Features

Nine-year-old Chris Hadfield was spending a typical summer at his family’s island cottage in southern Ontario when he observed an event that set his life’s direction.

As I walked out of the Edinburgh airport on July 30, 2013 and felt the Scottish wind on my face, my dream of doing a teaching exchange became a reality.

Understanding the difference between equality and equity can be difficult. A simple activity in which a group of people sit in a circle and place their shoes in a pile at the centre can demonstrate the difference.

In September 2014, ETFO began central table discussions with the government and the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) to negotiate renewed collective agreements for our teacher and occasional teacher members.

Participation in political rallies gives ETFO members an important opportunity to support their union’s bargaining position; it gives them a public voice on how contract provisions directly affect classroom working and learning conditions. ETFO members find themselves once again compelled to protest the government and employer stance at the bargaining table.

“Why are we learning outdoors? … To wake up our brains” is the loud chorus from my Grade 2 students at Little Falls Public School. Outdoor learning is an integral part of their daily lives. These students come to school prepared; dressed in layers, with their water bottles, hats and splash pants, they are ready for a day of active learning.

ETFO’s annual leadership conference for women, … and still we rise (ASWR), is known for providing inspiring ideas women educators can use to make a difference in their classrooms and communities.

Project Overseas. These words hung in the back of my mind for almost a decade. At the Thanksgiving table in 2007, I explained to my family how PO, as it is affectionately called, sends Canadian teachers to work internationally to deliver in-service to untrained and undertrained teachers.

In July of 2007, my life changed forever – by attending a workshop. I remember reading the flyer. “Best workshop I’ve ever taken,” raved one teacher. Really? I wondered how they could spend three days talking about one thing – the monarch butterfly.