Stephen has spent the past 25 years exploring the many dimensions of teaching in a publicly funded school system just outside of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In addition to working in the classroom environment, he has acted as a consultant in the area of technology and curriculum design/implementation, as well as an instructor in the preservice teacher education program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Stephen is passionately committed to exploring how the experience of school can reimagined for both students and teachers. For the past four years, Stephen has been working at Cardinal Newman Elementary School in Brampton, Ontario where he has spearheaded the design and implementation of arts@newman, an arts-based, integrated, approach to the grade seven and eight curriculum.
Stephen was thrilled to be named the Arts Educator of the Year for 2009 by the Rose Theatre in Brampton.
Blog Posts
Like many of you, I grew up with a one-size-fits-all approach to school. I remember clearly the few teachers that allowed me to explore things on my own terms -- and, interestingly enough, these were the school experiences that had the greatest impact on me.
Read More."The truth about stories is, that's all we are." The words of Canadian writer Thomas King have been rattling around in my brain since I first heard them nearly two years ago. Most of us have grown up with some tradition of storytelling in our families, whether it was a nightly ritual when we...
Read More.In our attempt to explore alternative ways of looking at the practice of traditional education, I am finding that it is necessary to question and actually resist some of the rituals that have become part of this place called school. I encountered one such ritual this month when we returned from...
Read More.One of the main themes that has grounded and inspired this first year of the arts@newman program at Cardinal Newman School, in Toronto, has been "stories of home."
Read More.If you're going to set out to change the way people look at this place we call school, you had better be prepared to spend a great deal of time communicating your vision, the research you've done, and your...
Read More.I'm in the middle of reading to my seventh-grade class the book Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli. Our overarching theme this year is Stories of Home, and this book seems a perfect fit.
Read More.My dad is an avid gardener, and, though the passion for planting and nurturing peonies and petunias has not rubbed off on me, I have learned from him a few things about living a richer life. One of the most important of these lessons relates to ways of approaching change.
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