Education

The Pornification of Sex-Ed

Deborah Rankin

April 11, 2019

As Quebec and Ontario grapple with the formation of their sex education curricula, some activists have noticed how pornography has permeated culture—including sex-ed. Culture Reframed, a free online parent program, seeks to build resilience and resistance in children and adolescents to hypersexualized media and porn.

This year, Quebec made sex education mandatory for all students in both public and private schools. The new curriculum is being rolled out gradually after years of developing the current model that was supposed to finally bring sex-education into the new mi...

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Here’s Why We Have Separate Schools

Brett Fawcett

March 27, 2019

Separate school systems across Canada aren’t relics from a long-ago time of French-English tensions. They’re the result of moral genius in Constitution making, argues Convivium contributor Brett Fawcett.

As Canadians, we don’t appreciate the moral genius of our Constitution enough.

This is obvious every time there is an attack on Catholic separate schools and school boards in Canada. The arguments have the grating predictability of rusty clockwork: f...

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We've Got to Talk

Ray Pennings

March 19, 2019

Recently, Convivium has run columns rebutting accusations of discrimination against an independent Christian school in Surrey, B.C. Today, Cardus Executive Vice-President Ray Pennings unveils research showing religious schools are needed precisely because faithful North Americans have deep misgivings about government-run schools harming spiritual formation.

This piece was originally published on the Barna blog.

Navigating the issue of children’s spiritual formation can be difficult in the current North American co...

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The Beam of Christian Schooling

Barry Bussey

March 15, 2019

Attacking faith-based institutions for upholding codes of conduct ignores the Charter, violates the spirit of pluralism, and risks undermining religious freedom, argues lawyer Barry Bussey.

CBC News “Go Public” ran a story recently about the “dark secret” of religious schools. Initially, the story got a lot of attention, but was then swept away as the SNC-Lavalin scandal took on new life with Minister Jane Philpott’s resignation from the feder...

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Association Not Discrimination

Albertos Polizogopoulos

March 6, 2019

A B.C. faith-based school’s dismissal of a teacher for sexual conduct contrary to its standards is neither shocking nor discriminatory, notes Ottawa constitutional lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos. In fact, he says, it’s protected by Charter of Rights rulings that date back to 1984.

This week, news broke about a teacher at Surrey Christian School in British Columbia, being asked approximately two y...

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The Old College Try

Edward Tingley

July 24, 2018

With the Supreme Court’s recent affront to Trinity Western University, questions abound about the future of Christian higher education. Edward Tingley, dean of Ottawa’s Augustine College, argues for return to the roots of what philosopher Russell Kirk called “the oldfangled” college.

Today conservatives and Christians who treasure the achievements of the West find themselves wading through some fairly high, rather dark water that seems to have come from somewhere else, outside the culture we embrace: threats to free speech; dwindling ma...

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Rozema Awards Celebrate Excellent Educators

June 15, 2018

Most teachers want their students to be excellent. But what does that mean? Convivium is proud to share videos created to learn more about the invaluable work of the winners and nominees of the 2018 John Rozema Teacher Excellence Awards.

Most teachers want their students to be excellent. But what does that mean? Unfortunately, many teachers and schools today have a limited understanding of “excellence” as academic performance. In 2016, Cardus Education launched the John Rozema Teaching Exce...

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Reaching Millennials With Religious Education

Beth Green with Peter Stockland

April 20, 2018

Beth Green, program director for Cardus Education, talks to Convivium’s Peter Stockland about new research showing the benefits of religious education for members of the “lost in transition” Millennial generation.

Peter Stockland: Cardus Education has just released a research paper looking at the Millennial generation and the effect religious schooling has on helping them overcome the challenges they face in a rapidly shifting culture. What is meant ...

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Three Essentials To Reinforce Faith

Peter Stockland with Beth Green

January 30, 2018

Beth Green, program director for Cardus Education, walks Convivium’s Peter Stockland through a new study showing why school matters as much as home and church in building a bedrock foundation for religious faith

Convivium: How is the latest report from the Cardus Religious Schools Initiative (CRSI) applicable in a general way? What's ...

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Fixing Canada’s Costco Colleges

Bethany Osborne and Perry Glanzer

January 16, 2018

Two compelling voices from academia respond to Cardus’s senior researcher Doug Sikkema’s critique of university administrations. What do you think? Is your experience that the god of market has turned our colleges into an educational version of Costco? Let us know.

Bethany Osborne:

Reading Doug Sikkema’s article on “Treating College Like Costco” was like reading the diary of my own relationship and disillusionment with higher education.

I have been teaching in higher education for the pa...

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Here Comes the 24/7 Classroom

Peter Stockland

January 4, 2018

Once primarily a tradition of older students helping young students having academic difficulties, tutoring has exploded into a billion dollar profession in Canada. Estimates show a third of Canadian parents will turn to tutoring for their children. In cross-country conversation with educational experts, Convivium's Peter Stockland explores how the change might alter our very concept of schooling.

Three years ago, educational consultant Paul Bennett began investigating for a media outlet what academic researchers had been intrigued by for at least a decade: the growth in private tutoring of Canada’s school-age students.

Bennett discovered in t...

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Clear Numbers For School Choice

Beth Green

December 14, 2017

Beth Green, program director for Cardus Education, tells Convivium’s Peter Stockland that Angus Reid polling data released today show Canadians overwhelmingly support public funding of faith-based schooling

Convivium: Were you surprised by the strength of support the Angus Reid data shows exists among Canadians for funding faith-based schools?

Beth Green: No, I'm not surprised. I think the temptation is to see the lands...

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An Image of Freedom

Dayna Hillier with Renae Regehr

December 12, 2017

Convivium contributor Dayna Slusar talks to the founder of Free To Be about helping young people understand their bodies are gifts from God, not dependent on social media judgements

Convivium: How did the initiative Free To Be evolve? Can you share how the experiences you had growing up that gave you a heart for talking about positive body image with teens and pre-teens?

...

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Treating College Like Costco

Doug Sikkema

December 11, 2017

Doug Sikkema, senior researcher at Cardus and the managing editor of our sister publication Comment, argues that until we know what higher education is for, we’ll have difficulty protecting those who toil within it

While at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), I got to know a history teacher during my first placement who was a passionate and self-proclaimed Marxist. She loved to talk about the inequality and injustices that plagued the city, the prov...

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Defending Trinity’s Right To Exist

Evan Menzies

November 29, 2017

Tomorrow’s Supreme Court of Canada’s hearing on Trinity Western University should engage all Canadians confronted by the State’s chipping away at fundamental Charter rights, warns alumnus Evan Menzies.

Off Metcalfe Street and MacLaren in Ottawa, sits the century old J.R. Booth mansion which now houses the Laurentian Leadership Centre. It runs and operates an internship program for Trinity Western, the private Christ...

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Trinity’s Fight For Religious Freedom

Bob Kuhn

November 13, 2017

On Nov. 30, Trinity Western University will argue in the Supreme Court of Canada for its right to operate a law school from evangelical Christian principles. Recently, the school’s President Bob Kuhn advised a Commons’ committee studying Islamophobia to look at the systemic discrimination suffered by TWU if they want to see anti-religious bigotry in action.

Trinity Western University is the largest faith-based University in Canada. I am privileged to serve as the President of this Christian university, which has a student population of more than 4000 students. It has ser...

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Education’s Most Excellent Love

Beth Green, with Diane Stronks, Elco Vandergrift

October 26, 2017

As Cardus partners with the global organization EduDeo to add a prize for Excellence in Global Perspective Teaching to its annual John Rozema Teacher Excellence Awards, Education Program Director Beth Green asks veteran educators Diane Stronks and Elco Vandergrift about the difference Christian love can make in the world’s classrooms.

Beth Green: It's a delight to be with Diane Stronks and Elco Vandergrift, both long friends of Cardus and EduDeo, two organizations that I care passionately about.

Now you've just retired from your respective roles, Diane in Ontario,...

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100 Years of Fortitude

Raymond J. de Souza

October 26, 2017

Convivium's editor in chief Father Raymond J. de Souza marks the anniversary of both the Sacred Heart of Mary parish and Queen's University's "Newman Club."

The Year of Our Lord 2017 has been rather full of notable anniversaries. Five hundred years since the Reformation, something that reminds us that our work across confessional lines at Cardus, Catholics and Protestants together in a common mission, is a bles...

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Breaking Independent School Stereotypes

Derek Allison, with Deani Van Pelt, Beth Green

October 5, 2017

Educational experts Derek J. Allison, Beth Green, and Deani Neven Van Pelt argue Toronto’s extension of its publicly funded breakfast program to independent schools is a great start to overcoming that misconception that their students are all kids with silver spoons in their mouths.

The Toronto Board of Health recently voted to extend student nutrition programs to qualified independent schools. Should Toronto City Hall accept the board recommendation, 300 independent schools would potentially gain access to a publicly funded breakfast ...

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Campus Violence And Moral Community

James R. Vanderwoerd

September 19, 2017

While everyone should be concerned by sexual violence at North American universities, writes Professor James R. Vanderwoerd, his newly published research indicates the best answer to toxic masculinity is cultivation of moral communities on campus.

Men are much reviled these days, it seems. Just this past summer Princeton University unveiled its pla...

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Three Back To School Essentials

Beth Green

August 28, 2017

As parents jot down to-do lists for their kids’ return to school, Cardus Director of Education Beth Green sets out her top priorities for educational success.

Parents what are the top three things to pack in your kid’s schoolbag?

These days back to school supplies like coloured pencils and geometry sets run a poor second place to YouTube. At the end of the summer vacation, when I checked out videos about t...

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Physically Metaphysical

Joe Mroz

July 24, 2017

What ideology underpins our modern ways of thinking? What impact does that have in human flourishing? Fr. Joe Mroz examines the relationship between the way we think and the philosophy that brought us here.

As startling as the idea of transgenderism is to many, even more startling is the totalitarian nature of its claims.

The nature of these claims, though, make sense against the background of modern philosophy, roughly from Descartes to Marx, which re...

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Revisiting 'I Kissed Dating Goodbye'

Hannah Marazzi, with Joshua Harris, Jessica Van Der Wyngaard

July 21, 2017

Author Joshua Harris influenced how a generation of young Christians approached relationships. He and filmmaker Jessica Van Der Wyngaard talk to Convivium's Hannah Marazzi about their new documentary on whether Harris was too hasty in bidding dating adieu.

Convivium: Originally published in 2003, I Kissed Dating Goodbye became something of a generational “bible” for young evangelicals. Take us through your decision to publish it.

Joshua Harris:...

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Distinctly Quebec Education

Beth Green

June 8, 2017

Analyzing data from the Cardus Education Survey, program director Beth Green fills Convivium readers in on the “distinct, positive advantages” of religious schools in Quebec. Find the link to the original research in the article.

Analyzing data from the Cardus Education Survey, program director Beth Green fills Convivium readers in on the “distinct, positive advantages” of religious schools in Quebec. The full report is available here...

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