youth

What a privilege to have this treasure of sound right in my own living room! My good friend Michelle Pegg came over for a visit yesterday, and granted my wish for music. She brought her Mendelssohn sheet music and played while I leaned back on the couch and drank in the beauty of it....

It seems like an increasing number of people – like me – are taking an alternative approach to their kids’ education. My son was so unhappy in regular school that I pulled him out in Grade 3 and started in the SelfDesign program. Other families start off right away with home schooling or “unschooling”...

The staff and students of this East Vancouver school are working in portables in the field. Construction trailers line the street. Police and parents are monitoring traffic and there is a “walking school bus” program for families to drop their kids at a nearby high school. This is one of eight seismic upgrade projects...

Update: Mar. 7, 2010 – Due to concerns re: permission to use Jeff’s image for this poster, Jesi asked me to remove the image. A redesign is in the works… Emily Carr design student Jesi Carson had a school project to create a poster commenting on an issue facing Vancouver. She emailed me last...

This mural is one of the many great pieces of public art to enjoy in out city. It’s on Commercial Drive and East 5th Avenue, beside Cafe Deux Soleils. My son was intrigued with the artist who painted it and he asked lots of questions, as usual. That’s how he learned about Montana Spray...

Health officials in Nunavut are giving flavoured and coloured condoms to youth in a campaign to prevent the rise in sexually transmitted infections, according to a CBC story from Feb. 12

Have you ever noticed how many people hate writing? They dread the task and try to avoid it at all costs – and recently I gained some new insight into why they may feel this way. Writer and teacher Susan Wise Bauer describes writing as a two-part process: 1) Putting the idea into words...

Today I did a story jam with 12 young people at the Purple Thistle Centre in Vancouver. It was a Sunday afternoon workshop at the YoungGunz program for 11 to 15-year-olds – and our “story jam” exercise got everyone focused on writing together. Each week a different mentor comes to lead workshops on photography,...