I am jarred awake between 2:00 and 3:00 am each morning. There is a feeling that lingers and it dissipates as I try to understand it — like a dream. I am trying to hold on to but rather than wanting to hold on; I am desperate to understand it. It could be any number of things — the angst that surrounds us now, the unknown, the fear, the illness, the loss — it is pervasive. But this morning, it holds on a little longer than usual and finally, there is clarity. It is my father. I am losing him.

…

Today mommy asked me to listen to this song. As you slept in the background, mommy and I listened to the song and cried together because although we have our memories, you are losing yours and no matter how hard we try to bring you back, we see you fading before us.

Each time mommy would rouse you and you would say hello to me. She must have tried to wake you up four or five times in the space of one short call. As soon as mom and I engaged in conversation, you would fall asleep. It reminded…

When I was a relatively new teacher, I worked in a school, well more specifically in a portable, where 80% of my students were English Language Learners. They, in many cases, spoke multiple languages. At the time, I was completing my Masters of Education and the focus of my thesis was to modify the curriculum for these students…not modify in the special education sense where they have reduced or altered expectations, but modify in the way that we now call Culturally Relevant and Responsive Pedagogy. This was in 1996. As a new teacher, I didn’t necessarily have the language to…

The Posturing and Performance of Antiracism Work

I graduated from the Faculty of Education at York University in 1994. I applied to the program three times before acceptance. For someone who had wanted to be a teacher my entire life, I didn’t know what to do to get noticed, stand apart and be seen. Friends of mine all seemed to be getting into the Faculty and for many, it was a, “well I don’t know what to do so I may as well” kind of thinking. For me, I knew it was my purpose.

After three attempts, I finally got into York. I graduated top of…

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” ~Bruce Lee

As a child I would swim…