NSELC: Leadership in editing needed

Last week, I got a letter from the Nova Scotia Education Leadership Consortium.

The NSELC is... well, I'm not exactly sure what it is -- because when I visit their website and click the link that says "About The NSELC" I'm greeted with this:

Historically, the NSELC has targeted educators already in positions of senior leadership (principals, vice principals and central office personnel) and/or teachers who were aspiring to move into an administrative role. The NSELC is now expanding our Modules/Workshops specifically with teachers as the audience i.e. classroom teachers interested in becoming curriculum leaders, student teachers and beginning teachers who want to learn how to be more effective classroom managers, seasoned teachers who want to develop their instructional strategies to better meet the needs of their students, teachers who are fulfilling the role of coach/mentor in their schools or board. This expansion of our audience is very exciting for us and certainly supports what we have learned about effective schools being those that develop and foster leadership from within the school.

The NSELC was writing to me because I chair the local elementary school's advisory council. In their letter, the name of the school was wrong, the address was a mish-mash of my home address and the school's address, and the name of the road was misspelled. (In an email I just received, I'm told that the Nova Scotia Department of Education is to blame for this.)

School administrators keep talking about excellence in schools. How about some excellence in writing (or even decent basic skills) from those preaching it?

Is there an editor in the house?

Today's Globe and Mail offers a "Video Pick" saying fans of Tintin are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Tintin creator Hergé's birth. (The copy calls him Herge -- because apparently there are no accents available to G&M Web editors.)

I almost never click on these things, but today I did.

And I got to see a report on how the Tintin books no longer have an Arabic publisher, so fans in Egypt, where the books are popular, have to read them in French. There was also the usual discussion of whether or not the books are racist. (Conclusion: maybe.)

Garbled at the Post

The National Post has Warren Kinsella's new column online, and it sure reads funny. Don't know how long it will stay up before the fix it, but there are some pretty weird phrases. (Read it closely and you can see how they are supposed to line up.)

1) A lot of these extraordinary numbers, obviously, are -- like many of the numbers that attempt to describe the magnitude few of your belongings, just because I f***ing felt like it? It's the same f***ing thing, mate."

2) When the U.S. trade deficit with China has ballooned to an extraordinary $232.5-billion, the Bush administration's of myriad crimes -- completely speculative.

3) "How would you feel if I walked into your house and took a desire to haul the Chinese before the WTO is certainly understandable, if a tad cynical.

I don't know how I would feel if Johnny Rotten walked into my house and took a desire to haul the Chinese before the WTO. Baffled probably.