Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
I left home before finishing high school, and living on my own in Ottawa, determined I would still complete high school. I knew Lisgar Collegiate was a very good school, but though I lived just a few blocks away in downtown Ottawa, I was not allowed in. No reason; they just said no. So I had to try to ride the bus for an hour each day out to the suburbs, to the decidedly lower class Laurentian High School out on Baseline road. That didn't work out. But the injustice (for that's what it was!) convinced me that I had to work the system, so I faked an address to get myself into Nepean High School, in the upscale west end, to take a year of day classes and eventually graduate through summer night school. It was through Nepean that I was introduced to the Ottawa Learner Centre, the writings of Frances Moore Lappé, and the whole idea that we could do things differently (though I guess I was working that out for myself). Well now, in some places, apparently, what I did is now a felony. What I wonder is, have they also addressed the injustice? Thought not.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 08:39 a.m.

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