I think my role as a changemaker is to create space for other changemakers to make a difference. Over my career I see a pattern of creating opportunities -- or opening doors -- for creative, motivated young people to change their world and, as a result, change themselves. My kids and students are the driving force behind my desire to develop education opportunities, linking theory and real world experience, so that we can live in a more just, equitable, sustainable and humane human community. Ashoka has inspired me to link with others who have the same vision. For example, in my photo over there to the right, I'm in the Masai Mara region of Kenya, building a school with Jeanne Mikita, a Global Stew faculty member (and my wife!). We're standing with Craig Kielburger, founder of Free the Children (he's the handsome guy on the left...) Craig's organization does great work. Check them out at www.freethechildren.com
I feel most centred at our cabin at Chute Lake in the interior of British Columbia. The cabin is a section house on the old Kettle Valley Railway line built in 1911 to house a section man and his family while he set about making his section of the track safe for passing trains and their passengers. My grandfather, who was himself an engineer on the line, bought it for scrap in the 1960s, and then convinced the railway to lease the land to us. When I'm there now with my family it links me to the wonderous days I was fortunate enough to share with my grandparents. A fire swept through the area a few years ago, and the cabin was miraculously saved (I'm sure by my fiery Irish grandmother who passed away years ago), so I cherish the place even more. There is water, but no electricity or indoor plumbing. We spend our times hiking, swimming in the lake across the abondoned railbed, playing crib, and cooking amazing meals on a wood stove. Our life is simpler there....okay, I have to admit that once a week or so we drive down into the Okanagan valley to check out the great wineries! But otherwise we try to have a small footprint...
I want my kids and students to feel empowered so they will bring their new creative solutions to solve the many problems we've sadly left them to deal with.
It's a varied background, to be sure. While in high school, I worked at an ice plant, our family trailer park and a fruit and vegetable cannery. (Buy only frozen fruit and vegetables, if fresh aren't available, is my advice to you.) I was fortunate enough to play on a basketball team that won the B.C. provincial championships two years in a row (I believe we still used peach baskets back then...) and have great friends from that time. We edited the newspaper, started poster clubs, initiated walk-a-thons to buy the school's first bus and weight room equipment, and ran the student council, and I had the good luck of being selected for a leadership program run out of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. College at Gonzaga in Spokane was special. I studied Chemistry and then English and Philosphy and was taught that with education comes reponsibility. I travelled to England on an exchange, edited the newspaper, and was awarded the loyalty award at graduation for my activities at Gonzaga. After graduating, I worked for a spell at CP Rail (writing emails in 1979...), before starting my teaching career at St. Pat's High School in Vancouver. In addition to coaching and founding what is now the Vancouver independent school soccer league, I taught 8 different subjects while coaching soccer, basketball, and track; initiated an award-winning student newspaper; and took students on exchanges across Canada. I returned to school to complete a masters in Political Studies and International Relations, worked as a researcher for the former Minister of Health, Monique Begin, on her book on the Canada Health Act, and then returned to Vancouver to work as a freelance writer (teaching guitar on the side) before accepting a teaching position at Capilano University in 1988. My time there has been a blessing. Not only have I been able to create new courses in Asian Studies, I directed the innovative Asia Pacific Management Co-op Program (where I introduced a not-for-profit management stream to augment the private sector curriculum) and then developed and started the Global Stewardship Program, allowing students to explore careers in international development while completing their first two years of university. Along the way I've had the opportunity to travel extensively: volunteering in Kenya, Bolivia, and Vietnam; monitoring the elections in Cambodia; and writing articles on a variety of topics, such as sea turtle conservation in Costa Rica, the peace movement in Turkey, and flying with the Canadian Armed forces Snowbirds team. I wake up every morning knowing I have the opportunity to work with amazing students striving to make a difference. But I still can't master a second language.
