“What are you doing next year?” I have been asked this question many times over the past year. The more you answer, “I’m not sure…” the more difficult it becomes to get asked that question (just ask any grade 12 student; they will share this same feeling). But I understand those kids a little better [...]
BY KAREN VAN EGMOND, ACS PARENT I’m currently working on my Masters in Education. People ask me why, and I’m at the point where I’m asking myself that same question. Let me tell you, if it was easy, everyone would do it. In addition to the coursework, I have to come up with a project [...]
My daughter came to me last November and said, “Dad, a co-worker in the ER wants me to join CrossFit; do you want to take the three week Foundations Class with me?” “Does it involve strenuous exercise and pain?” I asked. “No, thanks.” She finished three weeks of training and couldn’t stop talking about the [...]
BY NICOLA HEIDEBRECHT, SECONDARY FRENCH TEACHER I am known to most students as “Madame H.” I’ve been the French teacher at ACS Secondary since September 2017. It’s somewhat ironic that this past fall, I was asked to submit a story for the January blog. At the time, I had no idea life would take a [...]
Last spring, my Mom was diagnosed with untreatable cancer. In that moment, our family felt a sense of sad apprehension, like storm clouds gathering in the distance on a sunny day. We suddenly had to come to grips with the fact that a part of our story with Mom was coming to an end. We [...]
BY: KOENRAAD BEUGELINK, FAITH FORMATION DIRECTOR Two days into my start at ACS these words entered my mind: “What am I doing here?” I mean why would anyone who made it out of high school want to go back to high school? Don’t get me wrong, I had a pretty good high school experience. Not [...]
My daughter phoned me a couple of years ago and said, “Dad, I bought a boat.” Awkward silence. I didn’t know what to say. She had just been married, her husband was in his last year of university, they were poor as church mice and she was halfway through her nursing degree…and she bought a [...]
The first discussion we have in the English 12 Poetry Unit is about truth. Too many people consider poetry to be something that exists on a continuum between fluff and falsehood. This drives us Humanities types batty. Many hold to the mistaken idea that a thing is true if it is factual. Poetry isn’t usually [...]
BY MEGHAN FRANKLIN, CLASS OF 2015 My younger brother (and only sibling) Evan will be graduating on Tuesday. As I’ve been watching him and his friend’s prepare for prom, exams, and the excitement of commencement over the past months, I can’t help but reflect on when I was going through those same experiences myself three [...]
I remember the tears well. It was like deep, dark rain clouds descending on a sunny day. A mom, in my office, being told we didn’t have any room at ACS in our Learning Support Services department, meaning we would not be able to enrol her son in grade 9 in the fall. The [...]
