The Liberal Party of Canada has elected Paul Martin as its next leader. We look at the career of the man who will become the 21st Prime Minister and at what Canadians can expect from him in the future. We also examine the legacy of the man he replaces. Jean Chrétien is retiring after 50 years in politics, 10 of those as the nation’s leader.
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Monthly Archives: December 2003
West Bank Wall: Barrier to Peace?
A decade ago Israeli and Palestinian leaders signed the Oslo Peace Accord. This accord would have led to an independent Palestine in Gaza and the West Bank, but in 2000 the peace initiative collapsed. Since then almost 900 Israelis and 2 400 Palestinians have been killed in a tragic cycle of violence and retaliation. Many Israelis feel that the only solution to the conflict is to keep terrorists out with a 600-kilometre razor wire and concrete fence along the West Bank border. Palestinians claim that the barrier is more about grabbing land than about security.
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The Gender Gap in Our Schools
In schools across Canada girls are outperforming boys. This has led to shifting enrollment patterns at universities: women now make up more than 50 per cent of students in overall enrollment and in professional programs such as law and medicine. Women are also making huge gains in engineering and the sciences, once almost exclusively male domains. Experts say the reason for this comes down mainly to reading. Girls today read more and with better comprehension than boys. The challenge for educators is to engage boys in reading. One way is to provide more male role models in schools by convincing more men to become teachers. Another method that has had some success is single-sex classrooms that provide reading materials particularly suited to the interests of boys.
Digging History
High school history class for many people was a place where textbooks were sure to be found. History was a subject that we all knew we should learn, but some students had a tough time making it stick. These days, history lessons are certainly sticking with high school students in Tillsonburg, Ontario, thanks to Robin Barker James. He’s a history teacher of a different kind and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award of Excellence for Teaching Canadian History. Tom Alderman explains how he captures his students’ imaginations with re-creations of historic events.
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