by Jennifer Johnson   Resilience is a topic we hear a lot about these days, and we all have a general understanding of what it is – but how do we teach it to young people? We intuitively know how significant resilience is when it comes to overall well-being and success in life – but...Read More

by Stephanie Zantingh As IB educators, we continually seek curricula that support our mission to cultivate self-awareness and empathy in students, developing attributes such as care for others, open-mindedness, reflective thinking, risk-taking, and the pursuit of balance. These attributes of the IB Learner Profile, developed in students through the explicit teaching of skills, are essential...Read More

By Mike Anderson As both an elementary school principal and a U17 Girls’ Basketball Coach, I know how important it is for youth to face challenges in positive environments, outside of the traditional school setting.  It gives young people an opportunity to be mentored in a focused way, and it expands their identity and community....Read More

by BRIGHT LIGHT Paul Dwyer   Teaching Students to Be Genuine in Disingenuous Times   Students’ Lens on Reality I am fascinated by how much information we are exposed to each day. Studies say it averages 100GB every day which is the equivalent of watching the entire series of Stranger Things. By contrast, teachers grew...Read More

by BRIGHT LIGHT Melissa Brown   The education system has long been seen as the antidote to society’s ills and a mechanism for change. Fast-forward to 2024, and the pace of change is leaving schools as we know them in the dust. Consequently, individual teachers can feel uncertain about how to navigate the day-to-day. Despite...Read More

by BRIGHT LIGHT Brenda Carbery-Tang Teens these days are feeling disconnected from the world around them. They spend much of their time online passively observing, in snippets and soundbites, a world where people don’t seem to care or take care of each other. Young people show up to the classroom wearing hard outer protective shells...Read More

by Jennifer Johnson B.A., B.Ed., M.A There have long been whispers in the halls that the education system needs to change and the multi-faceted set of well-being, social, and academic challenges that have resulted from the conditions surrounding a global pandemic have turned those whispers into an undeniable call for change. As one educator who...Read More

by James Darling   Being the Director of Character and Leadership Development at Holy Trinity School in Richmond Hill, Ontario Canada is my dream job because I get to hang out in the classrooms and in the hallways and think about how we can develop better leadership, character, and values in our students. But the...Read More