Matt lives and works in East Vancouver with his partner and daughters where he directs the Purple Thistle Centre and founded Car-Free Days Vancouver.
“The Thistle” is a community arts and activism center that is run by a collective of school-aged youth. Matt acts as a facilitator by maintaining the space and writing grants, while all other education activities are run by the collective. The space is a highly functioning creative lab where youth can learn to sculpt, pain, draw, develop photographs, animate, record music, sew, write, fix bikes, and much more. The Purple Thistle is an example of how alternatives to the school system, and indeed to school itself, are within our reach. Matt freely shares his experience and energy, the driving and maintaining force behind the Thistle. His unique and developed “deschooling” philosophy represents ideals of inclusion, anti-oppression, and authentic youth empowerment. Its effectiveness can be seen on any given day at the Thistle as a crowd of diverse youth are constantly flowing in and out of the space, vibrantly interacting and expanding their creative capabilities, taking advantage of the many-fold opportunities enabled by Matt's efforts.
Matt’s books and articles have been published on all six continents, translated into ten languages and he continues to lecture globally. He holds a PhD in Urban Studies and teaches at SFU and UBC.
He will be lecturing on the various projects he has initiated and the creation of alternative school systems. You can visit his website athttp://www.mightymatthern.com.
He will also be talking about creating alternative spaces for learning in an education system that can often seem daunting and overwhelming.
“The Thistle” is a community arts and activism center that is run by a collective of school-aged youth. Matt acts as a facilitator by maintaining the space and writing grants, while all other education activities are run by the collective. The space is a highly functioning creative lab where youth can learn to sculpt, pain, draw, develop photographs, animate, record music, sew, write, fix bikes, and much more. The Purple Thistle is an example of how alternatives to the school system, and indeed to school itself, are within our reach. Matt freely shares his experience and energy, the driving and maintaining force behind the Thistle. His unique and developed “deschooling” philosophy represents ideals of inclusion, anti-oppression, and authentic youth empowerment. Its effectiveness can be seen on any given day at the Thistle as a crowd of diverse youth are constantly flowing in and out of the space, vibrantly interacting and expanding their creative capabilities, taking advantage of the many-fold opportunities enabled by Matt's efforts.
Matt’s books and articles have been published on all six continents, translated into ten languages and he continues to lecture globally. He holds a PhD in Urban Studies and teaches at SFU and UBC.
He will be lecturing on the various projects he has initiated and the creation of alternative school systems. You can visit his website athttp://www.mightymatthern.com.
He will also be talking about creating alternative spaces for learning in an education system that can often seem daunting and overwhelming.
He was here at UVic right? Did you attend the presentation/how was it? Anything inspiring?
ReplyDeleteI was in 401 an unable to attend myself.But one of my good friends runs the underground curriculum and he attended. The presentation was recorded and will be available on the underground curriculm website soon. He is a great speaker and some of the ideas are different but worthwhile and get you thinking about different methods
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