David Wees

David Wees is a Canadian teacher with 7 years international experience. He started his career in inner city NYC in a failing school. He met his wife in the spring of 2005 and together they moved to London, England where David taught in a small private school which was David’s first exposure to the International Baccalaureate curriculum. London was too expensive, even compared to NYC, so after 2 more years they moved on to Bangkok, Thailand where David taught for 2 years. David has co-authored a textbook for IB Mathematics, and has his Masters degree in Educational Technology. He is now in Vancouver, Canada, working as a learning specialist in technology. He blogs regularly at http://davidwees.com.

David Wees has written 12 posts for Cooperative Catalyst

Good-bye Joe

Posted by David Wees ⋅ January 3, 2016 ⋅ 1 Comment

Tonight, my friend Joe Bower passed away after a massive heart attack a few days ago. He died with his family all around him. Joe was one of the first educators I interacted with via social media. During many late night chat sessions he taught me to question many of my basic assumptions about education. … Continue reading →

Peace One Day – What can we do?

Posted by David Wees ⋅ August 10, 2011 ⋅ 3 Comments

This is cross-posted from my blog because it is just that important a message. I just watched this amazing TED talk by Jeremy Gilley. I thought to myself, what I can do on this day to support peace? I’ve decided that one thing I will do is blog about peace, and share Jeremy’s message … Continue reading →

LA Teacher Librarian Witch-hunt

Posted by David Wees ⋅ June 28, 2011 ⋅ 3 Comments

After reading about the witch-hunt occurring that happened (or is still happening?) in LA, I decided I should write something about it. A friend of mine mimicked the voice of McCarthy asking if someone was a communist, and I decided to run with the theme. Enjoy. McCarthy: Welcome today to this round of hearings. We … Continue reading →

A Standardized Testing Fairytale

Posted by David Wees ⋅ June 16, 2011 ⋅ 1 Comment

One upon a time there were some men who wanted to change the world. The problem was that these men did not feel powerful enough, and needed more power over the people around them. There was one group which kept challenging these men, “those darn liberals.” “We need to cut taxes!” They screamed as loud … Continue reading →

We need more humour in education reform

Posted by David Wees ⋅ May 25, 2011 ⋅ 7 Comments

Education reform, both north of the border where I am in Canada, and south of our border in the Unites States is a very serious business. Everywhere I see the discussion taking place, I see heated conversations and a lot of rhetoric being passed both ways, between those who appear to be driving a very … Continue reading →

Guest post: Waiting for Superman — A Canadian Perspective

Posted by David Wees ⋅ December 20, 2010 ⋅ Leave a comment

This is a guest post from Gordon MacIntyre, who is the Junior School Director at my school which is located in Vancouver, British Columbia. This was posted originally in our monthly magazine to parents, the Imprint. I make it a habit to avoid watching Oprah, but on this particular day in September I was intrigued; … Continue reading →

Homeschooling/unschooling my son

Posted by David Wees ⋅ November 13, 2010 ⋅ 22 Comments

My son is 4 years old, and next September, he’s supposed to enter “the system” and start school. My wife and I have been exploring options for his schooling until he’s old enough to make his own decisions about it. We were planning on having him attend the private school at which I work, but … Continue reading →

Let’s tell our stories

Posted by David Wees ⋅ October 12, 2010 ⋅ 15 Comments

During #EdChat today, we discussed the need to find a way to share our stories with the mainstream in a way that the media, politicians and celebrities really have not been using. Our objective is not to stop the debate which is going on now about education but to add another perspective to the public … Continue reading →

Our Students’ Experience of School

Posted by David Wees ⋅ September 28, 2010 ⋅ 5 Comments

I posted a hypothetical and pretty depressing example of a day in the life of our students. In response I almost immediately received the following from Stephanie (reposted with her permission). To Any & All: I am a product of the generation that created the dilemma our education system is currently facing. We were the … Continue reading →

Are We Gaining Momentum?

Posted by David Wees ⋅ September 18, 2010 ⋅ 1 Comment

For the nearly the past two years now, I’ve been part of the conversation about educational reform on Twitter. In the past two years, I’ve seen little improvement in the American Education system. In fact, everything points toward an even steeper decline than during the Bush administration. This decline may not be something which is … Continue reading →

Cooperate Catalyst – First podcast

Posted by David Wees ⋅ July 26, 2010 ⋅ 2 Comments

We have decided in another post that we can use Voicethread to gather the audio for our first podcast. This has the advantage of being asynchronous, so that we don’t all have to be present at the same time to comment. Unfortunately it will also be less of a discussion, so really this is just … Continue reading →

Cooperative Catalyst Audio Podcast

Posted by David Wees ⋅ July 20, 2010 ⋅ 22 Comments

Joe just invited me to join the Cooperative Catalyst so I’m posting here for the first time. This is a great idea! He and I have just started an audio podcast for the Cooperative Catalyst, with the idea of increasing the type of media we use to engage other educators. Our objective is to try … Continue reading →