You are invited to a book launch & public talk  Monday May 30, 2011, 7 – 9 pm. Paul W. Bennett will be at the Fredericton Region Museum to promote the launch of his new book, Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities The Contested Schoolhouse in Maritime Canada. Published by Fernwood Publishing.

Paul will be introduced at 7pm on Monday, May 30th by Harvey Malmberg. Come enjoy a short illustrated talk which will provide a taste of the themes addressed in the book. Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities provides a fresh interpretation of the rise of the bureaucratic education state and its current mutations from 1850 to 2010. It’s all there from the one-room schoolhouse and early consolidation to modern system expansion and today’s school closures battles. The history of New Brunswick education has been woven into into the evolving narrative, making it the only book covering the three provinces.

Special thanks to Ruth Murgatroyd for cordinating the arrangements
for us. The Fredericton Region Museum is located in downtown Fredericton at 571 Queen Street. Westminster Books will be supplying the books and the evening will end with light refreshments. For a recent book review you can go online to the following address;    http://www.halifaxnewsnet.ca/Entertainment/2011-05-11/article-2497464/Book-examines-loss-of-traditional-schoolhouses-for-big-box-institutions/1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul W. Bennett
Paul W. Bennett, Ed.D. (OISE/Toronto) is a Halifax author, education commentator and school reformer. In September 2009, he founded Schoolhouse Consulting, an independent educational policy consulting firm. Over a career spanning three decades in three different provinces, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, Dr. Bennett has been a leading educator and written or co-authored six books and many articles in both the popular media and the academic press.  His two most recent books are The Grammar School: Striving for Excellence in a Public School World (2009), and Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities (2011)

Dr. Bennett is a widely recognized leader in Canadian education. From 1997 until 2009, Paul served as Headmaster of two of Canada’s leading independent
coeducational day schools, Halifax Grammar School and Lower Canada College. His Canadian history textbooks are well-known in the schools: Canada: A North American Nation (1995), Years of Promise, 1896-1911 (1986),
and Emerging Identities: Problems and Interpretations in Canadian History (1986), co-authored with Cornelius J. Jaenen.

As Director of Schoolhouse Consulting, Paul produces regular opinion columns and book reviews for The Chronicle Herald.   His articles have appeared in The Mark, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, and numerous academic journals, including Historical Studies in Education, the
Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society Journal, Social History/Histoire Sociale, and Ontario History. In June 2010, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Directors for the Halifax Public Libraries, and he is now Vice- Chair of the city’s Library Board.