western governments concerned about the mental-health impact of social media on young people.
Geoff Johnson: New minister promises breath of fresh air for Education Ministry
The B.C. minister of Education’s portfolio is a whopper, with a budget of $9.6 billion projected for the 2024/25 school year. At last count, there were 1,586 active public schools and 364 active independent schools in B.C., with 577,024 students in public schools and 86,201 in independent schools. Independent schools receive ministry funding and are accountable to the ministry for the delivery of the B.C. curriculum.
Geoff Johnson: Lack of guidelines leaves teachers wondering how to deal with AI in the classroom
Chat GPT, which gives free public access to AI technology, was released in November 2022. In the short time since, AI has increasingly become a factor in provision of education programs at all levels. The AI learning curve is steep and without guardrails for all involved — and there is no reliable map. Some individual teachers may be using AI as a timesaver for scheduling, developing general and personalized lesson plans and even report-card tracking.
Geoff Johnson: Trump victory underlines need for students to learn critical-thinking skills
The U.S. election result will come as no surprise to those who have followed the key themes of history. When the real or imagined gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” becomes too great, there will always be those in pursuit of power who are ready to point fingers at who and what the “have nots” can blame for their situation. In our modern information-flooded world, that gap can also include “thinkers” versus “non-thinkers,” but we’ll get to that distinction in a moment.
Geoff Johnson: Business admin, computer science among top options for post-secondary courses Original
The panorama of post-secondary education opportunities in Canada reflects the changing needs of both the global economy and local priorities. High school grads still considering their career options should bear in mind research that suggests that Canadians may hold about 15 jobs and more than one career in a lifetime.
Geoff Johnson: Educators need to begin planning for coming population bump Original
A new BC Stats report — Sustaining Growth: Population and Demography for B.C. and Canada — says British Columbia’s population is projected to reach 7.9 million by 2046, up 44% from 2023. A population bump of 2.4 million in 22 years in B.C. will almost certainly include some kind of serious increase in the K-12 population.
Geoff Johnson: Emotion has a big impact on learning
It is easy to think of the learning process as some kind of austere intellectual exercise. Not so, says a multi-authored piece entitled “The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory” published in the online Frontiers of Psychology. In fact, the researchers quoted in the article suggest that emotion has a substantial influence on cognitive processes in humans, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning and problem solving.
Geoff Johnson: Is public education able to adapt to change? Original
Charles Darwin is reputed to have said that: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” There are numerous examples of successful organizations that, as victims of their own success, were too slow to adapt to changes in their environment and were left in the dust of changes demanded by the 21st century.
Geoff Johnson: School design should be based on what is best for students Original
When Douglas Cardinal, Canada’s eminent architect, spoke to a conference of architects in Vancouver in the early 1990s, he began by saying “buildings speak to people,” meaning that the building itself, its design and the functional relationships of its components deliver a powerful message to those who occupy it every day of its life. Cardinal explained that the first step in creating a building is to begin with a vision that clearly states that building’s purposes, intentions and goals.
Geoff Johnson: Legislation alone can't tackle online harms to kids
Invasion of privacy and dignity is an ongoing problem across the country. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection says millions of cases of suspected child-sexual-abuse material on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest are flagged each year, according to a January CBC News item. Federal legislation known as the Online Harms Act (Bill 63) passed second reading as of March 12.
Geoff Johnson: Survey fails to look more deeply at why kids feel less positive about school Original
There’s no question that the recently released 2023 B.C. Adolescent Health Survey administered by the McCreary Centre Society, a non-government not-for-profit committed to improving the health of B.C. youth, is an incredibly detailed and potentially useful piece of research.
Geoff Johnson: Teaching is changing, along with the kids Original
There’s no question about it, the teacher of today cannot be the teacher of yesteryear — which makes teaching in today’s classroom tough even for the most experienced teachers. The students of today at every grade level, just in order to keep pace with a rapidly evolving world, require more of their teachers than just the acquisition of knowledge passed on from generations past.
Geoff Johnson: Students who study music get an academic boost
A study published in 2019 in the Journal of Educational Psychology reported that high school students involved with instrumental or choral music achieved better grades across a variety of subjects in comparison with their non-musical peers.
Geoff Johnson: Controversial novels are about what it means to be human
Now that the fog of anti-intellectualism that runs rampant in the United States of Dysfunction has crept up over the border at least as far as Surrey, the folks who are fretting about the influence of authors like John Steinbeck, Harper Lee and others might want to take a closer look at Shakespeare.
Geoff Johnson: Communities expect 'the courtesy of an explanation' from school districts Original
“A school district’s community relations program is not about selling anything.
Geoff Johnson: Changing values cited as one reason for decline in PISA results
PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment, measures 15-year-old students’ reading, mathematics and science literacy in 80 countries’ education systems. An in-depth analysis of PISA results authored by Geoff Masters, head of the Australian Council for Educational Research, examined what school systems that have performed well above average on PISA have in common, and focuses on British Columbia, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Geoff Johnson: Has autocorrect made teaching spelling superflewus? Original
As a newbie teacher of Grade 11 English in 1966, I was required to teach spelling. I did this by introducing five new words each day and teaching them in context incrementally Monday through Thursday. There would be a test on those 20 words each Friday as part of the lesson.
Geoff Johnson: Studying the humanities helps foster skills that are increasingly needed
When it comes to post-secondary students majoring in fields such as history, literature or psychology, we often hear the same question from parents — and even from humanities students themselves: “What can you do with a humanities degree?” In other words, what are the prospects for employability for humanities grads?
Geoff Johnson: No single right answer in direct instruction versus inquiry-based learning debate Original
You’d think that since Socrates, Plato and Aristotle sat together under the legendary plane tree in Athens around 430 BC, the debate about whether some form of direct instruction or a version of inquiry-based learning is the more effective teaching/learning technique would have been settled by now. But no — probably because asking whether one system of teaching and learning is more successful than another is the wrong question.
Geoff Johnson: Back-to-basics push about politics and the past, not the future
Of 81 international jurisdictions participating in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Ontario ranked second overall in reading internationally and nationally.
Geoff Johnson: Move to ditch SATS raises concerns about relying on school transcripts Original
The debate about the use of standardized tests as a measure of academic performance or potential has been reinvigorated by the decision of a number of U.S. universities and colleges to suspend the use of the Scholastic Assessment Test or SAT as a requirement for admission. The test, also called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, has, since 1926, been used to assess students’ scholastic readiness for a U.S. college or university.
Geoff Johnson: How to develop the reading brain in a digital world Original
When a neuroscientist and noted psycholinguistic researcher like Maryanne Wolf says it’s important that children read printed books, not just via scrolling on screens, we as parents and educators should pay attention. Wolf, author of the very readable 2018 book Reader Come Home (subtitled “The Reading Brain in a Digital World”), certainly has the credentials to express concerns about the difference between reading from a page and reading from a screen.
Geoff Johnson: Aging brings new opportunities for learning Original
Canada’s population is aging. The proportion of seniors in Canada will rise from 16.9% to 21.0% over the next 10 years, according to the not-for-profit think tank the Conference Board of Canada. According to the Conference Board of Canada report, the baby-boom generation, which has dominated Canadian demographic trends since the 1950s, began entering retirement earlier this decade, a process that will accelerate over the next few years.
Geoff Johnson: Poor behaviour at school board meetings stems from decline of deference Original
The new year is a good time to re-examine the roots of some frenzied group behaviours, ranging from trucker blockades to unruly disruption of school board meetings, behaviours that threaten to undermine any faith the public has left in the political, legal and judicial systems. Let’s begin with the increasingly common disruptions of school board meetings.
Geoff Johnson: Changes in society and the workplace call for shift in education
A new year can bring new beginnings. If you’re thinking that it’s time for some changes, you’re not the only one. According to Workopolis, the Canadian website offering online career solutions, in a survey of over 1,000 people, nearly three quarters (73 per cent) of those polled said that they do not expect to remain in the same profession for life.
Geoff Johnson: Story of 1914 Christmas Day truce offers hope for humanity
Call me an idealist. Go ahead — I’ve been called worse and rejoice in the title. As a new grandfather, I’ve seen the wonder of Christmas restored: a small child mesmerized by a tree festooned with 40 years of memories, a cheerful dining table laden with turkey and tourtiere surrounded by friends, and the national and international news absolutely banned until after Boxing Day.
Geoff Johnson: Surfing offers lessons for dealing with AI in education
I’d never considered using the words “artificial intelligence” and “surfing” in the same sentence. Having grown up in Australia, I know a bit about the latter, but the former is still a mystery to me and, apparently, many other people, so let’s begin with surfing. Surfing involves dealing with a constantly changing environment by watching for the next wave and deciding whether to paddle into it or not.
Geoff Johnson: Media literacy programs on rise to help young people tell fact from fiction
It has been a while since Canadian communications scholar Marshall McLuhan ignited the North American educational movement for media literacy in the 1950s and 1960s. That was before every child, even from a very young age, had immediate access to everything and anything available in the world of digital media. Since that time, it has become challenging, especially among younger generations, to separate digital media fact from fiction, truth from lies and reality from improbability.
Geoff Johnson: Media literacy programs on rise to help young people tell fact from fiction
It has been a while since Canadian communications scholar Marshall McLuhan ignited the North American educational movement for media literacy in the 1950s and 1960s. That was before every child, even from a very young age, had immediate access to everything and anything available in the world of digital media. Since that time, it has become challenging, especially among younger generations, to separate digital media fact from fiction, truth from lies and reality from improbability.
Geoff Johnson: Apprenticeship a solid post-secondary option
Soon-to-graduate high school students are starting to think seriously about what’s next. For many, that includes post-secondary education — within one year of high school graduation, 51% of each Grade 12 graduation class from 2001-02 to 2006-07 enrolled in B.C. public post‐secondary education.
Geoff Johnson: Why Oregon scrapped state-wide tests as a graduation requirement
Recent changes in Oregon’s public high school graduation requirements have shaken the stability of the otherwise well-established public education system in that state. Oregon is sometimes thought of as being a kind of easygoing, granola, hippie kind of state.
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Geoff Johnson: Kids need skills to separate facts from sophistry
Sophistry has gained a stronger foothold than ever before in our everyday experiences and those of our kids. Sophistry, ambiguity, equivocation, circumlocution — all juicy words, but with the same meaning: the intention to deceive. In the 5th century Greek-speaking world, particularly at Athens, Sophists were travelling intellectuals who taught “Arête” (excellence or virtue) to anyone who could pay the right fee.
Geoff Johnson: Children should be protected from frightening images of war Original
My oh my how the TV news channels do love a war. Brave news anchors dressed in camo gear report over explosions while tanks, armoured vehicles and men with serious weapons pass by. The broadcast then cuts away to videos of child-size body bags being carried away from a bombed hospital while adults comb through the rubble with their bare hands. As a child, I knew nothing of war like this. War was something far away, not in our living rooms.
As billions roll in to fight the US opioid epidemic, one county shows how recovery can work
FINDLAY, Ohio (AP) — Communities ravaged by America's opioid epidemic are starting to get their share of a $50 billion pie from legal settlements. Most of that money comes with a requirement that it be used to address the overdose crisis and prevent more deaths. But how? It could mean that places look more like the area around Findlay.
Geoff Johnson: FSA not a good way of assessing Indigenous students
In its ham-fisted rush to issue its 2022 “ranking” of B.C.’s elementary schools using only the results of the Education Ministry’s controversial Foundations Skills Assessment, the Fraser Institute — a conservative public policy “think tank” — may have backed itself into an uncomfortable corner in this time of Orange Shirt Days and truth and reconciliation initiatives. How so? Read on.
Geoff Johnson: Ontario education minister's back to basics focus is all about politics Original
Any time the words “public school system” and “trans” anything are used in the same sentence these days, there’s a good chance raucous protest groups will show up at a school board meeting. That wasn’t the case, however, when Premier Doug Ford’s government embarked on what it called a “transformation” of Ontario’s school system that includes a “getting back to the basics of education” agenda and giving the education minister more power.
Geoff Johnson: A new twist on book banning — everything published before 2008 must go
My first experience with book banning came when, at the age of 15, I somewhat precociously read Irish novelist James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Not an easy read, but I had been told that the main character, Stephen Dedalus, questioned and rebelled against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he had grown up. At 15, I thought that I could identify with that, and so I struggled through 384 pages of the Penguin Classics edition.
Geoff Johnson: Giftedness isn't just being good at taking tests Original
In 1968/69, I taught at a “selective/regional” New South Wales public high school for “gifted” kids grades 8 to 12. Students were selected on the basis of what has been described as “schoolhouse” giftedness, meaning test-taking or lesson-learning giftedness. As I learned from the kids at this school, there is much more to “giftedness” than that. The term and its descriptors are widely misunderstood, even by some who are in the teacher-training business.
Geoff Johnson: A pivotal moment in Australia's relationship with its Indigenous Peoples
Australians will go to the polls on Oct. 14 to vote in a referendum on the inclusion of a formal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice in the nation’s Commonwealth Constitution. About 17 million registered voters across the country will vote on whether to change the constitution to recognize the land’s original inhabitants by creating a First Nations advisory group with a direct line to government.
Geoff Johnson: Who decides if smartphones support learning?
“When you don’t know what to do, you do what you know” is a piece of bumper-sticker wisdom that has been around for years and applies to most situations hobbled by both lack of imagination and indecision.
Geoff Johnson: The advantages of green school planning
When Douglas Cardinal, Canada’s eminent architect, spoke to a conference of architects in Vancouver in the early 1990s, he began by saying “buildings speak to people,” meaning that the building itself, its design and the functional relationships of its components deliver a powerful message to those who occupy it every day of its life.
Geoff Johnson: Green Schools aim to shape a generation of innovators
Green Schools movements have emerged as a feature of the education systems of many countries and can trace their origins to needs identified at a 1992 United Nations conference for the involvement of youth in environmental protection and the promotion of economic and social development.
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