About Me

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I have been an elementary and secondary school teacher and administrator. Currently, I am a faculty member in the Faculty of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My M.Ed. and Ph.D. had a focus on the educational and linguistic experiences of children who moved from other countries to Canada.

Monday, January 23, 2012

How can we be effective in educational leadership training in Haiti?

This question has been at the forefront of my mind since I've been working in Haiti. I've tried to be responsive to localized needs and provide support for what principals have identified as areas of need. I've also supplemented this with ideas and skills which are based in research from the "west" but which I've contextualized for my colleagues in Haiti. This, of course, comes with making some mistakes along the way. One of my first times in Haiti, a principal took me to task for my "hard-line" approach to corruption. As we engaged in dialogue, I had a better sense of the struggles which he dealt with on a daily basis. A good article looking at how mistakes can lead to improvement, can be found in today's Globe and Mail:

Globe and Mail "Wiith Foreign Aid..."

As the educational research base develops in Haiti, a comparative and international perspective will help us refine each others practice and knowledge base.

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