Joshua Simmonds

Lifelong learning: I am an avid reader and love to immerse myself in a new book. I especially enjoy exploring fictional worlds with their own expansive lore. Middle Earth is my absolute favourite, followed closely by Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons.

Professional passion: promoting and advocating for mental health and wellness. I believe strongly that true success is inseparable from holistic wellness. Fostering a community of warmth and acceptance in the classroom and intentionally taking the time to simply sit and listen to someone are both important to me. Making space for psychological and emotional wellness supports our diverse ways of being in the world and together helps each one of us to find our own paths forward.

Lifelong learning: I am always looking for ways to bring practical, tangible applications to math class. Sometimes, we launch a model rocket to calculate launch height using Trigonometry. Other times, we play “Real Life Angry Birds” to learn about parabolas and quadratic relations. These types of applicable activities spark joy and inspire us to use Mathematics in the way that we should: looking for patterns to help us understand the world around us.

What is one of your favourite interactions with students? Sometimes the best learning happens outside of the classroom. Whether it’s traveling internationally with students, competing at a tournament with the CDS Robotics or CDS Tennis teams, or just chatting about life. Bringing people together towards a common goal helps us all to better understand each other and ourselves. 

Favourite thing about working at CDS: Every day, I get to work alongside truly amazing human beings - both students and teachers. I am especially blessed that I get to work alongside so many of the teachers who taught me as a CDS student - they are people who inspired me, who believed in me, and whose teaching styles I have now absorbed into my own.

Something I’ve crossed off my bucket list: Travelling to New Zealand - although I would like to go back again someday!

Other than CDS, I Support … Youth Unlimited, Aurora Food Pantry, Indwell

Hometown: King City. I’ve also lived in Hamilton and Ottawa.

Also known as: Captain (a holdover from my summer camp days teaching sailing in Muskoka)

Joined CDS in: 2017 as a faculty member, but is also a graduate from the Class of 2009

Education: Joshua holds a BSc Honours in Integrated Science from McMaster University and his specialist area was “Concentration in Mathematics”. This program was a large part of the inspiration for CDS’s Grade 12 IDC4U Course: STEM and the Future of Science. He also holds a B.Ed. from Redeemer University.