By Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky Photo by Noriko Nasu-Tidball     “When I teach, I am motivated by the students, rather than the content.” Bassett begins her interview citing her teaching doctrine. Her remarkable journey is peppered with people, daily encounters, art…in short, a cultural interaction with the Japanese language.           Nestled in the midst of the vibrant neighbourhood of Kerrisdale, Martha Bassett and I sit, enjoying the view of misty trees and dew-covered leaves and bushes before us. Bassett is currently a Japanese language teacher at the Senior Campus at St. George’s School in Vancouver. Yet, she is far from just an instructor in the language: Bassett is responsible for the inauguration of the Japanese language program at St. George’s. Since 1992, Bassett has been sharing her love of Japanese language and culture with her students. “In order to sustain interest, there is a lot of other stuff we do, other than language,” Bassett remarks. Indeed, in addition to the language itself students in her classes are exposed to Japanese food, film, history and art, to name a few.            We enjoy green tea, imported from Japan; its delicate simplicity seems to reflect our tranquil surroundings. It is here that we begin Martha Bassett’s remarkable journey. And it is here that we return full circle, like the ever-rising sun.                      Despite being born and raised in Southern California, Bassett remarks that Japanese culture was always a part of her early childhood. Her father, being a soldier in the Second World War, regarded the Japanese as a “worthy enemy” and Bassett recalls, “Asia was always in the background”. Her appreciation for Asian culture suited her well in her early adult years when Bassett found herself wanting to travel. With little formal education, Bassett was inevitably drawn...

  Hello, Opera Zone Series is Here Every 1st Sunday afternoon! Bring your friends and come listen and sign along with professional opera singers! Amazingly beautiful pieces are on the program. Tea and cookies at intermission   March 6th, April 3rd, May1st, June 5th, July...

By Jasmine Teng Photogtaphy by Jasmine Teng The WaterMe project is created by Jasmine Teng, a high school senior at Crofton House School. Jasmine grew up in Shanghai and moved to Vancouver five years ago. Ever since then, she has been an active member of the community and student at her school. Strongly connected to nature and the environment, Jasmine has always wanted to contribute to the community by bringing a little green into the city. Jasmine Teng is very involved in her school; she is a student leader and an active member of numerous extra-curricular. As it is her final year in high school, Jasmine has set a goal for herself to be more active in her community outdoor the ivy walls of Crofton House. With her involvement in local senior homes and this project along the way, Jasmine Teng hopes to leave an impact in her community before she goes off to college. Currently in her grade twelve year, Jasmine is putting together an art portfolio for college applications. Interested in both creative and academic aspects of design, Jasmine hopes to study both facets in university which consequently is actually how the WaterMe project came about. The WaterMe project was originally created in response to a prompt of an admission challenge. The prompt was to created a three-dimensional gift that demonstrated human spirit. When the word “gift” came to mind, Jasmine immediately thought of an interactive project. Being a student leader at her school, Jasmine has always been involved with her community. In her grade ten year, Jasmine was part of an outdoor education program at her school in which she spent a lot of time in nature and its surroundings. Ever since, Jasmine has tried to keep a conscientious mind and incorporate...

  By Sean Yoon   Having been invited by artist Colleen McLaughlin Barlow to attend the opening of her latest exhibition, “Whale Dreams” on September 30th, 2015, I arrived at the UBC Beaty Biodiversity Museum mindful of images I had seen of her work through her website. So in a sense, before I walked into the exhibition, I carried preconceived ideas of what I was to see and experience. The exhibition turned out to be highly different from what I expected, in a visually heightened, enlightening way to be able to experience her artwork in person. In particular, I recall being fascinated to observe the guests engaging with her art by taking pictures, conversing about her artwork in groups, as well as participating in some of the activities set up in the exhibition such as a drawing station where guests are instructed to draw blind contours of whale bone structures set up in front of them. Just as the Beaty Biodiversity Museum emphasizes how important the interconnectedness, or connection between human beings and nature is, Colleen’s art revealed a similar vein of thinking as we the spectators are made to contemplate the whale bones not just as one animal’s remains, but as a spectral symbol of our own mortality, our own bones residing within us. The exhibition provides an excellent opportunity to experience this in person, as well as check out the huge 26-metre long blue whale skeleton suspended in the museum’s atrium. If you have the chance, I would definitely recommend taking the time to visit the exhibition at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum in UBC before it ends on February 14th, 2016.   October 1, 2015 – February 14, 2016 Beaty Biodiversity Museum 2212 Main Mall Website beatymuseum.ubc.ca  ...

By Sean Yoon Photographs: Sean Yoon/Alan Peng/Kenta Motoike   Situated within a ten minute drive from Kerrisdale Community Centre lies Southlands Farm, a rare plot of the last remaining class 1 agricultural soil in Vancouver. Being a much needed break away from the bustling noise of the city, I was pleasantly surprised when I found that Southlands Farm was not traditional in the sense where crops are grown in rows, but was instead highly efficient in the form of a polyculture space raising chickens, horses, ducks, honeybee hives; as well as integrating within the space a wide variety of produce such as apples, grapes, chicken and duck eggs, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, rhubarb, basil and other herbs. Feeling at ease among the sounds of people chatting, chickens running around and delightful atmosphere of the farm, I had the opportunity to walk around the farm and talk with Jordan Maynard, who is a manager and co-owner of the farm with his family.   Before I set out for the interview, while I was looking through the Southlands Farm website, I discovered that the conceptualization of Southlands Farm began in 2008 with a simple, but highly significant vision, which was and continues to be, “to farm in a sustainable way that could demonstrate to neighbours that true food security was possible within the city.” This statement raised some questions to my mind, such as what does food security mean and why is it an important concept to keep in mind in the context of Vancouver as a city? Jordan eloquently explained to me the concept of food security in Vancouver below.   “Food security is about having access to good food and in Vancouver right now and especially with the drought in California, we don’t have a...

By Amy Cheng   This spring I had the pleasure of being invited as a participant of the Weaving History Together: Making a Collaborative Blanket project led by Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society, which is an interactive and collaborative scheme designed to bring our neighbourhood together as a community through weaving a community blanket. Not community in the way it is used to describe a target market where conversations are only grazing the surface level. I’m talking about a real community of diverse people, of all ages and backgrounds, invested in each other. With that in mind, I spoke with the project facilitator, Debra Sparrow, an eminent weaver on her vision and inspiration for the project, and some of the other participants, like myself, on the process and the significance they have found through this initiative.   “I wanted to facilitate art that both the young and the old could easily participate in, because I believe art can be created by everyone—we are all creative,” says Debra. Of her own work with textiles, Debra describes, “The art of weaving is familiar to every culture, making it an ideal tool in creating communication. Conversations and understanding can’t help but manifest across a loom.”   Also inspired by the her affectionate memory of the Kerrisdale Community Centre as a child, Debra says, “I think it would be really fun to weave stories from the threads of our experience and communicate our stories with others. Binding our stories together in creating a beautiful community blanket.” She hopes to demonstrate the way our stories reflect the knowledge and wisdom that are part of every generation. “We need to listen, then listen some more,” Debra explains. “We just have to pay attention.”   “This project will do just that. As others...

  By Amy Cheng Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball     With different paces of life and activities, it is far too common for different generations to live in their own so-called “separate lives,” even if they were living together. Grandparents who are usually alone during the day may feel detached from their grandchildren who are more likely to spend their time online than to interact face-to-face with their family members.    This has greatly limited our opportunities in nurturing cross-age connections and understanding. We would hope to think that the issue of a generational gap is not as prevalent. And yet, many of our activities are divided by age group, more so than ever before. How many of us have actually taken steps to consciously narrow the gap?   Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) is taking the lead to address the growing gap by launching“Intergenerational Creativity” Project, federally funded and supported by many community organizations including our very own Kerrisdale Community Centre (KCC). This project has been created to promote mutual understanding and respect across generations through art-driven activities, and to flesh out the varying gifts and resources that both the young and the old can give one another.   On May 1st, 2015, the project officially launched its kick-off event at KCC as a pilot site where we were joined by people of all ages and background. I have been recruited to this project as youth member and I have to say, it was extremely heartwarming to see everyone seated together and genuinely shared their passion and vision about ways to transcend the limitations society has place upon us. And eager participants, such as myself, could only relished and warmed up to the many inspirations and ideas that filled the room to the brim. ...

By Ellen McLaren Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball & courtesy of the SWIS program   School is hard and, adds Janet Chung, it’s even harder when nothing is in your native language. The difficulties that students face are made that much more apparent when paired with language barriers. As a representative of VSB SWIS Program Byng Project 3B (Settlement Workers In Schools) in Lord Byng Secondary, Janet is one of the many Vancouver Settlement Workers  committed to overcoming these challenges and integrating new immigrant families into their Canadian schools and communities. I first met Janet at the Kerrisdale Community Center’s Cherry Blossom Festival, and have since had the chance to talk with her several times about Project 3B (short for Bridge, Bond, and Build), a school-based integration program founded in 2008. In a quick overview, she explained that each year, 3B develops a specific aim for the program. In past years, these have been mainly community oriented, working mostly within Vancouver. However, as 3B has now expanded beyond 200 registered members, in 2015, Janet raised the stakes, partnering with UNICEF Newcomer Youth Ambassador Project: fundraiser for School In a Box Program (a.k.a., School in a Box).  School in a Box operates on the idea that schooling should remain as consistent as possible in crisis-struck areas; each box costs $240 to fund, and can provide support to up to forty students. Since this January, Janet and the students and parents of Project 3B have been throwing a variety of events and engaging in different communities to raise money for this program, and are currently at a whopping $10,000. In the process of doing so, Project 3B students and their parents, many of them only recently arrived in Canada, have not only tackled the issue of providing education to children in need but have also demonstrated...

By Melody Pan   On the grounds of the Vancouver City Hall stands a Friendship Tree: a small cherry tree with a tremendous story to tell.   “It was August of 2003, as the BC forests were raging,” recalled Joy Kogawa as the time she first discovered the childhood home she had to leave behind at Marpole, the Kogawa House, was for sale. It was then she discovered an ailing and battered cherry tree and fell in love with it.   One strong branch of the tree had been held up with a trestle. Other branches were bound and wrapped with twine and cloth. Joy felt greatly drawn to the tree for all that it symbolized in all of its brokenness. While she could not recall if this was the same tree that had been there in her childhood―there was one that bore dark red cherries―she remembered feeling a sense of awe at such an old tree standing right before her eyes. It was at that moment she felt a powerful connection with the tree. This tree represented her family and community. It became known as the Friendship Tree, and served as a source of inspiration for Joy, both in life and in her works. In particular, there is her children’s book, Naomi’s Tree, which tells a story of loss and return.   Joy recalled that the tree itself was a landmark on her spiritual journey. There was one particular occasion that she recalled having a profound impact on her. One day, as she was there writing poems for the tree, she happened to place her right arm on its trunk. Just as she did so, she felt a ‘heat’ running down her arm, from the hand all the way down. She described feeling...

  By Pia Massie  Movies tell stories in the most profound way possible.  The images flicker like a fire – throwing light on the human condition.  The sound and music surround us, enveloping us in feelings ranging from pleasure to terror, depending on the genre we are in the theatre to watch.  Every frame, every picture tells a story that we read and file according to our own experience, our own individual set of associations, questions and desires.   We live in a global community of storytellers; all trying to make sense out of the ongoing chaos of our daily lives. Movies since their earliest moments have provided us a roadmap, a template of how to be.  Or not to be.  Opening a window on another point of view, whether it is from across the tracks or on the other side of the globe, movies help us understand how to live. They help us make meaning.   People have learned how to love, how to forgive, how to steal the show or start a revolution – all from watching movies. As audiences have become more adept at understanding film language, stories have naturally become more complex – speeding up, breaking apart into fragments, reversing themselves, even playing backward.   In this vast ocean of moving images, documentary films have become ever more important, ever more resonant in this quest of making sense and meaning of our lives.  Our hunger for real life stories has increased in direct proportion to the declining sense of community that all our high tech cities with their sleepless, rushing populations have fallen prey to.   This hunger for truth and shared storytelling, have given rise to a frenzy of documentation. Does an accumulation of tiny proofs : I was...

By Taylor Lecky Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball Special Thanks to VISUAL SPACE (film location)  Kobayashi Issa once wrote, “there is no stranger under the cherry tree.” Before my interview with Linda I knew I appreciated the sentiment behind the saying but I didn’t fully understand it. In honesty, when I was first asked to write an article on the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, I had no idea what to expect. Apologetically, I stereotypically made an assumption that an individual of Japanese descent would walk in the Visual Space Dunbar gallery that rainy Vancouver Tuesday afternoon. However, I was extremely naive. Linda Poole, with all her golden haired glory, glided into the room as an elegant cherry blossom-like individual herself. Wearing a fuchsia pink skirt with matching leather shoes, a cherry blossom pendant and bracelet, you could not deny that she exuded passion for Vancouver’s sweetheart of tree’s.   “Is pink your favourite colour?” I asked while wearing my daily uniform of head-to-toe black. “No, I enjoy many colours. However, CBC did once interview me on T.V in which they started the session by filming these exact pink shoes. I don’t wear them much anymore,” Linda laughs. “But I do think pink looks good on everyone.” Linda’s demeanor is energetic and passionate while at the same time extremely calming.   Having lived abroad with the Canadian Foreign Service with her husband, a Canadian Ambassador, Linda says at the beginning she asked herself, ‘what does an ambassador really do? Let alone what does an ambassadors wife do?   “It was a fantastic experience and a privilege. I didn’t want to leave. Everyday I would see the Canadian flag flying above our official residence and I would just choke me up. You’re so far from home but your...

By Katherine Allen & Laura Kosciecha Photo Courtesy of Katherine Allen & Laura Kosciecha     Building Caring Communities (BCC) is an Asset Based Community Development initiative that strives to foster meaningful connections in community. We do this by discovering the gifts and interests of individuals or groups of people (associations). The role of the Community Connector is to remain curious all the while searching for welcoming people and places. By spending time in neighborhoods, we are able to build a map of the assets there – the gifts and interests of neighbors, local businesses, best cafes, friendly faces, and welcoming places. Community Connectors often meet people who are in search of something; whether it be a friend, a helping hand, a space, or a mentor. Our role is to help thread a web of connections in an already-abundant community. Much of what we seek is already there, but perhaps we just didn’t know it yet, or had to adjust our lens to see it. We do this because we believe the more connected a community, the more vibrant, safe, and welcoming it is – for all members of the community. Following are some stories that capture the essence of our work.   The Little Garden That Could   Goodlad community garden, one of the original Can You Dig It community gardens, is nestled behind a friendly residence in Burnaby and has12 garden plots, a greenhouse, compost piles, hazelnut trees, grapevines, and picnic tables. Over the years, despite much effort to engage neighbors and gardeners, the garden had yet to flourish, and the vision of a thriving community space had yet to be realized.   This past spring, BCC collaborated with Can You Dig It to make this original vision a reality. After many conversations...

By Haley Cameron Photo Courtesy of Pia Massie   Pia Massie was working on independent film No Words Will Ever Do in Geneva when she decided that Vancouver would be her next home. “I had moved almost every year for thirty years,” Massie says. For the fearless artist/activist, who calls herself a fish in need of water, Vancouver seemed an obvious choice. “I flew here for five days twenty-eight years ago and immediately knew I wanted to stay.”   Proximity to the Pacific wasn’t all that made Vancouver appealing. Massie wanted to live in an English-speaking city with a thriving film community. In the end it was the community as much as the ocean that solidified the deal. “It makes it easier to do your work as an artist knowing that there are others working on the same thing; there’s a place for dialogue about effort,” she shares. Thanks largely to a supportive local film industry, Massie was able to focus on the documentary stories she felt passionate about. Apart from a six year hiatus that took her back to her hometown of New York City, Massie’s love of the west coast has supplanted her nomadic ways, making Vancouver her true home.   Massie has always been one for recognizing great opportunities as they arise. Perhaps most notable in her captivating story are the two years she spent training under National Living Treasure calligrapher, Shiryu Morita. Massie was working at an art gallery in Kyoto, Japan when the honorable Sensei happened to see her work and requested to teach her. That she had no formal training in shodo, a form of Japanese calligraphy, and had no intention in seriously pursuing the art form, didn’t stop him. “My boss explained that to refuse Morita Sensei...

By Aryan Etesami Photo courtesy Craig Lee For this month’s issue, I am very excited to introduce to my dear readers an intelligent and hard-working young man: Craig Lee. Craig who is currently in his late 20’s, was born in Richmond, BC and raised in the Surrey area for most of his childhood. After graduating from high school, Craig entered the Criminology program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University with the intention of becoming a police officer in the RCMP, but soon realized that his true passion in life lied elsewhere. Craig left the Criminology program and decided to make the transfer to Simon Fraser University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in 2012. Having always been complimented on his superb listening skills, Craig just knew he wanted to a therapist ever since the age of 12! After earning his undergraduate degree, Craig went on to gain his first real Counselling experience through volunteering at a crisis line in Surrey, while also helping a child with autism over the period of year. Convinced he wanted to pursue a career in Counselling, he began sending out applications to those Graduate schools that resonated with him the most, and finally came to choose Adler’s School of Professional Psychology to further his formal education in the field. Craig admired Alfred Adler’s (whom Craig’s chosen graduate school was named after) ideals of community contribution and social interest, and set it out for himself to follow in his footsteps. He initially entered the Masters of Counselling Psychology program and shortly after, Craig was co-facilitating a support group consisting of 10 women in the North Vancouver area, as part of his community service practicum and working alongside a professional Art Therapist, Dr. Duanita Eleniak. Within a year into...

By Haley Cameron Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball   When I walked into The Arthritis Society Learning Centre in the Mary Pack Arthritis Centre, at West 10th Avenue and Laurel Street, I was met by two welcoming women who were more than happy to be at the office after hours for the opportunity to spread the word about their work. As an introduction to what that work entails, Linda Freisen, Health Education and Learning Centre Coordinator, opened a book to picture of a bed-bound young boy with unnaturally inflamed joints holding together a skeletal frame.   The MPAC began in 1945 as the vision of Mary Pack, an empathetic and innovative schoolteacher, Linda explained. The young Rheumatoid Arthritis victim depicted in Linda’s book was a student of Mary’s who inspired her to take on the cause singlehandedly 65 years ago. “Mary basically put on a uniform and went to battle for Arthritis,” Linda tells me. Joined by Joanna Li, Manager of Education and Services, the two ladies described how far we’ve already come in terms of managing the evasive disease. “Thanks to her we’ll never again see a case as bad as this,” Linda motions back towards the book. “Is there still a long way to go? Absolutely.” These days it is Linda, Joanna, their co-workers, and a mass of volunteers who don the same uniform and continue Mary’s fight.   When Mary Pack first took on this cause over half a century ago, there was very little support in place for those suffering from Arthritis. Without disability pension or medical coverage only marginal welfare existed to help those affected. Working with a team of local health care providers, Mary constructed a one-stop shop Arthritis patient program, which has since become an international model for...

Text by Raffi Wineburg Photos by Gabriel Pliska A woman lies with her eyes closed in a half-filled bathtub. Copper-veined leaves hide her breasts. A flash bursts from a camera. Then many more. Of these photos, one will be developed, framed and finally hung in the same bathroom where it was taken. This happens in each room of a large house. A model posing,  a photographer taking pictures. There is probably some deep artistic meaning behind this. Or maybe it’s just a rich man’s vanity, redecorating his home with photos of his own home. Either way, it’s compelling, creative — much like the photographer himself: Lewis Evans. Lewis has lived his life this way — not photographing models in rich men’s houses, but by being creative, by stretching the boundaries of what he knows he can do. Along with the photo decorations, Lewis’ commissioner requested shots of his two Great Danes. The dogs wanted no such thing. So Lewis tried his hands at something new. He immortalized the two beasts in an oil painting — his very first. It must have turned it okay; it’s still hanging today. Sitting under the sun on the back porch of his Kitsilano home, Lewis and I are just beginning to sweat. He tugs at his collared shirt to cool off before launching into the details of a life of creativity. Born in England, Lewis made the “sensible” decision to enroll in engineering school. He quickly dropped out (“I should have been an artist from the get-go”). He began work as a graphic designer, and a photographer. From this, he transitioned to marketing communications, working for the U.N. around HIV AIDS. He’s an inventor. An artist. A creative business consultant. He teaches courses on creativity. He just published his...

An Interview with Cameron Cartiere: The Dean of Graduate Studies at Emily Carr University of Art & Design By Brandy Baek   When people talk about their experience of first making their decision to choose a career path, they typically talk of this pivotal moment in which an experience sparked their passion. Cameron is no exception to this story. She narrates her story of being 11 years old and attending the first retrospective exhibition of Dr. Seuss in San Diego. In this exhibition, Cameron recalls walking under a Seuss designed moose head and looking at various drawings, sculptures, and paintings which Dr. Seuss has created. At a certain point, she asked her mother who did this, at which her mother replied, “Dr. Seuss”. Then, Cameron asked once again to make her question clear, “Who made all this happen?” Her mother replied that the curator was responsible for it and that was the moment Cameron thought to herself that she wanted to be a curator in the future. Eventually, this dream she had as a child came true, and she currently works as both a public art curator and the Dean of Graduate Studies at Emily Carr University of Art & Design. Ever since she started her curatorial practice, Cameron recalls instances in which her mother had difficulty explaining to others what her daughter did as a curator. To put it simply, her mother often explained, “My daughter hangs pictures on the wall.” This is now the title of one of Cameron’s lectures. But her mother’s perception of curatorial work changed when she visited an exhibition Cameron was preparing with fellow graduate students. While like many people, her mother knew what a curator was, she wasn’t aware of  how complex the job could be and...

For Kesseke dance is like a medicine.   He started dancing at seven years old and at eleven he went to the Ivory Coast National Ballet and was there for several years dancing locally and touring around Africa and Europe. He also danced for Yelemba d’Abidjan and Ballet Djolem d’Abidjan, la Companie de Wouafou d’Abidjan.In 2001 he moved to Vancouver and currently dances for his own group WEST meets WEST, a multicultural drum and dance group playing the traditional Ivory Coast rhythms from West Africa. Kesseke teaches West African drums and dance in various studios around Vancouver.   To learn more about Kesseke, please visit www.kissofafrica.ca Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball Kesseke is also a clothing designer and tailor! An Interview with Kesseke By Max Potter Although perhaps not particularly well known outside of sub-Saharan Africa, West African dance is a cherished tradition carried on by its performers as well as having carved a niche with some unlikely new disciples. Whether it’s for voyeurism, entertainment or simply a cardio workout, several curious citizens flock to studios to be taught by veterans of the art like Kesseke Yeo. Originally from the Ivory Coast, Kesseke began dancing at age five and was noticed by his seventh year. By the age of fifteen he was recruited by the Ivory Coast ballet and began touring worldwide, performing throughout Africa and Europe, from Yamoussoukro to Paris and everything in-between. The dances that I was able to witness were raw and heavily rhythm based. Nothing short of a gymnast, Kesseke incorporates various athletic feats such as spontaneous backflips to break up the heavy beats and singing as his voice and bare feet act as instruments of their own. The dances are laced with a mythology that comes through even for those oblivious to the meaning of the various chants uttered between...

By Raffi Wineburg Dr. V Setty Pendakur takes his first sip of tea, momentarily mulls its taste, and then launches into discussion without prompt from a question. We had met a block from his Yaletown home on the silver-tabled patio of Sciue Italian Bakery. I arrived early to scope him out. But somehow he materialized from nowhere, introducing himself with a firm hand-shake. Dr. Pendakur, Professor Emeritus at UBC, is a highly distinguished academic, urban planner, and international planning consultant. His numerous online biographies—without much for personal detail—tell the story of a busy man. He’s advised governments (Canada, China and Singapore to name a few), been a visiting professor at over 20 institutions across the world, and cycled through service on all the important sounding nouns for distinguished groups of people (boards, councils, commissions, foundations, associations…) He’s bald on top with patches of wispy-white curly hair that stick out from the sides. Born in India, his accent remains thick, sometimes audibly rolling his r’s for a half-second at a time. The accent only adds to his already forceful style of speech. A former politician (Vancouver City Council), it shows in conversation—not in the negative knee-jerk manner we react to ‘politician’ but by virtue of his unfaltering eloquence. Whole paragraphs come out a time as if he had prepared each word before-hand. He’s a politician without the nonsense, answering questions directly, honestly. At times, Dr. Pendakur makes a bold statement, or asks a question which I hope is rhetorical, reclines in his chair from his forward angled position to take a quick rest—perhaps waiting for my response that never comes—then leans back towards me, finishing his thoughts with a renewed purpose. By the end of our interview he was interviewing me, and most of my...

An Interview with Mr. Irfan Sheikh, the principal of Pt.Grey Secondary Interviewed by Lauren MacFarland One of the oldest schools in the area, firmly embedded in the history of Kerrisdale, Point Grey Secondary is an impressive institution, not just for its beautiful Gothic façade, but for the hundreds of eager, driven students whose main focus is making their school and community a better place. What was once a small school in 1929 has grown considerably into the modern high school it is today, it has seen generations of families attend over the years, and built a reputation for excellence. Principal Irfan Sheikh is now at the helm of this very busy ship, overseeing a multitude of programs and activities ranging from academic to athletic to community based. The school boasts numerous accolades in just about every discipline, Mr. Sheikh attributing these awards to the school’s emphasis on creating a “well rounded individual.”  Besides core academics, the school offers various elective programs such as drama, foods, music among others, all of which are found appealing by both parents and students alike.  For a school with such a rich history, it has adapted effortlessly in the modern world, successfully creating several online platforms for students and the community to remain engaged and informed on the school’s many events and programs. From the official Facebook pages to the Twitter feed, blogs for the music and art programs, Point Grey has created a vibrant online presence to ensure it never loses touch with its 21st century students. “We’ve got to react to what’s going on in the environment,” says Mr. Sheikh, “the school looks a little like Hogwarts, and what goes on is the magic of education, the connection to kids, the leveraging of technology, the approach that...