It was not too long ago (Jan 2019) that the Trump administration expressed its shock that the newly elected Juan Guaido in Venezuela was being blocked by incumbent president. In a flurry of tweets (what else?) President Trump threatened Nicolas Maduro, and telegraphed that troops, a naval blockade and embargoes were in the works. He tweeted that its citizens had suffered enough and Guaido would be recognized as the interim president of Venezuela by the US. The State Department too put out this statement. “The United States recognizes Juan Guaido as the new interim President of Venezuela, and strongly supports his courageous decision to assume that role pursuant to Article 233…”

Against such a backdrop of pro-democracy talk that the US hectors the rest the world, what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this today, sounds incongruent (the current term ‘janky‘ comes to mind.) Double standards.

The rest of the world recognizes such doublespeak.

Why limit yourself to education podcasters? By all means start with one. We teachers can learn a lot about how to present content from journalists, poets, historians and entrepreneurs. Otherwise we risk living in the bubble!

1. Google Teacher Podcast – Hosted by Matt Miller and Kasey Bell, this seasonal podcast is a huge asset for educators who like to stay aboard the high-speed Google express.

2. Grammar Girl – A fantastic podcast about language hosted by Mignon Fogarty, a former journalism instructor. Even if you’re not an English teacher, her take on how we communicate applies to any field. It was one of the earliest podcasts I listened to about eight years ago.

3. This American Life – One of the most listened to podcasts, hosted by Ira Glass, a radio guy. He chronicles the gritty, real life of average people who just might happen to be our students. Ira won a Pulitzer this year for his show – a first for podcasters! If there is only one podcast you should listen to its’s this one!

4. Invisibilia – A relative new podcast begun in 2015. Extremely well researched, it mines “the intangible forces that shape human behavior.” The true life stories probe the unspoken and unseen forces that shape much around us – a sort of professional Development class that you never signed up for but wish you had!

5. Revisionist History – Remember Malcolm Gladwell? Yes, that guy whose books gave us terms such as ‘Tipping Point’ and ‘Outliers.’ Gladwell’s take on events whether they are related to Hamlet or the FBI, to make your head spin!

Twindemic? Janky? Doomsday scrolling? When did these words jump out of the dark shadows and infect us?

I am compiling a list of words that have emerged and are showing up in everyday language, as an experiment on how language changes with circumstance. Also, the hypothesis is that many of these words will become more or less extinct by this time next year. Some of them show up in school, violating the dress code. Others, stick to my rubber earbuds when listening to a podcast.

• Coronahobby – Means exactly what it describes but, absent the hyphen
• Doomsscrolling – Obsessive scrolling through bad news
• Janky – When something is broken or a technology is not working to plan
• Twindemic – A terrible coined word repeated by the media, ad nauseam
• Covidiot – Someone who ignores COVID warnings, to his/her misfortune
• Intubation – When you want to show you know a lot about ventilator use
• Zoombombing – Uninvited guests during a Zoom call

Not so long ago we had to get used to these words. Remember these?:

• Deepfake
• Gig Economy
• Influencers
• OK Boomer
• TextNeck

My dad passed away 15 years ago, today, October 16th, 2005.

Joe Fernando never published a book, was never featured in the media, but he had a knack of infecting everyone around him with ideas. He was my Google, Wikipedia and Amazon; the human search engine when hunting down bits of history, with a library in our ‘office room’ that introduced me to Greek history, Elizabethan poetry, Sri Lankan archeology and more.

His encyclopedic knowledge was legendary. He could quote Thomas Merton, Aristotle, Churchill, Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Senarath Paranavithana, or Shakespeare –sometimes in one sitting! He once won the grand prize in the Maliban “Take it or Leave it” radio show. It is said that the show host, Tim Horshington, leapt into the air when he answered the final history question to win the grand prize, a Philips refrigerator.

In the evenings after school my dad would tutor students, often for free, fluidly switching between English, Sinhalese, and Tamil. Occasionally I would overhear him break out into Latin! He was a teacher at heart. At the height of his career, on humid Sunday afternoons, you would see him walk down Clifford Place, suitcase in hand, along the railway tracks to get to the Wellawatte railway station. Destination: Galle. His last post was vice principal, St. Aloysius College Galle, a Jesuit boy’s school.

I always wondered what kept him going. Much later, when I would talk to him about his work, I came to realize the driving force behind this dedication was his students. Including anyone who turned up at our doorstep with an exercise book and an assignment.

In a larger sense, we all sat in his class. Neighbours, nieces and nephews, my schoolmates, priests, vendors and the odd grownup that had happened to hear of the iskola-mahathaya (that’s ‘school master’ in Sinhalese) down the road. They would breeze in without any forewarning for help with essays and proficiency exams, notes for debates, and coaching for job applications and dissertations. He just loved to have them in his office room, crowded around a Formica table with ginger beer stains. It was Aladdin’s cave, as one cousin described it, stuffed with books and papers. He always knew where to dig out and dust off that biography, anthology or newspaper cutting you were looking for. If you had time for some sidebars, he would invite you to a long walk to Galle Face, and tell you an elaborate yarn or two about British soldiers who got drunk while on duty in Bandarwela during World War II. Or about the time he fell into a river when the boat capsized on his way to a funeral in Galle.

Yes, life was a collection of colourful stories to him, as those who listened to his repertoire of ghost stories, war stories, travel tales and embellished family narratives know.

A simple man, my dad, who impacted so many of us.