Comments (0)

By Ms. G, June 28, 2025 3:23 pm

We won’t forget about you!

Comments (0)

By Ms. G, June 22, 2025 2:00 pm

Here are some of my favourite reads this year from my commutes to and from school, not including my usual magazines: Scientific American, Canadian Geographic, The Walrus, and Spacing.

The TTC wasn’t perfect this year (I’m talking about you -the Dufferin bus on Thursdays!). But commuting by public transportation allows me time to read! In the age of AI, there is no greater good.

Favourites!

Also

I tried to get through this one but just found it too dense – and heavy – for TTC reading. I didn’t expect such a scientific approach to history – too much for a.m.

Last but NOT LEAST

Comments (0)

By Ms. G, March 14, 2025 2:50 pm

Val’s photo of the lunar eclipse on March 14, 2025, taken with his mirror lens. The bright part is lit by the sun.

Comments (0)

By Ms. G, February 4, 2025 8:35 pm

If you are interested in taking history at York Mills, you have come to the right place. History is a very valuable subject; it’s not about memorizing factoids and dates. It’s about thinking, interpreting, discussing, and inquiring. The skills you gain in senior history courses will help you with any education path you choose because you will always need to THINK!

Grade 10 history (CHC2D), Canada Since 1914, is a mandatory course. It explores events and themes in our country’s history since World World War One. This course is also offered for French Immersion students (CHC2D5).

In grade 11, you can choose between American History (CHA3U) or World History (CHW3M) to the 16th Century. Speak to Mr. Chang about American History.

You can search on this website (Ms. Gluskin’s blog) under the CHW3M tab to see what the course is like. And, read on.

Here are some materials for you to decide if grade 11 World History (ancient civilizations) is for you:

Grade 12 World History starts in 1450, where the grade 11 course finishes. However, grade 11 history is not a prerequisite for grade 12 history.

You can search this website (Ms. G’s blog) under the CHY4U tab to see what this interesting course is like.

Here’s what two of Ms. Gluskin’s former students have to say about taking World History at YM (by the way, one of these wonderful people is a lawyer in and the other was a business consultant and is now working in education administration).

If you would like to ask questions to Ms. Gluskin about World History at YM, she can usually be found in the guidance office.

See you at Course Fair on Wed. February 12, 2025 in room 137.

Don’t forget about all of YM’s senior (gr 11 + 12) courses in the Canadian and World Studies area.

Comments (0)

By Ms. G, December 30, 2024 3:33 pm

Can you identify the following?

northern cardinal: male, female, juvenile

mourning dove

blue jay

hairy woodpecker

Comments (0)

By Ms. G, August 7, 2024 7:54 pm

It is difficult to write about The Hanging of Angelique (2006) because it is both so thorough and so sad. Though it is a biography of sorts, it’s an unconventional one in that so little is known about the subject, Marie-Joseph Angelique, a slave in New France in the 1700s. Yes, slavery existed in Canada. Afua Cooper, a very well known and accomplished history professor and poet, takes it on with what one can only call an aggressive (in a good way) approach. She destroys the myth that Canada’s past is slavery-free.

Because Angelique’s life story was not recorded in her own words, Cooper fills in the gaps in Angelique’s life in two ways: she dives into the details of slavery in “Canada” (which of course did not exist as a country at the time) and the slave trade which brought her there from Portugal; she also provides interesting and insightful speculations on how she thinks Angelique might have felt. Along the way, there is a lot of time spent on the “justice” system of New France because Angelique was accused of burning down the house she lived in. In turn, the fire spread and destroyed a chunk of Montreal. She was found guilty, tortured, and killed. Cooper has made excellent use of the court records from the time to show how quick to judgement her accusers were.

Angelique is portrayed by Cooper as a forthright young woman (29 when she was killed) who challenged norms and sought freedom and independence, hence her desire to return to Portugal. Even though Cooper believes Angelique probably did start the fire, she is empathetic about the constraints under which Angelique lived. In a way, she restores Angelique to the full personhood denied her by the legality of slavery in New France.

Just as every Canadian should know about the history of colonization’s effect on Indigenous people, they should also be aware of the realities of colonization and slavery. I for one felt enlightened by the book but depressed that, once again, my history education at university did not live up to the truth. This year in world history class I will make sure that my students understand that slavery and the slave trade were both global and local.

My second ‘best book’ choice is much more in the entertaining and charming vein. In What an Owl Knows Jennifer Ackerman has written a love letter to owls. Ackerman is a well known writer on the topic of birds. Her knowledge is wide. Her respect for her subjects is very strong. Diving deeply into owls, she compares them to other birds, draws on bird research she covered in her previous books, and paints them as absolutely diverse and unique.

Who knew that owl behaviour is so different from species to species? I, being a bird lover but not one familiar with owls, tend – like most people – to generalize owls. Well, no more. There are big owls, small owls, medium owls, tiny owls. There are burrowing owls, owls that nest in snag (a word new to me), owls that roost in the hundreds in trees in Serbia. There are owls that migrate vast distances. There are even some owls that hunt in the day time, not at night. Of course there are a lot of words devoted to owl communication: the toots, hoots, screeches, shrieks, and so on.

I love that she has written so much on the various ingenious ways that owl researchers have devised to study them, whether through netting, observation, or nano-technology tracking (except for the owls that are too small to carry such backpacks). These researchers and volunteers are incredibly devoted to wildlife and endure difficult conditions to improve the science of owls. Ackerman has also visited many rehabilitation facilities where injured owls are both prepped for release into the wild or trained for captive lives as educational ambassadors of their species.

Inevitably, Ackerman must write about the potential fate of owls in the climate crisis in which we live. As for many other animals, it is a sad tale of decline. Yet owls, like others, are showing some signs of adaptation. Let us hope that more and more people, not just birders and ornithologists, take up the call to protect and conserve the owl habitats that shelter these incredible, intelligent and diverse animals.

Comments (0)

By Ms. G, June 23, 2024 9:01 am

What a book! A biography of a certain time in a person’s life with historical context – how perfect. If Anne Applebaum loved it, I was in (she’s the author of two incredibly detailed and horrifying books on eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Gulag: A History and The Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956).

One should never go in for hero worship, including of people like Zelensky, who are doing pretty big things against very powerful enemies. I knew nothing of his background save for his comedy roots. Simon Shuster taught me that was a tiny drop in a bucket as Zelensky was not just a performer but a writer, director, and producer. He was a very successful businessman whose career was intricately linked with Russia, and who performed and spoke mostly Russian.

According to Shuster’s portrayal, built upon numerous interviews with the president and his colleagues, Zelensky was used to getting what he wanted in the entertainment/business world. Once he won the presidency (on not much of a platform other than to eradicate notorious corruption in Ukraine) with no political record to go on other than his show, Servant of the People, Zelensky was up against not only Vladimir Putin but also the west’s initial intransigence upon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Big challenge even without the invasion. But then he used his background to become the face of the war and, ultimately, of Ukraine’s survival.

In his transformation from the entertainment industry to politics, Zelensky mastered social media as a political tool, as much for his own people as for the world. Through his direct appeals, he won many over to Ukraine’s cause. He also made it possible for everyone to see the war in real time. It is easy to forget from our cushy position in the west how strong and ugly a force Russian imperialism (and propaganda) continues to be. The author is perfectly placed to capture all of this.

Simon Shuster is a Time Magazine senior correspondent with an obvious focus on Russia and Ukraine. He was born in the former Soviet Union and moved to the US when he was young. He grew up speaking Russian and his mom was Ukrainian. He has relatives who have been directly affected by the war. Banned from Russia in 2015, Shuster recognizes that he doesn’t have direct access to report from there. However, he is a good researcher and a good interviewer, speaking to Zelensky’s colleagues and wife Olena Zelenska numerous times.

Most importantly, Shuster is not an apologist for Zelensky. He doesn’t turn him into a perfect leader.

A must read, as they say!