In-person instruction has been a common source of stress during what I have dubbed “The Year of COVID,” with instructions on how to teach changing by the second.

We may believe we are creating inclusive, “multicultural” teaching environments, all while being completely unaware of the systemic racism that still impacts our students.

We don’t have to choose between structure and creativity. The best teaching lives in the in-between, where we follow a script, but we fill it with our stories, our students’ voices, and our classroom rhythms.

Teaching art history in an entirely online environment has brought a new set of challenges and opportunities that I’ve come to embrace with enthusiasm.

I, among other things, define myself as a rapper, and it’s a fact of which my students are all too aware.

In my Grade 10 Canadian History course, students explore LGBTQ+ history the same way they explore the stories of many different Canadians in the context of our history.

Starting to feel slightly worn out in my current role, I wanted to avoid burning out altogether, so decided that it was time for a change.

I recently observed a high school science lesson that left me feeling like I had just swished some super-minty Listerine. I was refreshed. I was inspired…so much so, in fact, that I built and entire upcoming PD session around my takeaway from this lesson. I will return to this in just a moment.

Teaching is a great responsibility. I teach English and believe that the ability to communicate, at a personal and societal level, is what builds strong communities and ensures ownership over one’s future. Thus, it’s important that we teachers spend a lot of time on our craft—deliberating the best ways to teach and make lessons fun, interactive, and relatable to students. Professional development thrives on discipline pedagogy and school departments meet to align goals and assignments and to discuss data assessment.