I could likely give readers a whole ton of excuses for why my promised relaunch of the site has been so delayed. I know I said I’d be dropping a whole collection of new content every couple of months (hence the “bimonthly” name) but… y’know… life. Y’know… the fact I’m merely a one man writing team and I’ve been going through work and family issues (not appropriate to be examined on my blog) and all sorts of silly obligations to do things such as keep my house operating. Right now, in fact, I’ve typed this entire paragraph while running back and forth between my desk and the bathroom trying to figure out why the damn toilet mechanism doesn’t want to work properly, jiggling the valve or tweaking the levers and waiting until the tank refills (again!) to see if the jiggling or tweaking has remedied the problem. Likely you don’t care and are sitting there balking at the lack of new content. But be patient… please… or as I say to the Girl: “Patience, grasshopper.” (So often, that she now responds to the nickname, Grasshopper.)

The truth is that despite life — despite all the hang-ups of maintaining a job and a house and waiting by the computer for news of some magical Apple Tablet that will redeem humanity from all it’s sins, and all that fun stuff — I will be launching the new format on February first (next week) with four great articles based on my first theme: “Stating the Obvious.” The articles are nearly ready, my editorial scrutiny a little steeper on the new format than the ‘off the cuff’ style I’ve been using lately with the blog. (I’ve actually printed drafts that I’ve hauled into nearby cafes and poured over with a cup of joe by my side.)

Making good on that promise, here’s a little teaser from the “editorial”…

For this issue I’ve put together a small collection of articles on this same theme of “Stating the Obvious” and thinking about how we define the boundaries between what we do and why we do those things. First, I’ve started by thinking about the definition of education versus learning; Sure, there are qualifiers for certain types of learning, but by redefining how society thinks of formal education are we doing the kids any favours? Second, I dive into a look at one of my pet peeves; Buy a toy, book, game, or even a piece of clothing for a child in 2010 and its more likely than not to bear a stated value proposition for the kid, supposedly enhancing the purpose for buying said item. But one will notice that real value in any product claims comes not from the claims themselves, but from the collective standardization of claims that give them context and meaning. Third and finally, I take a skeptical look at how we filter media and how it just might not be stating the obvious — at least from a rational perspective — to label some good and some bad, some right and some wrong, some worthy of praise and some trash. Skeptical parents, after all do more than just define a morality for their kids; they give that morality context.

You can mark it in your calendars, update the feed in your readers, follow me on Twitter, whatever… but what you could do that would make my life a whole lot more interesting is send me some letters.

WHA!

That’s right. While in future issues it would be great to get feedback on what I’ve written, if anyone is so inclined as to submit a “Letter to the Editor” to be published in next week’s issue, please do so answering the question, via the contact form, “What’s the craziest ‘learning objective’ claim you’ve seen on a toy?”

Thanks for your patience… Thanks for reading…