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“194 optional essays. 65 challengers. 25 kids in the club. 1 tired teacher” observed Mr Collis. These were the sums of this year’s iteration of Mr Collis’ “Wall of Sweat” challenge, a tradition familiar to many veterans of AP English 11, and now, the current footsoldiers as well. The details of this sweaty quest are these: students...

How do you read so many books? I stay up late and then I deal with sleep deprivation. I mean, I use my free time, but a lot of the time it's because I'm staying up late. Just before bed and then the book gets interesting. What is the best book you've read this year? Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt. Just because it was...

As the Covid-19 situation has continued to develop, areas of academics, arts and athletics have had to make creative and sometimes difficult adjustments. One aspect of many students’ academic learning that has made a drastic change was Advanced Placement (AP) exams, which were moved online and altered to fit the situation. The Advanced...

How do you read so many books? It's always been ingrained in me to read books because my mom's a big reader and her mom's a big reader. When I was younger, I didn't appreciate reading. I always saw it as a task and I wasn't very good at it. I think that's why I saw it as a task. As I got older, as I read, I couldn't put down the books and I'd...

English teacher Ryan Skardal is well known for his voluminous reading. He shares this passion with his students. Below is the first in a series of interviews with Skardal’s Scholars about their recent reading. How do you read so much? My sister read books and I'd just take her books and read them all. I also really liked to make lists. Books...

With the new protocols surrounding COVID-19, Brentwood’s tight-knit community has been forced to disperse around the world. Every student and teacher is now adjusting frantically to Zoom rooms instead of classrooms and accepting the fact that there is a lot right now that is out of our control. We no longer have the opportunity to wake up every...

As most of us painfully discovered, when online learning started, the Melhuish Contest was cancelled by the Head of English himself, Mr. Collis. Students across the school were devastated by the inconsolable news. Luckily, Mrs. Reynolds' Grade 9 English cohort was enlightened by something she described as a “special surprise.” “Well kids, the...

Last Friday Jayden J, Hope '20 and Mr Collis hosted a Slam Poetry evening. Here is Mr Collis' heartfelt contribution. I miss you. I miss the kid who over participates in class. In a 20 minute discussion, this fire hose will blast away for at least 15 of those minutes, other hands up in the air be damned. Maybe, like my friend Harold,...

I first became a student when I entered kindergarten at St. Paul’s Elementary in Peterborough, Ontario in the fall of 1969. I’ve been involved in education ever since. For 18 years I was a student through elementary, secondary and post-secondary studies. In turns, I coached hockey, soccer, volleyball, sailing, swimming, ropes course, and...

The Grade 9s rebelled last week. It was local at first, a tiny brush fire on the forest floor of the classroom - nothing that a vigorous stamp, stamp, stamping normally wouldn't extinguish. I frowned at them, thus delivering their short, sharp shock. "Put that away, Ty.” Ty did not put that away. "Ty. We're...