This article presents an interview with John Ralston Saul, one of Canada's pre-eminent thinkers. In the interview, Mr. Saul shares his provocative and compelling thoughts on the state of Canada's public education systems.

Parent advocacy is a complicated beast. Parent advocates for the most part, are born from three distinct impetuses: a desire to fix something for their own child or children; anger about a new policy being imposed; or a collective drive to create a new service or program. Just as it is impossible to relegate all parent advocacy into one category,…

For some time now, school boards, Ministries of Education, and the popular media have been expressing concerns about failing boys and how best to meet their needs, framing these concerns in terms of a crisis in which boys are the "new disadvantaged". This perspective does not provide an accurate representation of the problem and, in fact, detracts…

The gulf between what education systems provide and what children and young people need is widening. The emphasis on testing and passing exams often squeezes out the development of other skills and qualities that are just as vital in today's world. Whole Education began in England in 2010 in response to this challenge. At its heart is a group of…

In the past two decades, a large body of research has examined the differences between novices and experts in subject areas ranging from physics to poetry. Yet research on developing expertise has found no "magic bullet" in becoming an expert and has concluded that innate talent plays a less prominent role than previously imagined. Various studies…

Classrooms in Bhutan overflow with eager students; however, the teacher supply is often not enough to meet demand. The Bhutan Canada Foundation (BCF) is a Canadian charity working with the Ministry of Education in Bhutan, providing Canadian teachers to remote areas, where they work for a local salary and live in basic conditions The feature of…

The Canadian Education Association, originally called the Dominion Educational Association, was established 120 years ago and held its first annual meeting in Montreal in July 1892, at a time when free and compulsory public education was just gaining a foothold in Canada. The pivotal role of public education has always been to reflect the values…

Three authors, writing from different perspectives in different time periods, share the view that students' sense of personal agency is fundamental to their intellectual engagement and deep understanding. The learner's imagination leads to powerful questions that grow when exposed to processes of productive inquiry and social interaction and when…

The Conference Board of Canada ranked us 14th out of the 17 major industrialized nations on measures of innovation, and our "productivity" track record has fared no better. Experts around the world agree that education is the key foundational building block for innovation skill development, and that the seeds of innovation--curiosity,…

The focus of Ontario's educational reform is literacy and numeracy, and there is a move to teach literacy in all subject areas. Teachers are also to include character education and environmental awareness in instructional planning. Curriculum guidelines direct teachers to teach cross-disciplinary core concepts--Big Ideas such as change, systems,…

Educational researchers are accustomed to institutional review board (IRB) requirements (e.g., protecting participants) with students often identified as the only "vulnerable population" for IRB purposes. However, as practitioner research has gained more prominence, the vulnerability of teacher-researchers themselves has begun to surface. In this…

In this article, service learning is explored as a pedagogical third space from which preservice teachers learn to teach the New English education. We argue that such a space has the potential to foster preservice English teachers' understanding of their role and identity as future teachers and how this identity is always relative to the students…

In this article a team of English teachers and teacher educators reflect on both their involvement with the photovoice project Through Students' Eyes (TSE) and on the photographic and written data of their students' perspectives on school. After working with hundreds of youth involved with TSE for most of the past decade, they consider why they…

The purpose of this study was to (a) identify perceived triggering agents of student dissent in the college classroom, (b) determine common target receivers of dissent, and (c) reveal the types of dissent that students enact based on their intentional motives and construction of message content. Participants were 123 undergraduate students who…

Academic program review has become a consistent and integral part of the life of a Communication Department. Nationally, program review began as part of the assessment movement, and has taken its place as a regular feature in higher education. Program review generally has two purposes--to demonstrate program effectiveness and to serve as data for…