The School as Com­mu­nity Hub: Beyond Education’s Iron Cage

Our Schools/Our Selves, Spe­cial Issue, Sum­mer 2010

Edi­tors: David Cland­field and George Martell

Ottawa: Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy Alternatives

242 pages; $15.00

Reviewed by Char­lotte Morgan

Pub­lished as a com­pi­la­tion of nine arti­cles, the com­mon theme of The School as Com­mu­nity Hub is that bring­ing com­mu­nity ser­vices together enhances children’s edu­ca­tion, improves their phys­i­cal and men­tal health, and strength­ens the whole community.

In his open­ing chap­ter, Ontario’s David Cland­field tells why com­mu­nity hubs are impor­tant and what could be included in them: “The full com­mu­nity hub will yoke the inter­ac­tive neigh­bour­hood school with the multi-use hub to pro­duce a kind of New Com­mons where edu­ca­tion for all, health, recre­ation, poverty reduc­tion, cul­tural expres­sion and cel­e­bra­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity can all come together to develop and sus­tain flour­ish­ing com­mu­ni­ties on prin­ci­ples of cit­i­zen­ship, coop­er­a­tion, and social justice.”

Draw­ing on his expe­ri­ence with Saskatchewan’s School­PLUS pro­gram, Michael LeClaire sees efforts to bring com­mu­ni­ties together as strands of an empow­er­ing jour­ney, not as a des­ti­na­tion. School­PLUS ini­tia­tives enjoyed broad sup­port and many con­tinue, although repack­aged to meet the agenda of a new provin­cial government.

Rita Bou­vier, another con­trib­u­tor from Saskatchewan, offers the per­spec­tive of Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples. She quotes Shar­i­lyn Cal­liou, a Cree-Mohawk, who stresses that our def­i­n­i­tion of com­mu­nity par­tic­i­pants must move beyond a human one to one that is inclu­sive of all species.

It’s impos­si­ble to ignore the bar­ri­ers that con­front advo­cates of strong com­mu­ni­ties. All the authors dis­cuss the neg­a­tive effects of the com­pet­i­tive, for-profit motive dri­ving the global neo-liberal agenda. It’s easy to see it in Eng­land, where the idea of “acad­e­mies” com­pet­ing with each other and funded in a hodge­podge of ways is being taken to new heights.

Mean­while in South Africa, “the cor­po­rate model of school gov­er­nance that pro­tects sec­tional and exclu­sive inter­ests is prov­ing dis­as­trous,” say Salim Vally and Carol Anne Spreen. This is a coun­try in which 20 per­cent of chil­dren are orphans and 68 per­cent live below the poverty line. And yet “issues of inequal­ity and fail­ure in the pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem have become a focal point for social mobi­liza­tion,” the writ­ers state. “The Car­ing Schools Net­work is a school-community ini­tia­tive which brings together 60 orga­ni­za­tions around the coun­try and pro­motes part­ner­ships with schools and com­mu­ni­ties focus­ing on vul­ner­a­ble children.”

The School as Com­mu­nity Hub tells us how resis­tance to school clo­sures in British Colum­bia has led to an unex­pected resur­gence of the com­mu­nity school; how Knowl­edge Pro­duc­ing Schools in Aus­tralia are cel­e­brat­ing the rec­i­p­ro­cal val­ues of children’s learn­ing and com­mu­nity engage­ment; how in Mex­ico the col­lec­tivist val­ues of Indige­nous peo­ples are extend­ing to all reaches of the edu­ca­tion sys­tem; and how green ini­tia­tives are tak­ing root in Toronto.

Although some­what aca­d­e­m­i­cally writ­ten in places, over­all this paper­back is a rel­a­tively easy-to-read look at a vari­ety of sit­u­a­tions around the world and what can be done to improve teach­ing, learn­ing, and liv­ing con­di­tions for all.

Char­lotte Mor­gan is the for­mer edi­tor of Voice.

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Sandy’s Incred­i­ble Shrink­ing Footprint

Femida Handy and Car­ole Carpenter

Illus­trated by Adri­anna Steele-Card

Toronto: Sec­ond Story Press, 2010

24 pages

$15.95

****

Reviewed by Chris Vert

Sandy lives in the city but loves vis­it­ing with her Grandpa at his house in the sum­mer. She loves to roam the beach with her dog, Pep­per, enjoy­ing the fresh air, splash­ing in the waves, chas­ing seag­ulls, and rolling in the sand.

Sandy is dis­gusted, how­ever, to find garbage every­where. Bits of hot­dog buns, squished pop cans, empty mus­tard con­tain­ers. She is stunned that peo­ple would leave trash around. She finds a plas­tic bag and starts to clean up.

Sandy and Pep­per meet up with and become inspired by the “Garbage Lady,” who roams the beach pick­ing up junk and passes on lessons about the lit­tle things Sandy can do to reduce her own eco­log­i­cal foot­print. Sandy goes home excited about what she and her fam­ily can do to ben­e­fit the environment.

The book con­cludes with a list of 12 “Ways to Shrink Our Foot­prints.” Almost too earnest and cute.

What makes this book dif­fer­ent and quite remark­able, not to men­tion true to its mes­sage, are the illus­tra­tions, which are entirely done with recy­cled and nat­ural mate­ri­als – bits of paper, fluff, fab­ric, newsprint. They remind the reader of the detailed work­man­ship that is put into Bar­bara Reid’s Plas­ticine illustrations.

This book is a good read-aloud, a jumping-off point for group dis­cus­sion, a social stud­ies les­son, and a series of “nat­ural mate­ri­als” art lessons as well.

Chris Vert is a mem­ber of the Ele­men­tary Teach­ers of Toronto Local.

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Swamped

Andrea Her­tach

Avail­able as an ebook from Guardian Books  Pub­lish­ing Inc., guardianpublishing.com

76 pages; $8.49

Reviewed by Janet Cottreau

****^1/2

Reviewed by Janet Cot­treau

Swamped is a tale of a young girl’s per­sis­tence in try­ing to stop the devel­op­ment of a gam­ing cen­tre on swamp land behind her house. Mar­ley comes up against the mayor, her brother, and many oth­ers who do not care about the impact humans have on the envi­ron­ment. As a result of these expe­ri­ences, Mar­ley devises many cre­ative strate­gies to get everyone’s atten­tion and spread her message.

This story cre­atively dis­cusses the impact of land devel­op­ment on the nat­ural envi­ron­ment by telling it through the eyes of the crea­tures liv­ing in the swamp and the humans impacted by the change. The frogs, drag­on­flies, chick­adees, dogs, and other won­der­ful crea­tures have colour­ful per­son­al­i­ties that help read­ers empathize with them. Their con­ver­sa­tions tell us about their habi­tats and lives, and about human impacts on the envi­ron­ment, both pos­i­tive and negative.

This book is a quick read and would be great for late Pri­mary and Junior teach­ers and stu­dents. It could be used as a prompt for sci­ence dis­cus­sions about habi­tat and human impact on the envi­ron­ment, and also for con­ver­sa­tions about advo­cat­ing for what you believe in and the many cre­ative ways to spread a mes­sage. This book could also be used in lan­guage lessons as an exam­ple of dia­logue in a story. There are many dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters, and Andrea Her­tach has done a good job clar­i­fy­ing who is speak­ing while at the same time main­tain­ing a smooth story flow.

Andrea Her­tach has been an ele­men­tary teacher for over 25 years. She is a mem­ber of the York Region Teacher Local and has con­tributed to Voice. Swamped is her first children’s novel.

Janet Cot­treau is a mem­ber of the Ottawa-Carleton Teacher Local.

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