childhood

Education disruption is the ‘shadow pandemic’ that could eclipse the health crisis in its impact. And with mounting learning gaps and lagging policy, Canadian students are falling behind their global peers.

Not only do we not understand what the virus does to kids, we’re also in the dark about what this crisis might mean for them psychologically and emotionally. Some researchers are trying to look ahead.

This week’s cover story: Inside the world of gender fluidity

Children with functional constipation are normal in every respect except one

On pain, nerves, the future, and how their relationship almost fell apart before the Olympics

Normally my reaction to new technological developments is “Hooray! We’re living in the future!” But when I discovered yesterday that the monstrous unblinking eye of Google Street View had invaded my tiny hometown (population 1,534—double what it was when I was a wee boy), what I felt was more like roller-coaster horror/panic. My memories of Bon Accord are pretty much all in faded Super-8 and grainy black-and-white NTSC (we didn’t have a colour television set until 1978), with plenty of Walker Evans/Diane Arbus/David Lynch grace notes. The name of the place puts me in mind of innocence and freedom—but also of mean dogs, dead cats, sketchy neighbours, retarded teenagers, agricultural odours, rotting upholstery in abandoned automobiles.

I’m trying to keep in mind all the nasty things childhood entails.