Individualism Run Amok
Betsy DeVos would be thrilled to have a [school] system like yours,” says Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, about Alberta. Donald Trump’s secretary of [...]
Education
Education
Meet the Minister: David Eggen
AV: You’re one of only two remaining MLAs from the Klein era. Yeah, I’ve actually seen six premiers. From 2004 until 2015 was quite an unstable government situation. They were changing ministers [...]
By Evan Osenton
Meet the Minister: Marlin Schmidt
AV: What do you see as the purpose of post-secondary education? It serves two purposes. The first is to create well-educated citizens who are prepared to engage in public discourse and [...]
By Evan Osenton
On Track to Graduate
If you come on this side,” says Keyshaun Mountain Horse, “one of our students drew a design to intimidate our opponents.” The profile of a skull wearing a feather headdress is drawn in black felt [...]
By Doug Horner
Freedom and Loathing in Lethbridge
On a fall afternoon in 2016, Michael Mahon, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Lethbridge, sat in his office and pondered, once again, what to do about Anthony Hall. Hall is a [...]
Head Bangers
Tristan Rice didn’t remember the hit. He didn’t remember much of the rest of the game either, only that sometime in the third quarter one of his fellow offensive linemen asked him, “What the hell [...]
Beyond Belief
Dianne Macaulay sits at a picnic table in front of the brand new, $42-million St. Joseph’s Catholic High School at the northeastern edge of Red Deer. Across the road, new tracts of suburban [...]
300 Kids Create an Opera
The argument started over a game of kickball on the school playground. Two popular kids, Nick and Laura, were declared captains and took turns choosing players. When the teams were complete, the [...]
University Debased
University of Calgary president Elizabeth Cannon seemed troubled in 2012 at delays in implementing her school’s new collaboration with Enbridge. A year had passed since the energy giant had [...]
By James Turk
The Quiet Revolution
Mindfulness training, the practice of being present in this moment without judging how you feel, is a new revolution in education. It’s already mainstream in schools in Vancouver, San Francisco [...]
By Judy Aldous
MOST READ
MOST READ
Kenney VS. Campgrounds
I hear children giggling, wood being chopped and wind blowing through towering lodgepole pines as I use the back of a hatchet to tap my tent stakes into the soft, pine-needle-covered earth. It’s a warm Friday in mid-August, and I’ll spend the evening around a campfire before tucking myself into ...
Should Churches be Tax Exempt?
Karen Kerr, the president of Edmonton Atheists and co-founder of Alberta Secular Conference says no.
In Canada many charities and other non-profits, including churches and religious groups, are tax-exempt if they are deemed to create public benefit. The exemption is premised on the idea that they provide a public good. However ...
Pension Folly
In 1965, Quebec, eager to be master in its own house, decided it wanted to have its own pension plan and not be part of the new Canada Pension Plan. Quebec’s population was younger than the Canadian average, and the province had a high birth rate. The province believed its ...