James Cook: Equity and social justice teaching opens up world to students

Year: 2020 — Province: Ontario
Certificate of Achievement Recipient

Brooklin High School
History, social justice and human rights, grades 10 to 12
Brooklin, Ontario

When my class leaves high school to embark on further prospects, we will remember every life lesson learned in Mr. Cook's class. We will also remember the way he made us feel — valued, heard, and empowered.

nominator

James Cook inspires at-risk teenagers and keen students alike to not only learn about the world but also to advocate for change. He introduces them to leaders—everyone from United Nations employees to Canada's chief electoral officer—both as guest speakers and as resources they can interview for projects. Students and teachers comment that James has made them better people.

Teaching approach

In the equity and social justice course he created, James allows students to choose research topics that engage them, such as climate change, pay equity, mental health and electoral reform. He helps them assess information sources with a critical eye, looking for possible biases and misdirection.

In the classroom

  • Facilitates class community-building circles: at least once a week, students discuss nuanced social issues, complex curriculum concepts, short stories, and values, all helping them develop empathy, communication skills and collaboration techniques.
  • Creates unusual exams: Grade 10 history exams ask students to trace the origin of a current issue (such as the Indigenous water crisis) and explain its significance using skills learned in class, rather than simply asking them to repeat memorized information.
  • Gives students flexibility: provides timeframes rather than hard deadlines for projects; students comment that this reduces their stress and makes them feel empowered.
  • Connects with students on multiple levels: coaches soccer and baseball; runs the school newspaper; chairs the Literacy Committee; outside class hours, students often discuss career plans, problems with friends or other personal issues with him; one student wrote, "Our class has become like a family."

Outstanding achievements

  • Runs school's Model United Nations: school's team has won multiple awards; a shy student who had never participated in extra-curricular activities became a more confident public speaker; another student says he is now more aware of world events and injustice.
  • Builds capacity among fellow teachers: created board-wide workshops on professional resiliency and on helping students use social media; collaborated with the other teachers in his department to develop new ways to assess students on skills acquired rather than simply facts learned.
  • Introduced completely online, open-book exams, the first head of a Canadian and world studies department in his school board to do so.

Get in touch!

Brooklin High School
20 Carnwith Drive West
Brooklin ON  L1M 0K7

905-655-2015
BrooklinHS@ddsb.ca
https://brooklinhs.ddsb.ca/