Reflections from our Education Editor

Holiday greetings! So many arresting and thought-provoking stories crossed the Education desk for The Conversation Canada this year. I hope I can convey how much I admire and respect the hard work and passionate engagement of our writers.

I joined The Conversation team just two months ago. I have felt honoured to spend time working with authors and editorial colleagues to consider the stories we are supporting and commissioning. I hope readers will continue reaching out and challenging the platform to be responsive, relevant and truly a source for both water-cooler chatter and enlarging points of view.

When I read “The calls from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are not suggestions. When Canadians are called, we must respond,” I knew this was a story I hoped might guide how I can approach the Education desk. This story issued a moral call that was, while addressing a government resource and policy choice, non-partisan. It was about the choice each of us faces to decide what kind of people we want to be and what kind of country we want to pass on. The photograph with the story of children in a Residential School has stayed with me.

So many of our stories have challenged me to try to listen more carefully to whose voices and stories our national “conversation” is about.

Whether we are talking about curriculum, schooling or public education, in 2019 let’s keep working at ways to be responsible in our common relationships. When we talk about education and future generations, let’s make decisions in full awareness and a resolve to change how we have inherited and benefitted from different levels of organized access to resources.

I hope we receive more research-based personal testimonies that demonstrate the commitment, courageous intelligence, and care that teachers and education researchers bring to their classrooms and communities.

For the perplexed parents and those seeking generational insights I hope researchers keep sending in both practical and surprising (shocking?) research.

Finally, if you are feeling taxed after thinking about the purpose of education, let me suggest looking at Mr. Snail and the small and big people who are intergenerationally involved in tending to relationships in his home by GabeKanang Ziibi (The Humber River in Toronto). I found it wonderful to learn more about this place.

Susannah Schmidt

Education Editor

The Year in Review: Education

Nixing plans to add Indigenous content to Ontario curriculum is a travesty

Theodore Christou, Queen's University, Ontario

Ontario's move to ignore the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to add Indigenous content to its history and social studies curriculum is foolish and dangerous.

Why there are so few Indigenous graduates at convocation

Veldon Coburn, McGill University

Wilful under-funding of Indigenous education is producing an Indigenous underclass.

Raising hope: Parenting in an anti-Black environment

Roberta K. Timothy, York University, Canada

In a climate of Trumpism, where racism and violence are daily occurrences, the need to reflect on our racialized children and our anti-racism parenting is critical -- on MLK Day and every day.

One in seven teens are ‘sexting,’ says new research

Sheri Madigan, University of Calgary; Jeff Temple, The University of Texas Medical Branch

Teen sexting is on the rise. Boys and girls are equally likely to share sexually explicit imagery but girls report feeling more pressure to sext and more judgement about how they do it.

Emotional intelligence is life and death where I’m from

Dwayne Brown, York University, Canada

Black youth need programs that develop emotional intelligence -- to combat institutional racism, social exclusion and white supremacy. The government's promised $19 million is not enough.

How I am learning to include Indigenous knowledge in the classroom

Kathleen Gallagher, University of Toronto

"What have we failed to know and at what cost?" An education professor draws upon Indigenous literature to support a personal journey into classroom decolonization.

For the sake of kids, embrace math

Andy Hargreaves, Boston College; Pasi Sahlberg, UNSW

Instead of getting "back to basics" to improve math skills, we should make math literacy a priority by developing, attracting and supporting skilled teachers, and improving math literacy at home.

Wonder and wisdom in a children’s forest nature program

Louise Zimanyi, Royal Roads University

When parents walk in the forest with their children and us and see how children are drawn to spiral snails, together we see how connections with the land are critical for the Earth's future.