I’m not a big hockey fan, but an article about the Vancouver Canucks caught my eye this morning. The team is breaking with tradition and NHL rules to appoint their goalie captain. Here’s part of the story:

In a move that breaks with tradition, and the NHL rules, the Vancouver Canucks named Roberto Luongo the team’s captain Tuesday, even though the goaltender will not be able to have a C sewn on his uniform.

Coach Alain Vigneault said Luongo’s leadership abilities makes him the obvious choice to become the 12th captain in Canuck history.

“In our mind, for this organization, this is the right thing to do,” said Vigneault. “Roberto is the right individual to be captain.”

Mike Gillis, the rookie Canuck general manager who promised to bring new ideas to the job, said it would be unfair not to let Luongo be captain just because of the position he plays.

“Leaders lead by example,” said Gillis. “Roberto is the leader of this team right now. We felt really strongly about that. To not do something like this means you have a leader that is unrecognized.

“We wanted to make sure he is recognized for his contribution both on and off the ice.”

Luongo, 29, often was Vancouver’s best player last year when the team missed the playoffs for the second time in three years. He said he was stunned when Vigneault first approached him with the idea in September.

“I didn’t expect it when Alain came and asked,” he said. “I was definitely surprised but at the same time I was happy and flattered.”

Rule 6.1 in the NHL rule book says: “No playing coach or playing manager or goalkeeper shall be permitted to act as captain or alternate captain.”

For those who wonder why a goalie can’t be team captain, there is a practical reason:

There have been six goaltenders named as NHL team captains. The last was Bill Durnan of the Montreal Canadiens during the 1947-48 season.

The league passed a rule preventing goalies from being a captain prior to the 1948-49 season. One of the concerns was Durnan left his crease so often to speak with officials it gave his team unscheduled timeouts during a game.

So the team has come up with a creative solution that will allow for all the duties of captain to be fulfilled, while Luongo remains in the crease:

To remain within the rules, Luongo will not wear a C on his jersey. To compensate, the Canucks named defencemen Mattias Ohlund and Willie Mitchell, plus forward Ryan Kesler, as assistant captains. It will be their jobs to discuss calls with officials and take ceremonial faceoffs.

“He (Luongo) is not going to come out of his crease,” Vigneault said with a grin. “We’ve already come to the agreement that opening faceoffs will be Mattias’s because he’s the longest running Canuck.

“Since (Mitchell) likes to talk the most, we’ll have him talk to the referees.”

Gillis said he told the NHL about the Canucks plan and they offered no objections.

Luongo said he isn’t bothered he won’t have a letter on his sweater.

“It really doesn’t change anything for me,” he said. “It’s a matter of people knowing I’m captain. At the same time, I’m sure it involves a lot more stuff off the ice.”

Children are so often confronted with rules that prevent them from doing something that is very important to them, and most of the time it seems their only choices are to abide by the rules or to break them and risk the consequences. As a parent and an educator, I like to teach my kids that things are rarely so black & white.

There are usually shades of grey, and if a child can present an alternative to a parent or teacher he may just discover that things are negotiable. He may have to give up something else, but that might get him the thing he wants more. Just as Luongo can’t wear the “C” on his team sweater, but he does get to assume the role of the leader of his teammates.

Creative problem solving is basically that “thinking outside the box” phenomenon that we hear so much about these days. Employers value an employee who can find creative solutions to work around an impasse - whether it be a matter of regulations, finances or physics. And in community building a leader who has the imagination to work around difficulties instead of giving up or blaming others, is a person who will be rewarded with both loyalty and a healthier community. The team management of the Canucks is demonstrating this sort of thinking outside the box, and also doing a great job of assigning jobs that suit each player’s abilities. Recognizing what a person is good at, and knowing when to split one job up and assign parts of it to several different people, is good human resource management.

This story demonstrates a very abstract concept in a way that a child can understand it. I hope those who have hockey fans in the family will share the article, and discuss how the team used creative problem solving to do what they wanted to find a very workable compromise.

Source: “Canucks break tradition, NHL rules, in naming Luongo team captain” (Jim Morris, The Canadian Press)

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The wonderful folks at CurrClick are running a mock election for everyone who would like to participate. There are also big discounts on a number of materials to help you with your study of civics and the election process. One that I particularly enjoyed was a 5-book bundle called America Votes from Teacher Book Bag. This bundle has something for everyone, from preschool all the way up to older kids. It’s very affordable & any of the activities in the books would be easy to add to an already busy school schedule.

For more in-depth civics studies, take a look at the many wonderful titles from Teaching and Learning Company (TLC.) They produce beautiful, high quality books that are suitable for home or classroom use. Any one of about a dozen of their titles would be a great place to start digging a little deeper into American civics and history.

Here’s more information on the fun at CurrClick:

Homeschoolers are invited to vote in their very own Presidential Election at CurrClick.com! Educate your kids about the election process and make a statement about the powerful voice that is the homeschool community!

POLLS OPEN on October 1st and will remain open until November 4th. Visit CurrClick.com on October 1st to cast your vote: Participation is completely free and will include information about each of the candidates, real time results, quotes from each of the candidates about their position on homeschooling, an “I Voted” coloring page and printable sticker and an optional exit poll. Results of the exit poll will be posted on November 4th.

Results of the election will be sent out to news organizations across the country. Don’t miss this opportunity to make your voice heard.

Plus, dozens of instantly downloadable election unit studies, lapbooks and workbooks from top publishers ON SALE for up to 35% OFF. Sale begins October 1st.

CurrClick.com is the #1 curriculum download site for homeschoolers, featuring thousands of resources for all ages from hundreds of top homeschool and education publishers. CurrClick.com gives a way a new, free title every week. Most titles priced at 30% below retail.

CurrClick.com, Curriculum in a Click!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

My Canadian readers may be interested in a web site I came upon by accident while I was looking for a particular candidate’s voting history on a specific issue. This site has so much more information! Called How’d They Vote? the site puts at the ordinary voter’s fingertips a whole lot of information that could help firm up the big decision for polling day on the 14th of October.

Want to know whether your outgoing MP voted for or against a particular Bill? It’s there. Want to know how often he or she was absent from Parliament during a vote? That’s there too. You can also read specific quotes from the debates, and see whether your MP introduced any Bills.

At the Party level, you can see a list of all Bills and who introduced them. You can also use the summary tables to see trends such as:

1. The Party whose members were most often absent: the Liberals had 6 Members in the top 10 absentees, with a total of just over 900 absences for those Members;
2. The Party with the most dissensions: again the Liberals, who occupied all but one in the top 30 slots;
3. The Party that introduced the most Bills: the NDP with 11 of the top 15, and a total of over 120 Bills introduced by just those Members;
4. For any given province, which party was most elected: every seat in Alberta, for example, went to the Conservatives.

The web site links to more detailed information on each Bill from the Library of Parliament, so you can see the actual text of a Bill. The status of each Bill is indicated on the site, as well.

This is a great tool for civics lessons, but don’t overlook the potential for math activities too! Averaging, rounding, graphing and percentages could all be taught using the data on the site. Let me know if you come up with any really creative uses!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

Yes, Virginia, Homeschooling Is Legal In California

Yesterday, Karen Taylor of CHN (the California Homeschool Network, an outstanding statewide support group) posted the following:

“We are NOT in the middle of a new legal case, however one very slow journalist is just getting around to reporting the very old in re Rachel news. Can you believe it’s actually making the rounds on lists around the country as ‘news,’ and that CHN’s 800# has already received a phone call this morning about it? Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read.”

This excerpt is from the blog of Secular Homeschooling Magazine editor Deborah Markus, who has asked that we all try to combat a recent round of disinformation that is leading people to worry about the legal status of homeschooling in her home state.

In her blog entry, which you can read here, Deborah gives the links to all the pertinent information. So if you are in California or you were just wondering if homeschooling is still legal there, you can check it out in detail.

Bottom line: Homeschooling by non-credentialed parents is still legal in California. This means that what I stated in my first entry in this series of posts on the subject still holds true: homeschooling is legal in every jurisdiction in Canada and the USA.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

The content of this blog is offered in the spirit of sharing information and ideas, and all factual information is accurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing. Please be aware that laws change and new requirements may be imposed on homeschooling parents. I am not an expert. You should consult legal counsel for the best advice on homeschool legalities and your rights as a home educator.

The Montreal Homelearners web site, and the community that has grown up around it, are the focus of an article in Montreal Families Magazine this month. The article by Liz Warwick looks at how technology benefits homeschooling families. Here’s an excerpt:

[H]omeschooling families often face a series of challenges when it comes to finding resources, be it math textbooks or lab equipment, as well as linking up with other families who share their passion.

But thanks to a website created by Montreal mom Sonya Olthof, homeschoolers have a new way to connect with each other. The site is called Montreal Homelearners (www.montrealhomelearners.ca) and is designed to make homeschooling easier for families.

“I wanted to make the (homeschooling) community more accessible and the Internet was such a logical place to start,” Olthof says. With help from her techno-savvy husband, she set up the site in early 2008.

Read the whole article here.

Thanks so very much to Sonya for all the work she has poured into our community, and for the wonderful way she brings us all together - not just online, but face to face as well. You’re a blessing & a wonderful friend!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!