{"id":37686,"date":"2026-02-26T16:47:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=37686"},"modified":"2026-02-26T16:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:47:21","slug":"new-book-from-head-of-school-challenges-traditional-concepts-of-classroom-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-book-from-head-of-school-challenges-traditional-concepts-of-classroom-education\/","title":{"rendered":"New book from Head of School challenges traditional concepts of classroom education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The role of a teacher used to be to impart information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This role has significantly shifted in recent years, says Dr. Cinde Lock, and schools need to recognize this to stay relevant in a window as short as five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook at the world we live in,\u201d she says. \u201cWith AI, everybody is going to have their own private tutor soon \u2013 they already kind of do \u2013 and it can push them along, help them learn, and give them oodles of extra questions, things to think about and context. If we want to be relevant in five years\u2019 time, we\u2019d better rethink what school is, what we can amplify, and what we can help bring alive that AI can never do \u2013 and that is human connection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Lock, an educator of more than 30 years and now Head of School at Newmarket\u2019s Pickering College, explores this topic in-depth in her new book Connections, Academics, and Purpose: Designing the Future of School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-authored with her daughter, Anneke Lee, the book explores \u201ca bold and timely reimagining of education \u2013 one where learning begins not with curriculum expectations, but with authentic connections, real-world problems, and meaningful community partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published in January and formally launched at Pickering College last week, nearly 900 books had been sold at press time this week and it has already sparked a conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human connections, says Dr. Lock, can include fostering an environment where students feel involved, valued and heard, and where they can better understand and connect with the world around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is essential to help students forge a meaningful link between some of the challenges facing our world and be a part of the change they want to see in the world. Connecting them with changemakers can help students see the issues through a new lens and see that they can make a valuable contribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom a very young age, they can say, \u2018I want to be a part of that journey. It\u2019s informed citizenship and engaged citizenship. It\u2019s also building empathy. It helps them feel like their learning is purposeful and meaningful,\u201d Dr. Lock explains. \u201cIt\u2019s not for the purpose of just being graded. If you go into a traditional school, every day you\u2019re just being assessed. It\u2019s about assessment and not learning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing that in spades at Pickering College and this is really a love story to Pickering in so many ways, but it\u2019s so much broader than that because it\u2019s about a vision for what school should be and it\u2019s a methodology for teachers on how to actually put it in place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other types of schools and other educational institutions are so ingrained with existing systems and potentially outdated ideas of what universities are looking for in accepting first-year students out of the high school environment, Dr. Lock says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She cites a recent discussion with a teacher just out of school as a prime example of this way of thinking. When Dr. Lock asked how the teacher could make her math lesson more interesting, the teacher linked the equation of a curve with art. But that didn\u2019t necessarily underscore the purpose of why students need to make that calculation in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat if the student went away and said, \u2018there\u2019s something really cool in that, and I thought it was really interesting,\u2019 and, on their own time and in their own way, went and extended the project far beyond what you\u2019d ever originally assigned?\u201d she says, relating a question she posed to the educator. \u201cWhat if the student comes back four weeks later and says, \u2018Look what I did! I\u2019m so excited about this.\u2019 Would you change the grade in the original assignment?\u2019 The teacher said no, and I asked why? What is it that\u2019s so ingrained in your thinking about student learning that your timing and structure have to be so tight that you don\u2019t want to encourage, nor do you want to accept a student that\u2019s gone far beyond, and you don\u2019t want to credit it because somehow that\u2019s an advantage that student had that no other student did?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly minted teacher stuck to their guns and said going down that route would result in \u201ceverybody getting 100 per cent,\u201d says Dr. Lock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy is that bad? Isn\u2019t that learning? Don\u2019t you want students to be passionate about their learning? Unfortunately, this is a narrow view of school \u2013 it\u2019s about the assessment more than the learning, more than it is about the passion or the interest in learning. If we want to have anything other than disengaged kids, we\u2019ve got to make changes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Connections, Academics, and Purpose: Designing the Future of School continues to reach educators and parents alike, Dr. Lock says she wants the volume to \u201ccreate a movement.\u201d She senses an opportunity to foster change, she says, just as Pickering College instills in its own students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to take advantage of the opportunity I have because the truth is the public school system is a bigger, more difficult machine to change,\u201d she says. \u201cThey don\u2019t have the ability to be as playful and as innovative as an independent school like Pickering College. If we can do that hard work here and see what works, and actually figure out what school could be, we can show how it can be scaled up and share it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe very core thing we want kids to do is feel that they can actually make a difference in the world, live their lives with a sense of meaning and purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Connections, Academics, and Purpose: Designing the Future of School, including how to order the book, see supporting materials, and view online workshops, visit www.cindelock.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The role of a teacher used to be to impart information. This role has significantly shifted in recent years, says Dr. Cinde Lock, and schools need to recognize this to stay relevant in a window as short as five years. \u201cLook at the world we live in,\u201d she says. \u201cWith AI, everybody is going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026-02-26-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9NQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 11:40:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37688,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37686\/revisions\/37688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}