When Parents, Not Systems, Set the Direction

5/4/2026

The Quebec Education Program is one of the best in the world! With a strong focus on competency-based learning (not just memorization), cross-curricular integration, student autonomy, personalization, citizenship, ethics and continuous competency-based assessment, it’s a teacher’s dream - UNTIL IT’S NOT!

My first paid teaching gig was when I turned 14 and was asked to join the staff at my local music school - yes, I was a bit of a child prodigy when it comes to music. At 18, I took on a part-time leadership role at a new music school campus while simultaneously pursuing a degree in music in Dublin, Ireland and professional teaching qualifications from a university in London, England. It was a lot of work, but teaching and music were my passions, and, as they say, when you truly love something, it doesn’t feel like work!

Fast forward many years to my arrival in Montreal, where I had to forge a new career from scratch, with no contacts and no understanding of the system, so my bedtime reading became the entire revised Quebec Education Program. At that, although computers were becoming more common, I still relied on the paper copies, and all 400 pages of the complex edu-speak were consumed with a cup of tea and a few Irish biscuits over the course of 3 weeks. As the principal of a private church-based school where a large percentage of students had significant learning challenges, I was looking forward to this creative environment that promised to provide the best learning opportunities for all students.

Needless to say, my hopes were quickly crushed. What looked great on paper, never materialized in practice, partly due to administrative control from powers-that-be outside of my control, partly due to budget constraints and partly due to an overabundance of well-intentioned pedagogusese that was never quite feasible at 8:30 am on a Monday morning in a brick and mortar school with 30 students per teacher.

And so, my career as principal lasted only a few years. As much as I enjoyed the status of the title, seeing my students crushed by a system that forced them to move forward at a certain speed and in a certain direction squeezed all the joy out of teaching. And if I was beginning to hate teaching, imagine how the students felt about learning!

And so, with a big leap of faith, I left the system and started my new career as an online teacher/academic coach at a time when homeschoolers were considered the weird fringe of society, and those who chose that system were considered the outcasts of the academic world.

But the greatest support came from the parents. Parents who knew that because their children didn’t learn to multiply at age 8 didn’t mean they couldn’t become experts in math. Parents who recognized their child’s passion to play hockey 6 hours a day, but didn’t want them to burn out working on homework until midnight. Parents who know that who their kids BECOME matters more than keeping up with peers.

Quebec Online School has changed significantly since those early days and has earned the respect of many leaders in the education community, including LEARN Quebec, the DEM, and CANeLearn. But most importantly, we have earned the respect of hundreds of parents and students who have gone to college, university and careers, confident not just in where they have come from, but from knowing that they have the tools to succeed wherever they are going. And that, more than any recognition or reform, is the legacy we set out to build.

With best wishes for your child’s education,

Sinéad

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