Profile
Dr. Patrick Howard joined the Department of Education at Cape Breton University in 2009. He began his teaching career in 1983 at St. Pius X High School in Baie Verte, Newfoundland and Labrador. During a career spanning 26 years, his teaching experiences on coastal Newfoundland deeply influenced and shaped his future teaching and research interests. As a teacher, he taught children in a region once home to the greatest biomass on the planet. The incredible diversity and numbers of fish species that swam the plankton-rich waters of the North Atlantic stood not only as testament to the miracle of the life generating power of the Earth, but also to the unknowable depths of human greed and the capacity to destroy and lay waste to that same miraculous fecundity. He has dedicated his academic life to exploring how culture, literacy, and the imagination can point to a new relationship with the Earth we call home and on which we depend entirely.
Dr. Howard has a. M.Ed (Teaching) from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a Graduate Diploma in Language Arts Teaching and a PhD (Secondary Education) from the University of Alberta. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in literacy, assessment and sustainability education. He has a special interest and teaching focus is the intersection between literacy, both digital and traditional, ecology and place based pedagogies.
