Preface

• Author: David C. Young
• Pages: 7-8

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Preface

When I enrolled i n university several yea rs ago, my thoughts at the time

were, upon completion of my bachelor of art s degree, to attend law school,

with the ult imate goal of becom ing a practis ing lawyer. However, as is

often the cas e in life, the pat h towards a care er is seldom linea r, and my

experience is not a n exception to this nor m. Early in my rst deg ree, I real-

ized I had a love of teach ing, and instead of becom ing a lawyer, I opted to

pursue a caree r in public education. The pu ll towards law w as never far

from the sur face, though, and in both my m aster of education and doctor

of philosophy degrees, I completed , respectively, a thesi s and a dissert a-

tion dealin g with the inter section of law and educat ion. I was extreme ly

fortunat e in both of these deg rees to have received excel lent mentorship

and support f rom Lawrence Bezeau at t he MEd level and Gregory D ickinson

during my PhD s tudies. Both of these ind ividuals tru ly opened my eyes to

the many iss ues pertain ing to education law, and for t his I am etern ally

gratefu l.

Although my ca reer as a public school educator i s now behind me,

I am fortu nate to teach in a post-seconda ry instit ution where I routine-

ly oer both preser vice and graduate courses in educ ation law. Although

I admit tha t I am extremely bia sed towards my educat ion law courses, I

truly bel ieve that they are among, i f not the most valuable courses oered.

I fundame ntally bel ieve that all educ ators need an unders tanding a nd

appreciation of the profou nd impact law has on t he teaching profess ion,

which then bri ngs me to the genesis for this pa rticular book. T hroughout

my post-secondary teac hing career, I have used a var iety of education law

texts, and ad mittedly, each of these has be en quite excellent. However,