Personal History:
Having lived in the Montreal area until the age of twelve and in returning to Quebec to earn a degree from McGill University, I was fortunate to have experienced early in life the educational scene and the culture of Freanch Canada as a result of spending all of my teenage years in the Newport, Rhode Island area. I am pleased to still be able to count several New Englanders as friends; and living and going to school there has developed in me an appreciation for American ways and hospitality.
Experience:
My American secondary education combined with over a quarter of a century of teaching experience in central and western Canada, when added-in with having earned post-graduate degrees in education from each side of this country (Queen's University and University of Victoria) puts me in the fortunate position of being able to draw from educational practices that are particular to each of those three areas. A personal interest in furniture-making lead me in the mid 1970's from an elementary school classroom teaching assignment into (after several summer school sessions at the University of Toronto) teaching shop courses, beginning with a few years as an Industrial Arts instructor at a Catholic junior high school near Toronto.
Life at Dover Bay
With it now being six years since my involvement in setting-up and equipping the shops here at Dover Bay and overseeing the development of our shop programs, I find myself becoming somewhat alarmed at the over-emphasis that I see in this province on the Technology Education approach to Applied Skills education. The data generated in my M.Ed thesis regarding the nature of our specialty, as well as other fairly recent observations, finds me favoring a return of emphasis to the Industrial Education approach. Specializing now almost exclusively as a woodworking instructor, I look forward to widening our general woodworking, cabinet making, and furniture-making activities to include a canoe and kayak-building loft.
Woodwork - Main Page
Technology Education - Main Page
Search