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 ultimate goal of becoming a practising lawyer. However, as is

often the case in life, the path towards a career is seldom linear, 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 career in public education. The pull towards law was never far

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

of philosophy degrees, I completed, respectively, a thesis and a disserta-

tion dealing with the intersection of law and education. I was extremely

fortunate in both of these degrees to have received excellent mentorship

and support from Lawrence Bezeau at the MEd level and Gregory Dickinson

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

the many issues pertaining to education law, and for this I am eternally

gratefu l.

Although my career as a public school educator is now behind me,

I am fortunate to teach in a post-secondary institution where I routine-

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

I admit that I am extremely biased towards my education law courses, I

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

I fundamentally believe that all educators need an understanding and

appreciation of the profound impact law has on the teaching profession,

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,