SEED Alternative School

src: notesfromthefield.ca

SEED Alternative School is an alternative high school at Toronto School District which is now located in the eastern end of Toronto.

Previous locations include Yonge and College, McCaul St, and Bloor and Spadina, in downtown Toronto. Initially, as a summer program, it was on Dundas St West and Bloor St. W (where they crossed in Toronto instead of later-Etobicoke).

The acronym 'SEED' originally came from 'Summer of Experience Exploration and Discovery', and when it became a semantic school throughout the year, it was transformed into 'Joint Exploration and Discovery Experience'. Students interested in a particular subject, will gather other students, and together they will find a knowledgeable person to act as a teacher or catalyst, and meet regularly to study. The groups meet in various locations and times, including sometimes evenings and weekends. It depends entirely on how many students and which subjects they are studying, and when and where groups will meet. A group studying Mass Media, for example, will meet at night at Lowther Avenue home of CBC Radio Broadcaster Betty Tomlinson and Allan Anderson. The vegan lifestyle cooking course meets and is cooked in student homes with parents who join to eat meals prepared by the students. The Japanese Studies Group meets at the University of Toronto. Several groups met at the SEED facility itself.

SEED was established by the Toronto Board of Education then as a summer program for middle school students in 1968 during the Pierre Trudeau era, a period that also produced Rochdale College and the Passe Muraille Theater and fostered the growth of Coach House Books and other experimental institutions in Toronto. (SEEDs do not connect with them.) Teachers, or coordinators when they are called, are initially Les Birmingham and Murray Shukyn, both from the elementary school system.

Although initially only a summer program, students from the second summer want to keep the SEED throughout the year. The student fell to recognition from the University of Toronto, and asked the Council to set it as a secondary school for core funding (for staff and space) and for students to get a high school diploma. During fall and winter, students run SEED without any coordinator, using the office provided free of charge by St Thomas' Anglican Church on Huron Street.

The Board of Education agreed to create a high school SEED, and in September a recognized high school, operating in a rented room in a place that later became YMHA (at Bloor St. W and Spadina) in Toronto. Registration is officially limited to 100 students, with 100 people eligible for a high school diploma/credit. Additional students may also attend but do not get a high school diploma/credit. Values â€‹â€‹9 through 13 are entered. Students who have gone to SEED but are formally under the jurisdiction of the nearest Board of Education, are included as students. A budget of approximately $ 200,000 has been approved. Murray Shukyn was the first coordinator. To meet the technical requirements of having a principal, and yet minimize costs, Superintendent of Secondary School A. L. Milloy was appointed Principal, but she was not involved in the school. Small core groups of four or five teachers are hired, most of whom are certified to teach in more than one high school subject so that students, if they wish, can still take traditional subjects taught by certified teachers who will qualify for secondary school diploma.

The students run the school, often in direct contact with the Board of Education where the guardians are like the old trustee Fiona Nelson and Dr. Maurice Lister was supportive.

At that time all Ontario middle schools, with one exception, followed part B of HS1 Education Minister regulations. Part B describes traditional secondary school programs. SEED is only the second school in the province formed under section A. Part A allows exceptional flexibility.

It is now possible to get a high school diploma using many different subjects.

Schools are influenced by the U.S. pedagogical philosophy. Neill Summerhill School. It is also known for its catalyst system in which students, professors, community members and experts-in-large on various fields facilitated the class. Milton van der veen is the catalyst for the SEED newsletter (he is now a volunteer with the charity 'Sleeping Children Around the World'.) Recorded by the late science fiction writer, Judith Merril, held a weekly science fiction seminar at SEED from 1972-1973. Other notable catalysts include social activists who recorded June Callwood, CBC Radio announcer Allan Anderson, architect Colin Vaughan, journalist John Gault and Maggie Siggins, advertising executive Billy Edwards (one of the subjects of the Allan King Movie) Married Couple > i>), and the famous Toronto City Alderman Ying Hope. Some U of T professors, such as Milt Wilson of Trinity College, also teach courses.

An important impact of SEED, Toronto's first alternative school in the Toronto District School Board system, is that it opens doors to a number of other alternative schools. Among them are Learnxs, Subway Academy One, SOLE, and ACE, which Murray Shukyn, co-founder and first coordinator of SEED, helps to organize.

An important milestone was the short film titled Life Times Nine created by SEED students nominated for the Academy Award in 1973.

Famous alumni include bloggers, journalists, science fiction activists and writers Cory Doctorow; former head of the Ontario Securities Commission and V.P. Toronto Stock Exchange, attorney Edward Waitzer; musician and producer Efrim Menuck; Harvard physics professor and Chair of the Department of Physics Melissa Franklin, co-discovery of quarks; visual artist Eli Langer; author Claudia Casper; the main architect of gh3 and award-winning architect, Diana Gerrard; activist of intersex, researcher and professor of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Morgan Holmes; professor of psychology at Conestoga College, Barry Cull; and photographer Michael McLuhan, son of Marshall McLuhan, renowned artist Jesse B. Harris.

SEED Alternative School

Minggu, 15 Juli 2018