This year’s Sears

By UTS teacher Catherine Hannon and students Aylin Manduric and Alexandra Pittini

The Sears Ontario Drama Festival (http://searsdramafestival.com/) brings together students, teachers, theatre professionals, and community members to view, discuss, critique and enjoy each other’s unique drama work. For the UTS contribution to the festival, the direction, performance, and technical support is student-led under the able oversight of drama teacher, Ms Catherine Hannon. Our entry this year was Clash of the Partners, an original play written by our student, Zoë Norman. Ms Hannon points out that, “We’ve had original student-written entries for the last 3 years and these scripts have all won awards and I’m proud of that .”

Below, this year’s student directors, Aylin Manduric and Alexandra Pittini, reflect on the experience:

The first amazing thing about our experience with Sears is the difficulty we had in choosing a play. We had some great student-written plays to choose from. Ultimately we selected Zoë Norman’s, an excellent work made even more impressive when you consider it is her first attempt at play-writing.

From October until March we rehearsed after school and sometimes on weekends with our talented cast. We were also lucky to find a great crew to help with all the technical requirements of putting on a play. Then, on March 5, we travelled to Dante Alighieri Catholic Academy and put on our show in front of the packed audience. Hearing the audience’s response to our play from backstage was one of the most rewarding parts of being a director.

After March break, for the first time, there was a regional awards show held at Loretto College. UTS was very successful at the awards ceremony, with Duncan Steele receiving an award of merit for his acting and Zoë receiving both an excellence for writing writing award and the prestigious B.J. Castleman award for writing. We were very proud of everyone and would like to thank the cast and crew, as well as Ms. Hannon for contributing to Sears this year.

Catherine Hannon adds: Our writer, directors, actors and crew worked hard and overcame a number of interesting creative problems, collaborating very well on all aspects of the production. Congratulations to all Sears Players on a great year! Planning for next year is already underway and we’ll have a meeting in late May or June to begin organizing for next year’s entry.

Exceptional Engagement

By Principal Rosemary Evans

At UTS, staff and students are fully engaged in the life of the school, both within the classroom and in the co-curricular program. Many schools would make such a claim. Understanding the significance and uniqueness of this engagement at UTS, however, is critical to ascertaining what differentiates and defines our school.  Student initiative and leadership – bolstered by staff support and guidance – is a key component to many UTS undertakings. A brief overview (not exhaustive!) of the vast range of activities that took place over the last two weeks or so captures this exceptional degree of engagement.

UTS often acts as a hub, providing exciting learning opportunities for other public and independent schools. The student-organized and facilitated SOMA (Southern Ontario Model United Nations), is a case in point. Held on the University of Toronto campus, it attracted over 475 students. UTS also hosted 100 students from approximately 20 schools for the Toronto regional chess championships.  In addition, there was the Euclid math competition, the Chemistry Olympiad and our well attended University Information evening featuring S6 (Gr.12) students as speakers. This past weekend, UTS again hosted the regional Reach for the Top championships (and in May will host the nationals),  and we also held our annual Lauren Bialystok Debating Tournament organized by the Debate Society.

Further afield, the Washington DC trip allowed American history students to explore the US capital region, a highlight of which was being in Congress during the gun control vote. Some 30 students and five staff visited New York City for an integrated arts trip and an alumni reception; and ten students and two staff spent a week at our partner school, Pelican Falls High School in Sioux Lookout, ON for the second stage of our exchange with this First Nation’s residential school.  In addition, staff and more than 30 students traveled to the DECA Internationals in Anaheim, California.

Music provides just one of the many opportunities our students have to flex their creative muscles. Both staff and students displayed their musical talent at Battle of the Bands. Meanwhile, other music students are busily practicing for our upcoming Music Nights and our visual artists are gearing up for our Annual Art Exhibition. Of course student athletes are also preparing for spring competition. Student passion for issues is also a defining attribute of the school and our students excelled in the Metro-wideEnvirothon – a team competition “that rewards students for learning about the natural world around them.”

Student initiative, organization, creativity and passion: just some of the characteristics that differentiate and define UTS. Of course, an engaged student body requires like-minded and ‘like-actioned’ staff. Our students are lucky to have just such a staff.  We are indeed a fortunate community.

Striving to Become an “Eco School”

The UTS Sustainability and Environmental Action Committee (USEAC) is preparing UTS to undergo the process required to be recognized as an Ontario EcoSchool.

By Oriane Edwards, S5 (Grade 11), USEAC President and Outreach Coordinator

Over the past few years, the buzzword “global citizenship” has been used frequently and liberally to apply to a number of ideas and events initiated by the changes in the UTS mission and vision statements. For the most part, the term has been defined as a modern, technological, and insightful approach to world issues using integrative thinking and social sensitivity. While this definition covers most of the key characteristics of global leadership, it often can neglect the things that, in my opinion, constitute the most important aspects of all kinds of citizenship: a responsibility and commitment to the future that extends past awareness and education. It’s about time UTS stepped up to the plate and tackled a global issue through direct action.

To build on this facet of global responsibility and encourage more direct action, our newly-formed Sustainability & Environmental Action Committee (USEAC) has introduced the EcoSchools initiative to UTS. EcoSchools is an “awareness and certification program” designed to encourage environmental practices and ecological literacy and is scored into three levels of certification. This year, we hope to obtain Bronze Level Certification, and move upwards from there.

Ideally, in an EcoSchool, students can learn and interact using approaches, habits, and technologies that are eco-friendly. So far, the committee has been responsible for the double-sided printers that are now commonplace throughout the school, and for the planting of a new tree in the Huron Street garden. That being said, the whole community will have to become more involved and active if we are to become a successfully certified school.

The support of staff, students, and parents on our journey to EcoSchool-dom will be very helpful and greatly appreciated. More information on how members of the UTS community can become more involved will be available soon. We would be very grateful for your support and encouragement, and if you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please feel free to email me, at oriane.edwards@utschools.ca.

 

Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UTS

By Principal Rosemary Evans

Our students are achieving great things as young entrepreneurs and innovators. As 31 students prepare for the DECA International competitions in California, it’s illuminating to review the many spheres in which UTS students display their capacity for leadership and originality.

This year I received a notice from the Shad Valley Program. Shad’s mission is “to provide a transformational experience that unleashes the entrepreneurial and innovative potential of exceptional youth”. Successful applicants spend four weeks on one of 12 university campuses across Canada working in teams, to tackle real-world challenges, develop a business plan and engage in volunteer work. Shad recently published a list of their “Top 20 Schools” – the schools that have had more students selected for Shad than any other. UTS ranked first on this list with 241 Shad graduates since 1981. The next school, a public high school in Calgary, has sent 147 students to the program.

Another forum for original research is the Sanofi BioGENEius (“Biotech”) Challenge – celebrating 20 years of engaging students in primary, cutting-edge scientific research. UTS has been involved since its inception. Last week at the Toronto competition, our students not only captured the Commercialization and Genomics awards, they won four out of five top prizes. Building on her success at Biotech, Lauren Chan won gold at the Toronto Science Fair this weekend for her research into identifying and verifying a signalling system that can be developed as a therapy for the early stages of diabetes. In addition, she went on to earn 4th place at the Sanofi Nationals this week in Ottawa. Also this past weekend, a UTS student was accepted to attend the prestigious McKinsey Youth Leadership Forum which engages students in creative leadership challenges. Finally, during March break, MaRS again hosted its Future Leaders Boot Camp. Six UTS students attended and two won first prize – a financial investment in their innovative hair brush design.

Economists predict that small businesses started by entrepreneurs will provide the engine for future economic growth. With successes like these, UTS students are destined to be at the forefront of innovation and economic leadership nationally and globally.

MOOCs

By Principal Rosemary Evans

In the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to experience a MOOC (massive open online course), offered through Coursera (www.coursera.org). Coursera has partnered with 62 universities to offer a wide range of courses: everything from Stanford University ‘s “Democratic Development” through to UofT’s “Statistics: Making Sense of Data”. Courses span a range of disciplines from the humanities and arts to business, science and medicine. The courses are taught by excellent faculty and are designed so that students can learn at their own pace, test themselves to ensure mastery of the major concepts, and interact with a global community of learners. Some courses enrol over 100,000 students.

My course, “Aboriginal Worldviews and Education,” is offered by University of Toronto OISE’s Professor Jean-Paul Restoule and requires six to eight hours of engagement per week. The course community is incredibly diverse representing a range of geographic backgrounds, ages and perspectives. The course – which explores the characteristics and sources of knowledge, the impact of stereotypes, and the devastation caused by the residential school system – introduces the participant to a wealth of resources, and the discussion forum reflects a multiplicity of viewpoints. As UTS prepares for our second exchange with Pelican Falls High School, this course is proving invaluable.

Another distributor of MOOCs is EdX founded by Harvard and MIT. EdX courses are also freely available (www.edx.org/courses). The impact of MOOCS on education is certainly creating a great deal of speculation. A fascinating assessment of the changes occurring in higher education has just been released and is entitled An Avalanche is Coming.

Educators’ Integrative Thinking Conference

By Principal Rosemary Evans

On February 15, seven UTS faculty members attended the Integrative Thinking Conference at the Rotman School of Management. The conference was organized by Rotman’s I-Think team specifically for educators. Teachers and school administrators from across the province were in attendance. The conference introduced the participants to the power of integrative thinking for tackling “wicked” or complex problems. Integrative Thinking is defined as “an approach to creative problem solving [which] at core, it is about making better choices when facing challenges that have no right answer.” Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management, has argued that introducing Integrative Thinking to elementary and secondary school students is an important initiative of Rotman. To wait until students reach university is perhaps too late to learn these skills.

During the conference we learned strategies for approaching problems to avoid the “either/or” choices so often implicit in the ambiguous issues with which people are often faced. Rather than resorting to tradeoffs, we were taught explicit tactics to help us to understand the human proclivity for developing models or paradigms, the need to question our assumptions related to these mental models, and how to move toward solutions which integrate the most promising attributes of each model.

UTS teacher, Christopher Federico, Department Coordinator for Canadian and World Studies, is seconded part-time to Rotman’s I-Think team. He is developing his expertise with integrative thinking and presented at the conference. I was invited to be a panelist to discuss integrative thinking in the context of current educational trends and issues. Other panelists included, Manon Gardner, Chief Academic Officer of the Toronto District School Board; Dominic Randolph, Principal of Riverdale Country Day School outside of New York City; and Geraldine Mabin, founder of the Mabin School. The panel concluded that developing the skills and mindset for tackling complex issues is one of the most important expectations for today. When coupled with a willingness to take risks, empathy perseverance and confidence, our young people will be well positioned for the future.

Tackling bullying

By Principal Rosemary Evans

Recent news accounts have highlighted the destructive impact of bullying. Unfortunately, some degree of bullying is present in all schools. Professor Faye Mishna, Dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, is an expert on bullying. Professor Mishna explains that bullying is “a way for people to assert or get power over others.” She has identified two types of bullying: direct and indirect. Direct bullying involves verbal insults and physical intimidation. Indirect bullying takes the form of exclusion, rumours and gossip. Both forms of bullying are hurtful and damaging. Tackling bullying must involve the entire school community including students, staff and parents. It is essential that staff members are aware of what bullying looks like and sounds like and are prepared to intervene to stop it. In addition, it is important that students recognize that bullying is unacceptable and feel supported to speak up and report it – both in cases in which they are directly involved and also when they witness bullying happening to others. Many students feel that it is wrong to “tell on others”. We need to encourage students to recognize that reporting bullying is not getting someone in trouble but rather an important responsibility of all community members. As part of our focus on Equity and Inclusion, UTS is exploring strategies that will proactively address bullying. We are developing a whole-school initiative to safeguard an inclusive community where all members feel safe and can flourish.

Global Ideas: UTS Students Lend their Voices to UN Climate Change Conference

UTS is a school that encourages students to voice their views. Our students are interested in global issues and want to make a difference. Over the past few weeks our students have worked – via video-conference among other modalities – with other schools across Canada to draft a submission to be presented at the current United Nation s’ Conference on Climate Change “Cop 18″, being held in Doha, Qatar. Below is the section of the Canadian youth submission written and presented by UTS students committed to mitigating the impact of the human induced green house effect.

CRITICAL QUESTION #1:

What actions should be expected both from the youth of Canada and the government of Canada in order to reduce carbon emissions or to meet targets for international agreements on climate change?

The youth of Canada recommend the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, funding for green research and technology, and public awareness and education to be handled by the government. To tackle these issues, the youth recommend that government;

1. Set attainable greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in both the short and long term for the nation.

2. Create a national climate change fund to ensure continuous technological advances, with the goal of becoming a leading nation in green industries.

3. Implement a national awareness campaign on the topic of climate change.

New targets could be met by subsidizing green technology or by setting stricter regulations on agriculture, deforestation, strip mining, industrial factories, and motor vehicles’ efficiency. Provincial governments could also implement a carbon tax, with approximately 25% of the revenue being put into a national climate change fund and the remainder being used to lower existing taxes. To create incentives to reduce emissions, the industrial sector could be given a five year grace period before the tax is implemented, with promises of GHG reductions, so that the money and overhead that would be associated with the tax goes into the reduction of GHG emissions and the implementation of new green technologies.

This fund, created using the revenue from the carbon tax, could go towards research in, and implementation of, green infrastructure and technology. This could include encouraging the production of energy-efficient consumer goods, investing in renewable energy, and encouraging retrofitting. Similarly, provincial and municipal governments could invest in green technology such as biofuel, and increased efficiency vehicles. They could also promote eco-friendly practices by helping to expanding public transport systems and by promoting the creation of high-occupancy vehicle lanes.

Provincial education programs could be introduced throughout the nation to excite and engage students through the use of various media such as social networks, radio, television and print media. This campaign should target Canadians of all ages, should promote environmentally friendly practices, and should dispel the notion that climate change is not primarily anthropogenic.

Furthermore, we believe that the youth of Canada could;

  • Minimize individual carbon footprints. To do this, youth could choose alternative, sustainable methods of transportation, get involved in youth environmental networks of various scales, monitor and reduce household electricity/heat use.
  • Unify to pressure all three levels of government into taking action and implementing legislation, while pushing for representation in governmental dialogue concerning the environment; and
  • Spread awareness on the topic of climate change. This can be achieved on an individual level, by adjusting one’s actions and encouraging others, such as peers, family, and friends, to do the same. Collectively, this can be achieved by attracting media attention, joining youth groups and raising awareness through social media.

The World is As Big As We Make It

Members of the Class of 2012 gathered on November 3, 2012 for their Graduation Ceremony. Here we share the three valedictory addresses.

Rein Otsason:

It’s strange to leave the place that you inhabited for the most formative years of your life, stranger to come back, and strangest still to realise that this place that was once home will never be so again. Yet we must say good bye, and this is the final farewell.

And good riddance, I say! To be so tied up with the emotions of a place can scarcely be called a good thing. Whether or not I enjoyed my time here, and for the record, I loved it, is besides the point. We now have a chance to reform ourselves, and I believe we must take it. Can one be free when the mind is so obsessed and controlled by another group of people, whether or not that group is anything but a passive tyrant? Finally separating from each other, we have a chance to start anew.

And so I want you to go out and think about your lives honestly. Coming from UTS, I think that we have inherited a common affliction of caring far too much about marks and not enough about learning. This school has taught us, probably better than any other could, the skills that we need to survive in university. But at the same time we have become obsessed with something secondary to the real purpose of education.

High school, university, and whatever you end up doing in life is not about getting marks or some similarly empty indicator. It’s about acquiring knowledge, or actually doing things. And when we forget that, everything becomes more difficult. I’ve seen people spend hours memorizing equations and tricks in order to pass tests instead of trying to honestly understand the material. And it would be comical if it wasn’t so sad how unprepared that leaves one for the real world. The real world doesn’t care about marks: you weren’t admitted to university because you got good grades, you were admitted because the university thought your good marks reflected your knowledge and intelligence.

More fundamentally, I think we pay too much attention to the immediate and incidental concerns of our lives. We seem to judge the quality of our lives by whether or not we have a test this week, which strikes me, when I think on it, as bizarre in the extreme.

The problem is a lack of perspective. Things just happen sometimes, yet each misfortune is considered an injustice directed against your person.  Each day, take all of the things that have angered, saddened, or pained you. Every one of those things could have two sources. Either it is an act of nature, in which case it is beyond your control, or it is an act of another person, in which case it is the act of a person who is similarly trying to deal with the misfortunes of nature.

So the key point is to examine beyond the surface, in both academics and in your life. Look to reality, not appearances. And when things seem really bad, roll with it, because all the things that happen aren’t going to stop happening because you’re unhappy. They’ll probably only happen more. So go out, and when life gives you lemons, make grape juice, and make them wonder how you did it.

Frank Li:

Fellow students, parents and faculty,

They say UTS never ends. Two months into university and I can see how that’s true. As I savour my instant noodles in front of my computer, Sal would suddenly come over and freeload off my large stash of Asian food. Other times, I just can’t resist those urges to open Firstclass, only to realize how I no longer have any ads to forward.

But the fact that we’ve left this place since June suggests that some things must be different. I’m guessing our Circadian rhythms are messed up and we’ve probably spent more time helping others with their homework than we have with ours. Chances are we met new people from diverse backgrounds and learned some sort of math or science this first semester. All this happened in the vastness of the world out there, where there is an endless reservoir of knowledge to be absorbed and interests to explore. And as we continue to take our steps in a new environment, we may slowly acknowledge how UTS gave us our steady footing.

For the past six years, the UTS community has been supporting us in every way. It gave us the motivation to work harder, especially when we considered our math homework to be generous treats from Mr. Wilson.  The community provided us with opportunities to explore our interests with all those other curious minds back in F1. You play ping pong? I play ping pong too. Cool, let’s be friends. Then, as we matured, we began singing our own version of Twelve Days of Christmas. I’ll always appreciate UTS teachers’ understanding that we have countless extracurricular commitments and I’ll always remember how heartfelt we were while signing the last of six Twigs. No matter where we go or what paths we head down, it’s these memories that will withstand the weather of time. It still makes me smile whenever I think about all those faces we put up in the middle of the night and how after getting practically no sleep, we got up and pretended everything was perfectly normal in time for final assembly. So yeah, with these memories, UTS never really ends.

Class of 2012, I’m glad we finished this journey together. Now, we definitely have a story to tell that will make other university students so jealous and one that will convince our parents their investment has been every bit worthwhile. UTS built our foundation and gave us inspiration to explore – now it’s up to us to decide what to do with that. There is much to be discovered in this world – whether they are interests, cultures, or the application of ideas. Although the world is a big place, UTS showed us that it’s as big as we make it to be. I can certainly attest to the fact that our entire experience here has been worth much more than the diplomas we received today, and university should really be approached no differently. So with that, thanks for six incredible years and good luck. Know that you have the support of each and every one of us here.

 

William Tang:

Hello everyone, it’s nice to see you all again. I know some of you were able to meet up for Canadian Thanksgiving but I think it’s been about 5 months since we’ve all been together as a class. I’m thinking back to grade trip, final assembly, and grad prank, and to be quite honest, they seem like they happened so far in the past. The switch to university life has been a drastic one for me, as I am sure it has been for everyone, and I’ve still yet to fully adjust. So much is different about life at university. You’re in a new environment, away from your family, away from many of your old friends, in a place where the people, activities, and physical settings are different. It’s a life that is often very distant from the one we knew in high school. And the further you immerse yourself in it, the more difficult it becomes to keep connected with your old one.

It makes sense then that it will require more effort to keep in touch with people you don’t see in the halls every week, or keep yourself involved with an institution that you’re not actively a part of everyday. It becomes easy to forget something that has had such an importance in shaping you, when you are separated from it for so long. Time dulls the memory, and what mattered the most to us before will naturally lose its influence if we aren’t reminded of it every now and then. It’s a good thing then that our school decides to be abnormal by holding its graduation ceremony five months after every other school because it gives us an excuse to get back together and remind ourselves of the lives we left at the outset of our summers.

There are so many amazing people at university that I’m glad to have become friends with but, at the same time, I can’t help thinking that it’s just not the same as UTS. That’s not to say it’s any worse but that it’s just not the same. And the reason it’s not the same is because they haven’t experienced the same things that we have. They don’t have a single clue about what Wanakita, Ahmek, and Kilcoo are like. They’ve never sat in the sand during House Island Day and cheered on as their friends played volleyball. They’ve never painted their faces at House Track Meet and taken an unnecessary number of pictures. They’ve never known the joy of sitting through House Lip Sync and being able to watch Michael and Andres dance to LMFAO. They weren’t at our school dances, our semis, or our formal. They weren’t there for the hours and hours we spent hanging out in the hallway, rec room, or S6 commons. They weren’t there after Show when we were all screaming “2012”, or at grade trip when we were all having dangerous amounts of fun. For god’s sake, they don’t even know what F1 means. They don’t, and never will, know what your six years at UTS have been like, but the people here today do.

A person is nothing but a collection of their experiences. While your friends in university will also someday become very important people in your life, your friends here today are the people you’ve shared those six years of high school with. Regardless of what happens or where you go in the future, this group of people is one you will always have a special connection with. And that’s what we’re here to celebrate today: the special connection we’ve forged as a result of growing up together. It’s been quite a journey but today we formally and finally graduate as the Class of 2012. In a few days we’ll all be heading off again in different directions but I hope it will be with a renewed and lasting memory of our time at UTS. Congratulations Class of 2012. Thank you for making wonderful those six years of my life and may we always keep in touch.

Design Thinking

By Rosemary Evans, Principal

Design thinking refers to an approach for investigating ill-defined or tricky problems. A creative process which employs design and planning concepts to tackle problems, it originally emerged from disciplines such as engineering, architecture and urban planning and is a relatively new area in education.

One unique attribute of this approach is that it starts with developing empathy for those affected by the problem, in order to truly understand a problem from multiple perspectives.   Another unique feature is that a variety of creative strategies are then employed to generate new ideas and possible solutions. Finally, it requires rational analysis to ensure that the solutions arrived at actually make a difference to the particular problem at hand.  These stages allow a problem to be framed constructively so that the right questions can be asked, more ideas created, and the best answers chosen. In addition, since the process is inherently non-judgemental, and since outside-the box-thinking is encouraged, fear of failure is minimized resulting in maximum input and participation.

At Stanford University‘s “d-School”, design thinking is specifically applied to K-12 education.  The synergy between design thinking and education is captured in the following quote. “Design thinking is an orientation to learning that encompasses active problem solving and marshalling one’s ability to create meaningful change. It builds on the development of creative confidence that is both resilient and highly optimistic.” [http://www.stanford.edu/group/redlab/cgi-bin/

Educators have gravitated to design thinking since it provides a new lens through which to approach problem-solving. Using this approach – both within disciplines and across disciplines – students have new tools with which to identify and tackle significant real world problems, and also to discover that they can develop ideas that make a difference.  At UTS, some teachers are exploring the power of design thinking: from interdisciplinary arts to biology to economics, design thinking is providing new and innovative approaches that engage students with authentic real world challenges.

Here’s what design thinking looks like!

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