Here, on my “About” page,  I am trying to prove a point. You, the reader, need to know who I, the writer, am. Otherwise, you’re just trusting me automatically. We don’t want that.

Mind you, just because I write stuff about me here doesn’t mean it’s true. I have to provide evidence.

So, my name is Risa Gluskin and I teach high school history and student success at York Mills Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I was the department head (ACL) of Canadian and World Studies for 14 years. I have been the ACL of Student Success and Instructional Support for about 10 years.

If you’re a good lateral reader, or fact checker, you’ll immediately open a new tab and check out if York Mills CI is a real school and if I actually teach there. To help you, I’ll give you my school email: risa.gluskin@tdsb.on.ca

If you want to contact me, you can use the school email address, the contact box on this website, or risa@cabal.org

How will you determine if my website is reliable?

You could also check out my credentials at Ontario College of Teachers. Look me up.

A few thing you should know about my biases (since all humans have biases):

• I was trained by The Historical Thinking Project in 2012 and subsequently became a blogger and workshop presenter for them.
  • therefore, you’ll see a lot of historical thinking concept related stuff on my blog – I believe in it very deeply and was using it before it became part of the history curriculum in Ontario
• I have collaborated on two e-learning courses for the Ministry of Education – CHY4U and CHW3M.
  • ironically, I am not a huge fan of the e-learning format
  • however, I think having the content available to all students online is great
• I was the editor of OHASSTA’s blog/magazine, Rapport, for two years. [Ontario History and Social Science Teachers Association]
• I am the treasurer and vice president of THHSSSC (Toronto History Humanities and Social Science Subject Council).
• I am a vegan.
• I do not use social media (I read twitter (X), don’t USE it).
• I read almost exclusively non-fiction.
• I have a dumb phone, not a smart phone; it can only send and receive texts. 
• I’ll be retiring from teaching in June, 2026. That should give you an idea of how long I’ve been at this job.

All of this information should be enough for you to determine if my blog is a reliable source of information for your needs.

In addition to hosting materials for my world history courses, my blog is also where I communicate my personal interests. If you scroll through, you’ll see that I love animals (especially cats and horses), figure skating, and photography. I also enjoy briefly reviewing the books that I read.

My project for 2023/24, when I was on leave, was “For Teachers of World History” in which I hoped to provide some tips and insights into teaching of grade 11 and 12 world history courses. I never quite finished it, but it provided a few insights, I hope. Please click on the “For Teachers of World History” tab above.

Thanks for checking in,

Ms. G / Risa

(updated November, 2024)

 

Last but not least, I have two cats: Shadow and Richard. You’ll see them all over this website. You will not see them together in photos as theirs is not a perfect world in which they love each other dearly. They just co-exist. We call it “together but apart.”

 

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