Learning for a Cause

Last updated

Learning for a Cause is a nonprofit student press founded in 2004 by Canadian educator and photographer Michael Ernest Sweet. The initiative operated from Lester B. Pearson High School [1] in Montreal until autumn 2010 when it merged into Youth Fusion Quebec. Sweet regained control of the imprint in 2014, effectively demerging from Youth Fusion. It continues to intermittently release titles, the most recent in 2018.

Details

Learning for a Cause aimed to increase and strengthen the social and moral sensibilities in high school students by providing them with genuine opportunities to engage as citizens. The flagship project of the initiative was the Publishing Program which allowed Canadian high school students to write and publish on real-life issues in books, with the goal of inspiring change in their communities. More than 1500 high school students were published and made authors through this initiative.

More noted publications include Down to Earth, a collection of more than 100 high school students writing in response to global warming and environmental destruction. [2] The volume featured guest writers Roberta Bondar and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Down to Earth was endorsed by a number of celebrities including Martin Sheen, David Suzuki, Farley Mowat and Marc Garneau. Columbia University Philosopher Maxine Greene has said that the project "is a significant opening to possibility" and legendary Canadian artist Robert Bateman added that "Learning for a Cause is what every young person should be doing." Down to Earth was a finalist in two categories at the 2009 World Indie Book Awards.

Other publications include Raising Humanity, which features introductions by actor Martin Sheen and Canada's First Astronaut Marc Garneau. The fifth anniversary compilation edition, FIVE, featured the "best of the best" from more than 1000 student writers. This volume was endorsed by Hollywood socialite Candy Spelling who also wrote an introduction to the book. We Who Listened is about Survivor Alex Levin and this book was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History in 2011.

The project and its publications have been featured in the Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, [3] and Concordia University's papers The Link [4] and The Journal. [5] Features have also appeared in 34th Parallel Magazine and Canadian Teacher. [6] Again in 2009 both Montreal Families Magazine [7] and The Montreal Gazette [8] profiled the project and its new publication Raising Humanity.

Learning for a Cause received a 2006 and 2009 Quebec Entrepreneurial Award and was featured in a Quebec Ministry of Education documentary video. In 2009, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognized its founder, Michael Ernest Sweet, with a Prime Minister's Award [9] and again in 2012 with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal [10] for his significant contributions to public education in Canada.

Youth Fusion Quebec, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that establishes partnerships between high schools and universities, in an effort to counter high school drop-out rates, will continue the publishing project with the Learning for a Cause imprint beginning in 2011–12.

Michael Ernest Sweet regained control of Learning for a Cause and its imprints in 2014, effectively demerging from Youth Fusion. The press released a new title in 2014, Our Memories, Our History, which features a foreword by former Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin. Learning for a Cause ceased operations in late 2014, following ten years of publishing young writers and charting the way for classroom print-on-demand publishing in Canada.

In 2017, Sweet reinstated the student publishing initiative at the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan, [11] where middle school students published On Democracy, an anthology about the American republic featuring a foreword by actor Martin Sheen, a long-time supporter of Learning for a Cause.

The late Max Keeping of CTV Ottawa was the official patron of Learning for a Cause for more than a decade. Keeping was also a long-time friend and mentor to Sweet.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concordia University</span> University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Concordia University is a public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the three universities in Quebec where English is the primary language of instruction. As of the 2022–23 academic year, there were 49,898 students enrolled in credit and non-credit courses at Concordia, making the university among the largest in Canada by enrollment. The university has two campuses, set approximately 7 kilometres apart: Sir George Williams Campus is the main campus, located in the Quartier Concordia neighbourhood of Downtown Montreal in the borough of Ville Marie; and Loyola Campus in the residential district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. With four faculties, a school of graduate studies and numerous colleges, centres and institutes, Concordia offers over 400 undergraduate and over 120 graduate programs and courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westmount</span> Affluent municipality in southwestern Quebec, Canada

Westmount is an affluent municipality on the Island of Montreal, in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is an enclave of the city of Montreal, with a population of 19,658 as of the 2021 Canadian census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bishop's University</span> English-language university in Lennoxville, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

Bishop's University is a small English-language liberal arts university in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The founder of the institution was the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, George Mountain, who also served as the first principal of McGill University. It is one of three universities in the province of Quebec that teach primarily in English. It began its foundation by absorbing the Lennoxville Classical School as Bishop's College School in the 1840s. The college was formally founded in 1843 and received a royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1853.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Savage (artist)</span> Canadian painter and art teacher (1896–1971)

Anne (Annie) Douglas Savage was a Canadian painter and art teacher known for her lyrical, rhythmic landscapes. She was a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters.

Marcel Danis, is a Canadian university administrator, lawyer and former politician.

Loyola High School is a co-educational subsidized private Roman Catholic school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition, for grades 7–11. The school is located in the Loyola District of the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was established in 1896 by the Society of Jesus as part of Loyola College, at the request of the English Catholic community in Montreal. It is named after St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit Order in 1534.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Gérin-Lajoie</span> Canadian politician

Paul Gérin-Lajoie, was a Canadian lawyer, philanthropist, and a former member of the National Assembly of Quebec and Cabinet Minister.

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) is a non-profit, student-based organization based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It gained a wide profile after instigating a protest in Concordia University, that forced the Israeli ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a speech that was to take place on 9 September 2002. Rama Al-Malah serves as its spokesperson.

United Talmud Torahs of Montreal is a private co-educational Jewish day school system that includes an elementary school, United Talmud Torah, and a high school, Herzliah High School. Both are located in the Snowdon neighbourhood of the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough in Montreal, Quebec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in Montreal</span>

With access to six universities and twelve junior colleges in an 8 kilometre (5 mi) radius, Montreal, Quebec (Canada) has the highest proportion of post-secondary students of all major cities in North America. This represents roughly 248,000 post-secondary students, one of the largest numbers in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Université de Montréal</span> University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The Université de Montréal is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on Mount Royal near the Outremont Summit, in the borough of Outremont. The institution comprises thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments and two affiliated schools: the Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal. It offers more than 650 undergraduate programmes and graduate programmes, including 71 doctoral programmes.

Pierre Reid was a Canadian politician and educator in the province of Quebec. He served in the National Assembly of Quebec from 2003 to 2018, representing Orford as a member of the Quebec Liberal Party. Reid was a former cabinet minister in Jean Charest's government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westmount High School</span> Public high school in Quebec, Canada

Westmount High School is a public co-educational anglophone secondary school located in Westmount, Quebec, Canada, located near Alexis Nihon Complex Shopping Mall.

<i>Down to Earth</i> (book)

Down to Earth (2008) is a Canadian literary collection by high school students in Montreal. The book focuses on environmental issues through creative writing. The collection features introductions by Roberta Bondar and Justin Trudeau as well as endorsements from David Suzuki and Robert Bateman. The book was edited and published by Michael Ernest Sweet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quartier Concordia</span> Neighbourhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Quartier Concordia is a neighbourhood redevelopment project centred on Concordia University's Sir George Williams campus in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Bordered by Sherbrooke Street, Saint-Mathieu Street, René Lévesque Boulevard and Bishop Street, the district is designed to be a green urban campus that will improve the use and quality of public places and spaces, student life on campus and transportation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mackay Street</span>

Mackay Street is a street located in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Mackay Street is a one-way street, that begins at Sherbrooke Street West, travels southbound and ends at Overdale Avenue, just south of René Lévesque Boulevard.

The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) is a research institute based at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1986 and promotes human rights awareness, in the field of genocide and mass atrocities by hosting frequent events, publishing policy briefs, engaging in counter activism on the web, and many other programs. Its keystone project is the Will to Intervene (W2I) Project which, under the advisement of Lt. General Roméo Dallaire and MIGS' Director Frank Chalk, builds domestic political will in Canada and the United States to prevent future mass atrocities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Schiefke</span> Canadian environmentalist and politician

Peter Schiefke is a Canadian environmentalist and Liberal politician, who was elected to represent the riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges in the House of Commons of Canada in the 2015 federal election.

Michael Ernest Sweet is a Canadian photographer, writer, and educator. He is the author of two books of street photography, The Human Fragment and Michael Sweet's Coney Island.

Sameer Zuberi is a Canadian politician who was elected to represent the federal riding of Pierrefonds—Dollard in the House of Commons of Canada in the 2019 Canadian federal election, sitting as a member of the Liberal Party. He is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, and he serves on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International development.

References

  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-02-21. Retrieved 2017-04-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. "Down to Earth". www.trafford.com. Retrieved 2019-06-04.
  3. "Words to save the world". Canada.com The Montreal Gazette. Archived from the original on 2012-11-05. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
  4. "Not Weary of Writing (Pg. 10)" (PDF). Concordia University The Link. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
  5. "Students in Print". Concordia University's The Journal. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
  6. "Montreal Students Get Down to Earth". Archived from the original on 2017-09-20. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
  7. "Publishing Student Work Validates Young Voices". Montreal Families. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
  8. "Sheen adds lustre to student book". Canada.com The Montreal Gazette. Archived from the original on 2012-11-05. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
  9. "Archived - Michael Ernest Sweet". Government of Canada. Retrieved 2015-09-04.
  10. "Diamond Jubilee Medal Recipients". The Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 2015-09-04.
  11. "Learning for a Cause". Kohelet Foundation. Retrieved 2017-12-02.