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These little piggies stayed home

Originally posted 2022/10/27

Voter turnout in the two most recent elections in Toronto reached historic lows. In the provincial election on June 2, 2022, the turnout was 48.2%, the lowest ever recorded for a provincial election. In the municipal election on October 24, 2022, the turnout was 29%, another lowest rate ever. So what’s going on here? Is it simple voter apathy, that the electorate is disengaged with politics? Or is there something else going on?

As is often the case, the answer is nuanced. Turnout was down, but it wasn’t down uniformly across candidates. Voters for incumbents came out, but voters for the other candidates stayed home. I was a campaign manager for both elections in the riding of Don Valley West/ Ward 15, and one of the key reasons that electors stayed home they didn’t feel like their voted mattered.

Bar graph showing sharp decline in turnout for voters for non-winning candidates

The graph shows the change from 2018 to 2022 in percentage points of voters for winners vs. voters for the other candidates. For the provincial election, there was a change in candidate, but the incumbent party won. In the municipal election, the incumbent candidate also won.

This decline suggests a certain fatalism among voters for non-winners. Since March 2020, we have been in survival mode. Isolation, social and physical distancing, uncertainty, and anxiety have affected our mental health. We are not sleeping well, are less patient with each other, doom scrolling through social media, binging on videos, and have less capacity for empathy. On the campaign trail, we found that people were tired, worn out by the worry of living through pandemic. Asking them to engage in big issues, such as decarbonization and disability benefit rates, was a lot when they were trying to get through the day. These electors just didn’t have in them to show up on election day and vote for a candidate who was probably going to lose.

It would be inaccurate to say that electors didn’t care. While canvassing, people definitely had their issues, such as funding for health and education, unwanted high rises in Leaside, and an unwanted rail yard in Thorncliffe Park. In the provincial election, we heard from people that would be voting strategically. They wanted their vote to make a difference in the outcome.

Now it’s your turn. Did you stay home on election day? What was your situation?

Data

Results of 2018 Provincial Election

CandidatePartyVotesPercentage
Kathleen WynneLiberal17,80238.89
Jon KieranProgressive Conservative17,62138.49
Amara PossianNew Democratic8,62018.83
Morgan BaileyGreen1,2682.77
John KittredgeLibertarian3800.83
Patrick Geoffrey KnightCanadian Economic860.19
Source: Don Valley West (provincial electoral district)

Results of 2022 Provincial Election

CandidatePartyVotesPercentage
Stephanie BowmanLiberal16,17749.91
Mark SaundersProgressive Conservative14,20843.84
Irwin ElmanNew Democratic3,39210.47
GreenSheena Sharp2,0256.25
Laurel HobbsNew Blue4211.29
John KittredgeLibertarian2250.69
Kylie Mc AllisterOntario Party1670.51
John KladitisIndependent850.26
Paul ReddickConsensus Ontario600.19
Source: Don Valley West (provincial electoral district)

Results of 2018 Municipal Election

CandidateVotesPercentage
Jaye Robinson (incumbent)16,21949.22%
Jon Burnside (incumbent)14,44043.82%
Tanweer Khan1,3093.97%
Nikola Streker5831.77%
Minh Le4041.23%
Source: 2018 Toronto municipal election

Email to Families | Week 2 Update

Hello Families,

We had a successful first week of hockey. We got our legs moving at practice and had a full turnout at the game.

1. The schedule of games is available. TeamSnap invitations have not yet gone out. For your convenience, here are the times this weekend.

  • Practice: Saturday…
  • Game: Sunday…

2. I could use 1-2 volunteers to help out with practice on Saturday. The job is most pointing kids in the right direction, moving pucks around, and providing encouragement.

3. A few kids have jerseys that are too big for them. I’m looking in to getting smaller jerseys, but can’t promise that I’ll be successful. If your child’s jersey is the wrong size, can you reply to this email?

  • What size and number is the jersey that you have now?
  • What size would you like?
  • Do you have a jersey from another year that you can use? If so, what’s the number?

I don’t know what’s possible, so I’d like to start by figuring out the mismatches. Thanks!

Looking forward to seeing you this weekend.

Susan

Original post 2022/10/19

Arena Notes | Week 1

So I just completed my first weekend as head coach of a hockey team. I’m so out of my depth.

The highlight of the weekend was Coach Matthew saying, “We’ll get worse before we get better.”

I made mistakes that were avoidable: I was late for practice, because I went to the wrong rink.

I made mistakes that were unavoidable: I did a bad job with the drills. I didn’t manage the duration of the shifts for the defensive line. (What’s changing “on the fly?”)

I made mistakes that I didn’t know was a mistake: I tried talking to the kids during drills. I forgot to bring pucks for warming up before the game.

To be clear, I view these mistakes as opportunities for growth, not as character flaws. And there were things I did right.

I showed up. This should not be underestimated, because lots of people didn’t volunteer.

I prepared the game sheet and delivered it on time.

I gave out mini-chocolates after practice, thereby laying the foundation for a candy bar economy.

And oh, we lost the game: 9-4. But I’m comfortable with failure, so that doesn’t bother me.

I’m hoping to only improve, but I think Coach Matthew is right. Progress isn’t linear. It’s not just learning new things, I also have to get good at the basics.

Think about learning a skill, such as playing the piano. The process of learning a piece includes a lot of repetition. The purpose of that repetition is to groove in neural pathways, by getting them to fire repeatedly. And many times during deliberate practice, we will get something wrong that previously we could do reliably. It’s not uncommon when playing a piece that we suddenly start making a mistake in the same place repeatedly. Often the solution isn’t more practice, but a change in the context of practice. These modifications could include isolating the passage, slowing the tempo, taking a break, or moving on and coming back later.

So, let’s continue with some grooving in.

Original post 2022/10/17

Email to Families | Welcome to U12/U13 the Stars!

Hello Parents,

My name is Susan Sim and I have volunteered to be your child’s hockey coach for U12/U13 house league for 2022-23. I will be coaching alongside Matthew G. and Mahmood P. We look forward to a year full of growth, teamwork, and fun. If we all work together to focus on the positive, our kids will be keen to get to the rink to participate.

Please read all of the email below as it contains some important details, so please reply to this email to acknowledge that you received it.

Please note all the important points below:

1. Team Assignment. The kids will be on preliminary teams for the first 3 weeks for the purposes of practices and games. The team is St. Margaret’s Stars. After the first 3 weeks, the teams will likely be readjusted. In any event, I will be one of the coaches for the first 3 weeks (and perhaps thereafter).

2. Our first practice is on Saturday, October 15, 2022 at xxx from yyy. We will hand out jerseys and socks before practice.

3. Regular Practice Times. We will be rotating through three different practice times…

4. Games. The games are at…

5. TeamSnap. The Knights will be using TeamSnap again this year for scheduling and attendance. Please look for an invite to St. Margaret’s Stars and download the app so you can update your attendance for practices and games each week.

6. Goalie. Players will be taking turns being goalie. Would anyone like to volunteer to be goalie at our first practice and game this weekend?

That’s all for now. Thanks in advance for your enthusiasm. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Best Regards,

Susan

From Hockey Mom to Head Coach

My son plays hockey in a house league in the U12/U13 division. Everybody who signs up gets to play. Each week there’s one practice and one game. It’s chill.

I’ve been wishing for better coaching on my son’s house league team for a while now. The best coaches are amazing. They show kids how to tie up skates and bring an extra stick for a kid to try. They don’t just work on skills, they build character.

The challenge for coaches are the competing demands on their time. They can’t always show up. These dads (yes, they’re all dads) have work, family, and leisure obligations. When they don’t show up, there’s a gap in consistency and continuity. And sometimes there’s the “Select” team that they have to worry about.[1]

In September, an email went out looking for volunteers and coaches. There was one tidbit that caught my eye. There would be professional on-ice coaches for the first half of the season.

So I put up my hand to volunteer.

The on-ice help was important to me, because I don’t play hockey. I can barely skate. I helped out the first season that my son played, so I know some basics. But that was a very long time ago and the kids are more capable now.

I think the league didn’t take my offer seriously. I didn’t get invited to the pre-season preparation sessions. The league convenor emailed me the week before the season started saying that he would let my son’s coach know that I was willing to “help out.”

It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but if they genuinely didn’t need me as a coach, that would be OK with me.

Fast forward a couple of days and an email goes out to all the coaches. I’m on the list and I found out who would be the head coach and assistant coach for my son’s team. I’m an assistant coach after all.

The head coach emailed us two assistant coaches and asked if one of us could take his role. He’s already coaching a select team and he will have to miss a lot of practices.

The other assistant coach declined, because he has three kids playing hockey and would have trouble being consistent.

I said that I’d be happy to be head coach. I could keep folks organized, but I’d need help with the hockey.

The season lasts from October to April. I have a lot to learn.

[1] There are tryouts to get on the Select team and they play against teams from nearby leagues. The players get their names and a number of their choice on their jerseys. Kids on the Select team are required to be on a house league team. They have an additional 2-3 activities on their calendar and it’s not unusual for these to conflict with house league. About one third of the kids and coaches are involved in both teams.

Original post 2022/10/10

Running a DC motor from the Arduino Using the Creatron Economic Starter Kit

I’m teaching a Critical Making course and a question came up regarding how to run a DC motor from the Arduino. It was a bit tricky to get figure out how to do this using the parts in the Economic Starter Kit that students were told to purchase from Creatron, our local purveyor of maker stuff. There were a couple of puzzles, how to use the parts we were given and which online tutorial to follow.

I played around a bit and here is my result. I used the tutorial from bildr, which I found via the page for my MOSFET transistor on Sparkfun.

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