
What makes a great STEM school?
It’s not what you have. It’s what you do with what you’ve got. I was asked recently by an editor for Toronto Life about what kind of technology resources Rosseau Lake College offers students. In the popular imagination STEM is about stuff, which is why every media presentation of it shows 3D printers, snap circuits,…

Taking learning outside
“My dad showed me a map of where it was,” says Martin Birthelmer ’87. “I was ‘What’s all that stuff around it?’ And he says, ‘The woods.’” “It’s a lifestyle,” says Graeme Smith. “Outdoor education isn’t separate from education or environmental education. It’s all interwoven.” Smith is the Outdoor Education Lead at Rosseau Lake College,…

” … all of us are given a chance to have our own magic.”
A graduating student reflects on why she came to RLC, and what she’s taking with her A sign of spring at Rosseau Lake College are the community talks given by the Grade 12s. Each has a chance to speak to the whole school, and the talks tend to be very personal, thoughtful. During a recent…

Reversing the effects of acid rain
RLC students have partnered with the Friends of the Muskoka Watershed to address a decades-long problem. And it’s working. First the bad news: the forests and lakes in Muskoka are in decline due to the leaching of calcium, the result of decades of acid rain. Now the good news: researchers at Trent University, in partnership…

Review of Glenlyon Norfolk School
Glenlyon Norfolk School (GNS) is an independent, coed day and boarding school offering Grades JK through Grade 12. The Beach Drive campus—the only Junior School with an oceanfront campus in the country, as far as we know—houses JK through Grade 5. The Pemberton Woods campus houses the Grade 6 through 12 program. The first thing…

Teaching girls to change the world
After a year in the role of principal of The Linden School—and what a year it’s been—we spoke with Tara Silver about what girls need, how girls learn, and how the Linden School has pioneered in all of that. In 2014 Tara joined The Linden School in a senior student advising and teaching role before…

Food is home
For any school, gathering over food is key to student life. At Columbia International College, with students arriving from all corners of the globe, that’s true in ways, and at level that is unmatched in the world of private and independent schooling. Partnering with Chartwells has helped CIC students access healthy options and new experiences,…

Microsoft needs you
An interview with Marc Seaman, VP, Education Segment, Microsoft Canada Since Marc Seaman started as the lead of the Microsoft education team 8 years ago, a lot has changed, particularly in the past year in response to the demands of the pandemic. But even before that, he wanted to shift the focus away from things—devices,…

How literate are Canadian students?
They can read, but when it comes to functional literacy—expressing ideas, crafting arguments—some feel that students could, and should, be doing better. “I saw the need,” says Hafsa Esmail, founder of Power of Words Academy, “and I wanted to fill it.” At the time she was working as a team manager of Investigations Services at the…

Everything starts with a breath
Sonya Scodellaro, marketing manager with Geox Canada, admits that it’s been an interesting year, particularly around order fulfillment and the growth in online sales. “We’ve really seen the demographic come down in age,” she says. “We’re seeing those young moms and dads—from that 25 to 34 age-range—as the largest share of our audience online, and…



Video review of The York School
A survey of the programs, traditions and culture at The York School.

“COVID is not going away”
An interview with Sir James Mitchell on his thoughts on life in the pandemic, and the need to make a change. • Born and raised in Bequia, Sir James Mitchell served as the second Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from 1984 to 2000 and as Premier of Saint Vincent from 1972 to 1974. He founded the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1975,…

A place for children
“What I love most about the space,” says Valerie Turner, “is that I can open my window and I hear the children playing.” Turner is principal of the Junior School at Toronto’s York School and her office is a crisp, welcoming environment in keeping with the overall aesthetic of the school. The windows in her…

The value of camp
Character education is learning to live through a set of core values, including good citizenship and responsibility for ourselves and others. Which is exactly what camp was created to do. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, spent eight weeks at camp each summer from 1937 to 1951,…

Fighting back
by Glen Herbert “This is a long haul,” Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of SVG, said recently. “Covid is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, maybe for the rest of our lives, and therefore we have to get into the habit of taking the vaccine and then taking boosters for us to get back…

3hattrio, “Lord of the Dance”
It’s hard to be new, which is why people so often are new in all the old ways. The three musicians here are being new in the way that Pete Seeger’s folk process describes: taking what you have and doing something of your own with it. Admittedly there are more paints in the box these…
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“The book is amazing. Glen did great work – he is gold.”
—David McBride, Vice Principal of Enrolment Management, Upper Canada College
” … the most thoughtful [camp] publication ever.”
—Catherine Ross, camp director and author, responding to the 2021 camp and program guide
“Absolutely love it!!! It’s always so refreshing to read an article by a journalist who really cares to get it right!!!”
—Sarah Jarosz’s mom
“Just received your review of my album from Sing Out … it is very gratifying to read a review where the author totally gets the point of the whole thing!”
—Nick Hornbuckle
“ … it’s an exceptional article. It’s exceptionally well done.”
—Allan Spaan, CFO, Robert Land Academy
“Visually and linguistically, this book owes much to his exemplary skills as a developmental editor.”
–Robert J. Brym, from the preface New Society: Sociology for the 21st Century,
4th ed. (Toronto: Nelson)
“I just wanted to say thank you so much for the wonderful story. It was one of the best I’ve ever had done about me and my music.”
—James Alan Shelton