Best School in the World

There's a little-known school in Halifax that kids are excited to attend every day, right through until they graduate. It's a place where they absorb "real-world" skills, including critical thinking, and complex literacy, math and second-language abilities, so that they stick. They gather for intense, whole-school discussions on local issues, create art using geometric calculations, and dig into the school garden while learning about the biology of the native plant garden — all in one typical week. Over forty years, the Halifax Independent School has developed an approach to education that reflects the ideas of leading educators but follows no set formula. It offers parents and educators a vision of what schools could be like right across the country. In this account of "the best school in the world," readers will find ideas big and small for how Canadian schools could do a better job of engaging, challenging and educating their students.