Features

The academic achievement of boys has long been a worrisome issue for educators. The most recent EQAO assessment of Ontario’s grade 3 and 6 students (released last November) does nothing to lessen concern.

Deb St. Amant holds the distinction of being the first equity chairperson for the Kawartha Pine Ridge local. When they formed the committee earlier this year, the other members and local president Mark Fallis thought that with her experience in equity issues she would be the most suitable chair.

A province-wide induction program is something ETFO has long been advocating for. This new system of supports replaces the Ontario Teacher Qualifying Test, the much-reviled teacher testing program brought in by the Mike Harris government.

How do you demonstrate the power of language to students weaned on a diet of dramatic and engaging visuals? I have them close their eyes and picture an image to accompany the famous words of British poet, Robert Browning: "A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

“Though the developed countries of the world presently have the resources to feed and educate everyone on earth, more than half the world’s children live in abject poverty ... JUMP was founded in reaction to the institutionalized apathy and ignorance that underlie these problems.”

Last summer I attended a three-day workshop in Hamilton. It was the best professional development opportunity I have had in my 20-year teaching career.

Anita Dhawan showed spunk as a girl of 11 when she broke an ancient taboo by embracing a low-caste woman in her native India. Later, she challenged the patriarchal society of her hometown, who mistreated her widowed mother because in their eyes a woman merited no dignity after losing her husband. As an adult, the iconoclastic Anita smashed yet another barrier by forcing York University to recognize her foreign credentials, paving the way for her teaching career in Canada.

It was when he was reviewing his school’s reading scores in September 2002 that the light went on for Wayne Copp, principal of Toronto’s Baycrest Public School.

Last fall, Teviah Moro, a reporter for the Timmins Daily Press wrote a series of articles on a desperate situation in Attawapiskat, a First Nations community on the James Bay coast. I shared these stories with my Grade 5/6 class at Iroquois Falls Public School. They immediately decided that they needed to do something to help.