Bandele Morrison
FOUNDER
Having grown up with two educators for parents, Bandele began thinking about education from an early age. She was fascinated with how an effective teacher could demonstrate to a class that a seemingly mundane subject was not only interesting but also played an important role in the students' everyday lives. Sometimes, all the teacher had to do was find the "cool" in a topic and translate that "cool" into something the class could digest. All of a sudden, a novel subject became all the students could talk about until a new topic arose. In grade 5, Bandele got her first taste of teaching. Due to her good grades in many subjects, teachers often recommended that she help other students who were struggling. Over time, she realized she enjoyed this process of bringing clarity to muddy subjects and began seeking opportunities to tutor professionally. Through volunteer and paid positions, Bandele had the chance to explore independent learning strategies, one-on-one tutoring strategies and lesson plans dedicated to students with executive function disorders. Over time, she came to realize that 1) getting the correct answer is excellent but the process to reaching the correct answer is more important; and 2) everyone has a thirst for knowledge but not everyone is offered the appropriate conditions to quench that thirst.
During her years spent as a tutor and later, a teaching assistant at York University, Bandele noticed that many students saw learning as a chore or a means to an end. In many cases, students lost interest in learning when they realized that they were expected to memorize massive amounts of information, then regurgitate it on a test. When learning was no longer fun, students became jaded: they went to school for the degree and status, not for the knowledge. Overall, Bandele found that neither the public education nor the post-secondary education systems satisfied the needs of students who wanted to learn at their own pace and learn topics outside of the proposed curricula. These systems continue to be narrow in their approaches to teaching and often fall short of their own goals with respect to teaching practical skills and critical thinking. After all, there's a reason why Canada's math performance in international evaluations is declining. Moreover, many students find that at the end of their academic career, they are employable but somehow, they have not learned the skills they were expecting or they do not have the depth of knowledge they were hoping for.
Through Stalwart Academy, Bandele aims to inspire people to learn for the sake of learning. She wants to ensure students are given as many opportunities as possible to explore the subjects that pique their interest. She wants to see more graduates who are fully equipped in key areas: critical thinking, skilled tradesmanship and inter-personal skills. Stalwart Academy is based on the idea that well-rounded students grow into well-rounded leaders who lead their communities to greatness. Greatness cannot be achieved without learning how to learn and how to love learning.