2016 Danielle McLaughlin

The 2016 Hux-Kiteley Exemplary Justice Educator Award is awarded to Danielle McLaughlin.  As the Director of Education for the Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust Ms. McLaughlin has devoted herself to advancing justice education through developing and delivering programs and resources to students and teachers that challenge the way they think and teach about rights and freedoms.  She retired earlier this year after 27 years with the CCLA/CCLET.

Danielle developed what is now CCLET’s signature style of teaching critical thinking for social justice – to ask questions that have no easy answers, and encourage participants to avoid consensus so that multiple perspectives on a controversial issue might be explored.  From an initial handful of local schools, the program now reaches well over 300 classrooms (nearly 10,000 students) each school year, spanning from Windsor to Ottawa and Thunder Bay.  She has also co-created a series of children’s stories that help the youngest members of our society understand how to balance rights and freedoms in a democracy.

The impact Ms. McLaughlin has had on teachers, students, and the general public in encouraging civil discourse has been immeasurable.