Mr. Matthew Berrigan

I distinctly remember many times as an adolescent being told that these were the best years of my life. I also remember thinking that this could not possibly be true. As I’ve grown older, I have learned that everyone has favourite years and years that were more of a struggle, and that it can be different for everyone....

Much has changed over the course of the last couple of decades of grade school education. Gone are the days of chalkboards, spelling tests, dunce caps, static information and preparation for an industrial world. Replacing that are phones, tablets, virtual classrooms, fluid information and preparation for a digital wor...

Much is said of some of the men of the Reformation period who brought about changes to the way that people worship in the 16th Century. Whether it be John Calvin preaching predestination to the people of Geneva or Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenburg in Germany, but very l...

At the close of every year, organizations often make selections as to what the best movie, song or event of the previous twelve months may have been. The same happens at the end of other periods of time, such as seasons, decades and even centuries. Leading up to the end of the second millennium, many of our most promi...

Welcome to the students and families of Grade 8 at Heritage Heights School. I always look forward to the beginning of the school year. From the anticipation of new beginnings, new classes, new school supplies, new clothes and reconnecting with friends, the new school year is a time of renewal. Although it is at this t...

Historians have recently begun to look at the history of the conquest of Mexico that occurred between 1519 and 1521 in a different light, with one, William Brandon, the author of Rise and Fall of the North American Indians going so far as to say that someone besides Hernan Cortes was “the real conqueror of Mexico.” Th...

The Spanish and the Aztecs were selected as an area of study in Grade 8 Social Studies in order to examine what happens when two dramatically different worldviews come into conflict. Students are meant to question their basic historical views of good and evil in an effort to understand the complexities of getting two...

"Knowledge"

Oxford English Dictionary

"True, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed to opinion."

Every day when students come to school, they are taught lessons from history, science, math and language. How, though, does a student know that what they are being taught is true? When they are taught about hum...

There is currently no one left alive that served for Canada during the First World War. A veteran who served in the Second World War, should they have been 18 when Canada first entered, would have been born in 1921, and thus 94 years of age. Time ticks by and we become further and further removed from the massive arme...

The Middle Ages… the Dark Ages… Medieval Times… 1000 years without a bath. These are all terms used, sometimes erroneously, to describe the period in European history that separated the Fall of Rome from the beginning of the Renaissance.

The word “Renaissance” literally means rebirth. This name is given to the period...