Having an “About” page is a bit old-school, but I’ve added one 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.

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.
• I am the treasurer and vice president of THHSSSC (Toronto History Humanities and Social Science Subject Council) – I’m also the editor of our website now (something I get to very occasionally) .
• 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, though it can send and receive texts.

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. Watch this short intro. 

Thanks for checking in,

Ms. G / Risa

(updated June, 2024)

 

We’re not going to be this cynical!

Thanks for the cartoon, Mr. Pietersen.

Oh yeah, 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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