The Counselling Connection, the official blog of the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors has run a series of posts about how to deal with bullies. They are mostly for parents but there is great advice for teachers and students.

Part 1: How to listen to your child and how to prepare to talk about the issue.

Part 2: Consulting your child’s teacher.

Part 3: Helping your child develop strategies.

The same website also features really good articles about how to deal with your feelings as a parent, how bullying occurs. Make sure to check them out.

I’ve been sitting on the 2007 Annual Alberta Labour Market Review. This document highlights the labour market situation in our province. Some notable numbers include:

• 71.5% of Albertans are employed
• 6.0% are unemployed (the rest of Alberta have chosen to not be a part of the registered workforce, or they work for their parents)
• Health care and social assistance jobs have the lowest unemployment rate
• Sales and service jobs employ the most Albertans
• Trades, transport, equipment operators have the largest growth in rare numbers

But the most important number is that 13.9% of employed people have less than a high school diploma! That leaves 86.1% of people working in  this province have completed their high school education.  Unfortunately, the report does not say what education most unemployed people have obtained.

Does this help address the question, “Why don’t we get paid to go to school?”