Researcher – Professor Esther Sokolov Fine
ESTHER SOKOLOV FINE, now a York University Professor Emerita and Senior Scholar, was the primary researcher in this twenty-three year project on peacemaking and conflict resolution in a public elementary school (D.A.S.) in downtown Toronto. Her work was generously funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) with significant support from the Faculty of Education at York University and two local school boards. The study was conducted in collaboration with the full Downtown Alternative School (TDSB) community and included many interviews with children, teachers and parents as well as extensive filming inside classrooms. The project continued with the same students, teachers, and parents from 1992-2015.
Before coming to York, Esther taught in a number of elementary schools within the Toronto Board of Education. She received her BA degree from the University of Michigan, her doctorate from OISE and her MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her awards include a Hopwood Prize for fiction (University of Michigan) and an Educational Press Association of America Distinguished Achievement Award. Among her publications are several books: Raising Peacemakers (Garn Press, New York, 2015), Playing the Bully (chapter book for young readers - with J. Head, V. Shearham, Toronto, 2018), and Alternative Schooling and Student Engagement, Canadian Stories of Democracy within Bureaucracy, co-authored with OISE professors Nina Bascia and Malcolm Levin (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), as well as many journal articles, book chapters, poems, short stories, and several other books.
Esther says: This website (www.childrenaspeacemakers.ca), a feature length film Life at School: the DAS Tapes (King Squire Films Ltd.) and my book Raising Peacemakers (Garn Press, New York, 2015) combine to tell an important story, a story that is more relevant than ever at this current time in history. I especially want to thank three teachers (Ann Lacey, Marie Lardino, and Lori McCubbin) who generously participated in this study from the start, welcomed us into their classrooms, and brought their extraordinary brilliance, bravery, and expertise to the work of creating safe, warm, and equitable public schooling.
This body of work demonstrates that under reasonable conditions, within a public school in a densely populated downtown community in a large modern city, children, teachers, and parents can work together to create and sustain a fair, challenging, open and honest environment dedicated to the development of healthy, curious and mutually respectful children.
Filmmaker Roberta King – King Squire Films Ltd.
Roberta King is a Toronto based filmmaker who runs King Squire Films, an independent production company. She has written, directed and produced documentaries and dramas for the National Film Board of Canada, C.B.C. Television, CTV Television and TV Ontario. She has created documentaries for the Toronto Board of Education, for the Peel District Board of Education, and for Professor Esther Sokolov Fine at York University Faculty of Education, on peacemaking, bullying at school, anti-racism and conflict resolution in school.
“Heavy Horse Pull” a fifteen-minute documentary that she wrote and co-directed for the National Film Board with her late partner Ronald Squire was nominated for a Genie Award for best theatrical short in 1981.
Her documentary profile “Liz” about an ex- psychiatric patient trying to fit back into society, won the New York Film and Television Award for Best Documentary in a Series for TV Ontario. TV Ontario also broadcast the half hour drama ”Coming Apart” written and directed by Roberta about how divorce mediation works for one family.
Roberta King and Ronald Squire directed and produced the feature length documentary “Life at School: the D.A.S. Tapes” about the daily life of children and their teachers at a small public elementary school in downtown Toronto where conflict resolution skills are taught and modeled by the whole school. This documentary was produced with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the support of York University Faculty of Education Professor Esther Sokolov Fine.
King Squire Films distributes many of the documentaries they have produced. These include:
Life at School: The D.A.S. Tapes (2002) An 80 minute documentary about the daily life of children and their teachers at a small public school in downtown Toronto where conflict resolution skills are taught and practiced by the whole school.
Bullying at School-Strategies for Prevention and Face to Face- Conflict Resolution in School (1995) two half hour documentaries produced for the Toronto Board of Education.
Kandalore (1994) half hour documentary about a racism awareness camp for high school students near Minden, Ontario. Produced in association with Secretary of State/Multiculturalism and the Toronto board of Education.
Dropping Back (1993) half hour documentary that profiles several students who dropped back into high school. Produced for the Toronto Board of Education
Pilgrimage (1973) One hour documentary on Jean Vanier and his journey to France with a group of developmentally delayed adults from Daybreak, a community in Toronto. Broadcast on C.B.C. “Man Alive” and on C.B.S. “60 minutes”.
