Adam Chapnick's Newsletter - March 2020
Thanks for subscribing to this newsletter. Here is what I have been up to over the last few months:
In the Media
Teach Magazine recently produced a special issue about the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and I had the chance to speak to a number of the authors involved about their stories. I also spoke with a reporter from Scribe magazine about the future of Canada-US relations.
Blog
I've blogged about carbon border adjustments, partisanship and Canadian attitudes towards the United Nations, Canada's vaccination effort thus far, vaccines and great power conflict, my hope to see constructive opposition inside and outside the House of Commons, the COVAX controversy, and the impact of gender on Canadian attitudes towards world affairs.
Public Speaking
I spoke about “The Golden Age and Canadian Diplomatic Traditions” as part of a University of Toronto course in Canadian Studies taught by my friend and colleague, Tina Park. I visited a virtual Jewish study group to discuss Canadian foreign policy towards Israel. I gave a virtual lecture called "Canada in the World: 10 Events that Shaped Our National Character," to Third Age Learning - York Region. And I addressed the state of Canada-US relations in a virtual talk to the Maple Leaf Women’s Probus Club of Newmarket.
Upcoming Talks
I do not have any lectures currently scheduled until the summer. If you belong to a group looking for a speaker, please contact me through my website.
What I'm Reading
Over the last decade and a half, I have come to realize that the sales skills that I learned as a telemarketer at the Canadian Stage Company have been invaluable in the classroom. It turns out that others seem to be thinking similarly. "Selling to Teach: A Didactical Look at the Natural Integration between Teaching and Selling," is a bit of a slog (as are most academic articles), but it includes a number of fascinating findings. Maryellen Weimer provides a helpful summary of the research on the Teaching Professor website in an article called "Giving Metaphors a Second Look: Teaching as Selling." To be clear, the idea of using sales skills to teach does not imply, at least to me, that we should be treating students as customers. Rather, effective teaching requires a combination of enthusiasm, commitment, subject-matter knowledge, and (most of all) empathy, all of which were critical to me when I was selling and renewing theatre subscriptions.
Other Thoughts
I haven't been publishing much in the academic realm of late because I am hard at work on a series of cases in the history of Canadian foreign policy that I hope will eventually become part of a textbook (co-authored by the uber-productive and always-excellent Asa McKercher). I'm currently working on the original Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and have been blown away by the overwhelming impact of gender on the negotiations. If readers are, or know, graduate students in history or political science in search of an article idea, don't hesitate to reach out. The field would benefit from having such an analysis in print.