Back when I was in high school, I dreaded exam time in late June. I hated late-night studying and flashcard cramming and scribbling frantically on yellow lined paper at a desk in a silent gymnasium, anxiously checking the clock. Writing exams is a skill and, to be honest, I wasn’t particularly good at it. Many schools now are doing away with exams altogether. During the COVID years, exams weren’t possible, and schools were forced to find other ways to evaluate students. Some of those habits stuck. Is that a good thing? I can’t help thinking that exams are a necessary evil—they force teens to buckle down, review coursework and memorize key concepts. |
Dean Maltby, the associate director of the Simcoe County District School board in Ontario, disagrees. He says that exams, which rely on memorization, were built for a bygone era, before students had vast quantities of data available digitally at their fingertips. In an essay for Maclean’s, he describes why his school board now prioritizes culminating tasks instead of exams. “What’s more useful to students is learning how to evaluate the credibility of information and apply knowledge practically.” Visit macleans.ca for more coverage of everything that matters in Canada, and subscribe to the magazine here. —Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief, Maclean’s |
Gay bars are rapidly disappearing everywhere—including Canada. “When a favourite place closes, it feels like a part of you dies with it,” writes University of British Columbia professor Amin Ghaziani in this essay for Maclean's. “But nightlife is too important to give up.” The night economy generates billions in value, and in increasingly hostile times, it’s important to have spaces where people can be themselves. Cities like Berlin, New York and Amsterdam offer models that we can use to keep queer nightlife venues alive, Ghaziani writes. We just need to meet the moment. |
James McInnes and his wife, Vasiliki, started Canada's first vegan fast food chain, Odd Burger, in 2016. They had their sights set on the U.S. market for a long time and recently started to set up down south. Then came Trump's rhetoric against Canada. The idea of investing in the U.S. began to feel extremely uncomfortable to McInnes. When their U.S. financier backed out, it became increasingly clear that an American expansion wouldn't work out. |
Unlike the famous novelist of the same name, this Marie-Claire Blais is alive and making waves of a different kind. The Quebec-based artist is debuting a new body of work in her first solo museum exhibition in her home province, featuring an installation, a sound piece and six paintings, including Fragile Balance, Set 2 (above). Trained in architecture, Blais brings a spatial sensitivity to her art that’s felt in every corner of the show. At its heart is Streaming Light, a suspended installation made of multiple burlap panels, painted in soft pastels and hung in meditative folds, evoking gentle waves. As visitors move through the space, they hear audio recordings of Blais’s brush as she carefully paints each panel in broad circular strokes—inviting them to experience not just the finished work, but the labour of its making. —Rosemary Counter |
Chef Ari Schor’s first food job was for a kosher catering company, where he plucked feathers from chickens and made egg salad party sandwiches for 400 people. Years later, when he opened Beba, his snug Montreal spot, he decided to showcase historical dishes, semi-inspired by his Jewish-Argentinian background. Then one day, he found a recipe for knish—the flaky, oniony potato turnover you buy from New York street carts—by the catering company he worked for as a teen. It was meant to be. Schor adapted the recipe into one of Beba’s signature dishes: he stretches the dough like strudel and laminates it by hand, filling each dumpling with caramelized onions and smashed potato. On top: an enticing blob of bright, poppy caviar. This is your grandmother’s knish—with an added touch of opulence. Read more about the caviar knish and other picks from our bucket list of homegrown restaurants, chefs and dishes to experience this summer. |
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