Sep 275 Qualities of a Good TeacherNot all teachers are created equal. Depending on how you look at it, this is either a good or a bad thing. For me, it sits somewhere in between. Students should experience a variety of teaching personalities. They should learn from adults with differing worldviews, opinions, objectives, and ideas about…Education5 min readEducation5 min read
Sep 21Teaching is an ActThis new role that I am taking on this school year has caused me to do a lot of thinking. In past years I’ve spent the last bits of summer considering fresh activities that will engage my incoming students. …Eduucation2 min readEduucation2 min read
Sep 18Zen and the Art of Driver’s EdThis should in no way be connected to that great body of factual information connected to the art of Zen. It is not very factual on Driver’s Ed practice, either. This is actually about teaching. The first time I drove a car I was 12 years old. My father travelled to Jamaica for his father’s…Education4 min readEducation4 min read
Aug 7Immigrant WordsWhat does it mean to be a Black man with an immigrant father and a white mother raised on Indigenous land? I’ve asked myself this without letting the question resonate with me. My fears of using the word immigrant when describing my father felt fake. But it’s true by meaning. My dad came to Canada when he was sixteen or eighteen or twenty, somewhere around there, and I didn’t care to…Anti Racism3 min readAnti Racism3 min read
Oct 19, 2022Media Literacy: I’m Still Stuck on Selfies“They could care less about the Z pattern in paper ads. Now they all wanted to know if their teacher had a Facebook. Maybe, I thought, I should have just brought newspapers.” I had no clue how to teach Media Literacy to middle schoolers so I started with something I…Education4 min readEducation4 min read
Sep 20, 2022Who Am I?I was walking home after school one day in grade twelve and felt like I was doing everything wrong. Another football season without a championship or an MVP or any local recognition just finished. Again. More importantly, another season without any interest from division one college programs. Plus the batteries…Black Men3 min readBlack Men3 min read
Aug 24, 2022Those Last Three YearsTeaching through a pandemic makes no one a better educator. It may have made some more resourceful, more attuned to the social and emotional needs of human beings, more thoughtful about their pedagogy. But a better teacher? Those last three years could not have done that. In order to teach…Education3 min readEducation3 min read
May 30, 2022I’m Getting Used To ThisAll year, I had trouble getting used to this again. Every school day felt like a winter Monday — tired before the day even started and empty by the time you returned home. As the seasons changed, I used external sources to keep me propelling forward. Shooting hoops after school…Education2 min readEducation2 min read
May 16, 2022Survive And AdvanceYou would think I would be so used to the sound of my morning alarm that it would no longer be able to jolt me out of my sleep. But it still does. You would think that because I’d awaken at the same time so many weekdays and weeks in…Teaching2 min readTeaching2 min read
May 3, 2022An Ode to Hip HopThe hip hop albums I’ve listened to, from Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle to Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly, have taught me more valuable life lessons and offered more insight into my world than any education I received in school. In school, I learned other things — learned how to read, write…Hip Hop4 min readHip Hop4 min read
