The main aim of St. Michaels University School is university preparation. Between kindergarten and high school graduation students are going to learn a great deal about the world, about other people, and about themselves. While they may begin this journey as empty vessels waiting to be filled, at SMUS we are committed to the notion that this exercise is an active rather than a passive one. Good students will feel comfortable here because it's quite all right to excel; in fact their peers expect and admire it. Visitors who walk into our classrooms often have to step aside for groups of talkative and intent students. This is normal; it is the behaviour of young people fully engaged in their own education.

The school is also a community. Both boarding and day students form friendships they will maintain for their entire lives. We are aware that later life doesn't unfold within narrow categories of English or Physics. The motto of one of the two founding schools, University School, is mens sana in corpore sano: "a healthy mind in a healthy body." After class, therefore, we expect our students to play on a team, act in a play, compete in debating or join one of the many extracurricular activities. We expect students to serve others. Many of these pursuits are recreational in nature, but many reach a very high standard and are recognized locally, provincially or nationally. Our students like to do well and are proud of their school.

Many of the most important lessons - both intellectual and personal - challenge students to go beyond limits they may have become comfortable with. Like learning to ride a bicycle, education can involve many numerous attempts before we see the smile of success. We who teach have to be sympathetic and attentive to the whole effort, rub the bruises and put our charges back on whatever bicycle they are riding at the time - whether it's calculus, field hockey, prefecting or introductory violin - and stay with them until they get it right. SMUS has such teachers. They have written books, directed professional drama, won national teaching awards, and coached representative teams. They form a gifted and dedicated faculty who provide the structure, stimulation and challenge that young minds need.

Above all, we care deeply about the kind of people our students become. This is implicit in the motto of our other founding school, St. Michael's, nihil magnum nisi bonum: "nothing is great unless it is good."

You are very welcome to visit the school and get to know us as well as you can.

Articles and personal information
Please read on!

Educational Philosophy
"If education is "about" anything, it is about truth and goodness. From these two follow all growth of the intellect and the character, all development of mind, body, self and community. All activities of teachers, students, parents and others must begin and end . . ."

School Ties Articles

(School Ties is the school magazine sent to
all current families, Alumni and friends of the school.)

Arrival at St. Michaels University School

(reflections on arriving at St. Michaels University School. September, 1995)

Human Technology

(the place of technology in education; January, 1996)

The Whole Student

(academic success has its best chance in an environment where the character and the self also grow; June, 1996)

Excellence

(the school has to be committed to the excellence in all of us; September, 1996)

Passion; Compassion

(students identify two key elements of excellent teaching; March 1997)

Intelligence

(Multiple Intelligences: a visit to Harvard Graduate School of Education. September, 1997)

Teaching
Partly because I love to do it, and partly to keep my hand in, I still teach, sharing a grade 11 English course with another faculty member, George Belliveau. In November we are doing an interesting poetry project, involving web searches and web pages. Feel free to explore.

Personal Information
For people who are interested, I of course have a life outside my job. The things that occupy this "regular life"are my family, favorite sports, serious and light reading, music, wine, art and almost anything else that prevents boredom (!). In the unlikely event you want to find out more, feel free to visit these pages.

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