As the assistant head of special education at Vaughan Secondary School in the Toronto area, Tim Wesson describes his professional learning journey as one driven by the desire to improve the standard of living for autistic students and to seek ways to build partnerships in the school community.

I have gleaned three wise teachings from King Lear's fool and each one informs my practice in the classroom more and more each day.

The benefits of play-based learning are huge, and we shouldn’t be depriving our children of it just because they are getting older.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that rules without relationships lead to rebellion. Yet today, relationships with students seem to be feared instead of embraced. Over the years, quite by accident, I have discovered that this precept from days gone by is critical to classroom rules and to learning itself. Relationships are an essential part of learning, especially relationships between teachers and students.

We ask students questions all day long, but how do we know they are actually helping students learn and, more importantly, getting them to think?

“I went into teaching so that I could help children perform well on standardized testing,” said no teacher, ever.

I believe it is vital for some form of investment education, along with the other elements of financial literacy, to exist in every school. In every classroom.

After 17 years of mostly reflection-free teaching, I’ve finally found the perfect space to force myself to stop, step back, and think about what I’m teaching. That place is Substack.

It is widely accepted that digital tools and resources are vital to students’ success in the modern world. It is also widely believed that the only barrier to access is money.