Features

Thousands of elementary students and their teachers will be at Toronto's SkyDome on November 29 to attend Education Day - Aboriginal Teaching Circle.

Creative thinking is afundamental skill necessary for our survival on this planet. The performing folk arts in education can nurture this essential skill. At this point in time there has never been a more urgent need for an approach to education that prepares children to face the challenges of the twenty-first century.

From April 1 to Mav 12, 2002, ETFO's commercial “It is not too Lite to invest in public education" aired on television stations across the province. If you didn’t catch it, it's still placing at www.etfo.ca.

Anybody who works in an inner-city school has likely heard students mock one another by referring to others as “Ghetto.” They use this as a derogatory term that implies poor quality or of limited means. I wanted to challenge my combined grade 7 and 8 students’ perception of this word and push them to think deeply about the power of language.

Project Overseas is a joint endeavour by the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) and its affiliates across Canada. The project is designed to give professional assistance to fellow teachers in developing countries. Project Overseas 1 operates during July and August.

The fight against teacher recertification will only be won at the political level and with the support of strong, collective action on the part of teachers across the province.

Last spring at the Project-Based Learning Conference, Kids Who Know and Do, keynote speaker Linda Darling-Hammond retold the following story by John S. Taylor, Superintendent of Schools in the Lancaster County School District in South Carolina. In a room full of 5,000 educators, you could have heard a pin drop. Of course, during the witty dialogue and the ironic parts, outbursts of laughter filled the room.

"Never underestimate the power of story," author Wayson Choy told ETFO's provincial and local leaders at the February 2002 Representative Council meeting.

Four young faces, side by side, stare at the computer monitor. Occasionally, they point at the screen, jot notes, discuss new information and debate. This is the image of involved, interested and integrated learning for which we all strive.