Published Works

BACK TO SCHOOL: Why I use the city as a classroom

At this time of year, the signs abound. Colourful backpack displays have replaced the Slip-N-Slide demo at Walmart. And if you listened closely last week, you could hear the faint rumble of desks being rearranged in classrooms that will, beginning today, be jammed with young, spongy minds.

Like thousands of other educators, I will take my place at the front of one of those classrooms and play my part in the time-honoured tradition of teaching and learning. Many assume that the role of the student is to passively absorb one version or another of a formal education. However, if you’re like me, this approach falls dramatically short of making the grade. That’s why it is so critical for educators to fashion learning experiences that extend beyond the sterile classroom and out into the streets, where critical minds will wrestle with the detritus of conflict and change.

Last year, me and my class did just that…

How I Came Out to My Class of 12-Year-Olds

Huffington Post | March 24, 2014

Out Proud/Breakwater Books | June 1, 2014

Out of a class of 25, seven and a half hands shot up while everyone else stared at me with wide, earnest eyes suggesting a Benjamin-Button-like reversal of the puberty process. It was near the end of the period and I had an unusual problem for a middle school teacher. A first, in a 16-year career in public education: a class full of engaged 12 and 13-year-olds oblivious to the beckoning dismissal bell because they had just put all the clues together and learned that their teacher is gay…

Janaya Khan, Black Lives Matter Toronto Co-Founder, On Racism And Self-Care

Article by David Lewis-Peart

Photos: Laurie Townshend

Huffington Post | April 5, 2016