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.

Thanks to a collaboration with musician and anti-bullying advocate RobenX, I discovered many strategies for reaching students in new and lasting ways.

After teaching at an alternative middle school for the past 4 years, the one thing I constantly hear from new students is: “We can move around in your room and not get in trouble?

When the RCMP Crisis Negotiation Unit visited my high school law class, I expected some interesting guest speakers. What I didn’t expect was just how profoundly they would change the way my students communicated.

Students often display a morbid curiosity that I feel I cannot ignore, but can I lean into it? Can I use this fascination in a way that engages students, but also humanizes them?

The topic of awe couldn’t be more timely. I’ve never seen such an urgent need to address social-emotional issues in and out of the classroom as I do now.

Utilizing trauma-informed practices can help create a welcoming and inclusive environment that allows students to feel comfortable and valued.

My FSL classroom is rarely quiet. There’s laughter, music, performance, and sometimes a bit of chaos, but it’s the productive kind. On poetry unit days, students sit congregated in groups, and they transform the space into a “scène de slam.”

Many students dread reading Shakespeare because they think his works have nothing to do with their 21st century interests.