Photo by Pavel Danilyuk via Pexels I was struggling in school: distracted, restless, and falling behind. I was an undiagnosed ADHDer and autistic kid, but it was the ’80s, so my fidgeting was treated as misbehaviour rather than a learning difference. I was rescued by the unstoppable hero known as creativity. My mom, a teacher […] More »

A growing number of teachers and parents say Ontario’s current school  curriculum will graduate scores of children who are 21st century illiterate. Inside the fight for more technology and social media in the classroom. Every school day from September to June at 3:30 p.m., Aerin Guy meets her nine-year old daughter at school. On this […] More »

In many ways, this tiny classroom was just like any other: rows of young students looking up at their teacher, the day’s lesson displayed on the dusty chalkboard overhead. But this day was not about grammar or arithmetic. It was about the long fight for freedom. In South Sudan, it is rarely about anything else. […] More »

Tamara Dawit co-founded the 411 Initiative for Change, a non-profit public education program, to tackle the problem of community disengagement among young Canadians. Through 411 she produces and tours 90-minute school assemblies on social issues such as human rights, HIV/AIDS, and girls’ empowerment to encourage students to learn about and get active in their communities. […] More »

It was the sort of sectarian self-destruction that’s sadly all too common in left-wing movements. After winning strong majorities on Vancouver City Council, the school board, and the park board in 2002, the Coalition of Progressive Electors alliance split in two just a couple of years later. This paved the way for the right to […] More »

Nggrfg. For most people, the title of Vancouver actor and playwright Berend McKenzie’s play is nearly unsayable. But for McKenzie, naming his one-man play after the two slurs that plagued his childhood is the best way to understand and neutralize hatred. Audiences seem to agree: his play was a hit at the Edmonton and Vancouver […] More »

I haven’t been to a party before where they served pie, have you? But I guess that’s a silly question because of course you’d know the hosts, so you’ve probably— Anyway, it’s very good pie. It takes creative people to come up with a snack idea like that. I said to Appollonia—that’s who I came […] More »

If you want a picture of camp, imagine a sneaker stamping on a human face–for a whole summer. How one middle-class kid not only survived the Orwellian experience of self-improvement camp, but lived to tell the tale More »