Michael Ernest Sweet with Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper
Montreal educator Michael Ernest Sweet, the founder of the Learning for a Cause Student Press and the Pearson Prize for Teen Literature, has been conferred a 2009 Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence – Canada’s premier teaching award.
Michael Sweet founded Learning for a Cause in 2004 and has published and promoted four award-winning anthologies of student writing in the years since. LFC anthologies typically involve more than 100 student writers from grades 9 through 12 and focus on topics of social concern such as poverty, violence, racism and the environment. The 2009 anthology, Raising Humanity, even featured a foreword and glowing endorsement from Hollywood celebrity Martin Sheen.
In 2010 LFC will release their 5th Anniversary Edition featuring the best of the best from the past four years alongside writing from Canadian playwright Drew Hayden Taylor and Hollywood celebrity Candy Spelling.
The LFC anthologies are radically challenging English class traditions. “No longer are students writing for the recycle bin. REAL students are now writing REAL book on REAL issues! Print on demand publishing has revolutionized the publishing industry. It is no longer about who you know. Now, even students can share their voices with the world; students can speak up and speak out about what matters to them. It’s an amazing time to be publishing from the classroom!” Said Sweet.
In November Michael Sweet will be conferred a National Council of Teachers of English High School Teacher of Excellence Award in Philadelphia. He has also recently been inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame – Wall of Fame – in the USA and profiled in the World’s Who’s Who 27th Edition.
Michael Sweet teaches at Lester B. Pearson High School, a campus of the English Montreal School Board.
