Colin Duffy is running as a candidate for trustee of Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board in the 2022 municipal election.
Colin was born in 1987.
Education
Community involvement
Career
- Custodian
2022 election priorities
During the Ward 2 Forum above, Duffy mentioned a program in Belleville called Elevate Plus https://elevateplus.ca/, which:
“takes people who are down on their luck and often people on social assistance and it gets them the life skills they need to get one of the factory jobs in the region. Basic stuff, like show up every time, on time no excuses because at a factory, if someone is not at their place on the line, the line can’t start. Stuff like that. If someone has the skills they can get a good paying job. Elevate Plus is one of those programs that teaches people life skills that could fit into a curriculum.”
He wants to identify the skill gaps in the community and teach them to kids.
Referring to the homeless in Belleville, Duffy said: “I have to wonder, if we had done our duty as adults to them, how many of them wouldn’t be on the streets. How many of them would have avoided the financial disasters that put them there.”
From ontarioschooltrustees.org:
We teach children that mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell but not how to do a tax return, or how a credit card works, or how their credit score is calculated, or how to get a small business loan. Many of these things are easy to roll into a math curriculum as assignments. Financial literacy may make the difference between whether the adults of tomorrow thrive or struggle.
There has been a dramatic spike in suicide and mental health issues, but there are interventions we can use at scale to address this. Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective psychiatric intervention we have, and the basics are easy to teach. I’d strongly push interventions to give students the mental tools usually found in professional therapy.
Silent hallways are the policy of expecting students to go from one class to another without talking, which interrupts many opportunities for bullying in the hallway and allows students to concentrate on their classes.
Physics is the most intricate and grand intellectual edifice in our civilization, and we teach it the hard way. I’d push for a restructuring of the physics curriculum, seeking advice from professors in Ontario, researchers at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical physics, and popular physics educators.
The OECD has a series of studies comparing student achievement across countries, called the PISA studies. I’d call up the researchers involved to see what best practices from around the world can be brought here. Reading their most recent report has me eager to discuss their ideas.
More generally, there are thousands of education researchers who are itching to have their research heard by School Boards. I intend to find them and hear about the ideas and evidence long overdue for inclusion in Board policy and curricula.
I look forward to serving the community.
Personal life
Colin is a “refugee from the Toronto housing crisis”.
Contact
- Website
- Email: itcamefromthedeep@gmail.com
- Phone: 647-774-4974
- Instagram – no
- Twitter – no
- LinkedIn – no
- Reddit – no
Over to you
What do you think of Colin Duffy as a trustee candidate for Belleville?
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