Where you go first on this site will depend on why you came..
If you’re here to find out about Canadian Classroom on Rails in general—what it’s about, who’s involved with it, where it’s going, when and why—this is NOT the place to begin.
If you were looking at a university or college to attend, you’d want to have an idea what you’d be coming out with after you’ve been, to see if it’s the right fit for you. Once you’d answered that question, you might read on to find out where the campus(es) is—or are—located, what the term length and costs are. These are questions you’d find in a calendar or year book, not in a curriculum guide.
Because that’s where you landed: in the library. Here you can check out some of our resources, but that’s not enough to tell you if you want to be here. For a first introduction go to www.canadianclassroomonrails.com and take your time there.
(Because we’re still at a developmental stage, building fundraising capacity, recruiting staff, etc. there are specifics—exact departure/return dates you won’t find there yet. But you will find how Classroom will function when it’s up and running.)
If you’re a student doing advance reading for or follow up from a lesson:
- If you know the specific lesson number—we’ll be announcing/posting these in advance, even though we will not be presenting them in order en route—click on the “Content Summary for 100 lessons…” dropdown that pops up when you place your curses over the arrow to the right of the Syllabus tab on the far right of the seven tabs. This will bring you to a single summary you can scroll down until you reach the right number in order from 1 – 100.
- If you don’t know the number but recall the theme or have a general idea of the topic, Click on the word “Syllabus” itself. This will bring up the same material, except that the 100 lessons are-subdivided in themes including “Land and Other Forces That Shaped Us,” “Identity/Spirit,” “Evolution/Society/Trends,” etc. Scroll down rapidly, watching for the theme your topic fits under, then slow to click on the lesson itself when you recognize it.
- When you’ve reached the content, there may be certain links embedded such as a reading from the Reflections section, one or more songs with lyrics and explanatory notes on the lesson topic, and occasional hyperlinks to other sites and sources. Depending on the timing, you may even be able to access the instructor’s detailed lesson plan with particulars of presentation.
- If you’re an instructor consulting available resources (books, music, quotations, reflections, etc.) you’ll find those by clicking on the appropriate tab(s) and/or dropdowns to get to the focus you need. This may entail 3-4 levels down, depending on the topic and resources we have available.
- If you’re an instructor with your own material to download onto the site, you’ll have your own password and instructions that help you access the needed steps and areas.
- If you’re a sponsor or would-be sponsor who wants to assess for yourself whether your contribution is a good investment, come with a fly-by/over approach to the student materials and other resources. Take your time to read through some of the Reflections, and then leave time/space to ponder. Minds take longer to download and process information than computers do—not because they have less but because they bring more to the process: like the thought that wakes you up in the middle of the night and turns out to be a Eureka. Do justice to yourself and your capacities when you’re evaluating what’s here. Treat yourself respectfully as a student—the way we aim to treat our students—and you will reward yourself with the wise conclusions you access. Flip through, and the truth may slip you by!
- Whoever you are and for whatever reason you’re here, remember the root meaning of two words that can help you navigate:
- “educate” means to “draw out” – It’s not about cramming in more data. The wise educator has lived long enough, and knows him/herself well enough, to be able to see students’ abilities to receive at the right time/place. When one comes at teaching from that perspective, s/he will draw on his/her acquired wisdom, skill and experience to meet the student at a perfect place. The result we be discovering buried treasure, not cramming facts into a box or burying truth in the ground.
- “Kanata,” our adopted Algonquin name, means “village.” A great educator and communicator, Marshall McLuhan—who also happened to be Canadian—gave us the expression “the global village.” Canada is that, and in a village there’s a place for everyone. We’re not forced into little boxes or made to stand in long lineups because “that’s the way the system works.” The “Canadian Specific” focus involves finding the specific traits in our shared experience, past, geographic and ongoing, to access the knowledge, truth and compassion we need to be good villagers, and citizens of Planet Earth.