Large crowds of protesters, police barricades and masked men with guns roaming streets. A house burned down killing those inside including a five-month old baby, arrests and disappearances and police road checks examining phones for any evidence of anti-government postings. Over 500 dead and 350,000 people out of work. Unfortunately, these kinds of reports are [...]
Recently, I was talking to my parents about being their child. Now raising my own kids, we were making special note of how much the world has changed in terms of how we parent, and what parameters we operate with as parents. Even during the parenting of our own children (especially if our children span many [...]
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 [...]
I have always been good at recognizing faces. When we are watching movies, my husband and I spend a lot of time wondering, “What else was she in?” and then looking people up on Wikipedia to figure it out. When I started teaching at ACS, 13 years ago, it was fun for me to go home [...]
BY LINDA GROOT, ELEMENTARY TEACHER LIBRARIAN I like to regularly highlight new titles with my library classes to help create student interest in reading. Sometimes, this can lead to interesting conversations with students: Student: “Hi, Mrs. Groot, I’m looking for a book you showed us last week.” Me (excited): “Sure! What’s it called?” Student: “I [...]
Another school year is under way. And while only a few weeks ago I was resisting the idea of my low-key summer days coming to an end and ushering in the season of routine, there is comfort and stability in predictability. As much as I miss my guys when they are gone, I was looking [...]
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 [...]
I am an admitted “neat freak” and I am okay with that. Regularly, I get razzed for how organized my office is. “You can’t be very busy because your office is always neat and clean.” The truth is, I just cannot work when there is disorganization. By the way, if you ever come into my office [...]
12 000 kms in 30 days. Seeing pandas and penguins at the Calgary Zoo (the penguins were much more interesting), stopping at the geographical center of North America (unplanned) and the longitudinal center of Canada (planned), kayaking and tubing down lazy rivers in North Michigan, getting much closer to the foot of Niagara Falls than [...]
