David McFarland
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mrmcfteaches.bsky.social
David McFarland
@mrmcfteaches.bsky.social
HS Humanities | Social Studies Dept. Head | #IB History and IB TOK | #bced, BC 🇨🇦| Unto the fundamentalists a stumbling block & unto the secularists foolishness.

🌎📍Cascadia Subduction Zone
Spending the day atop Burnaby Mountain with BC Social Studies educators. Keynote this morning by Andrew Coyne, one of Canada’s leading political journalists.
October 24, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Two years ago in San Diego, I accepted a nomination to lead our western regional chapter. This weekend, we wrapped up our first-ever Canadian 🇨🇦 conference and the first to be hosted in a high school.
October 21, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Years ago, a mentor encouraged me to “find my people” as part of my professional life. I’m grateful to say that one such group has been the Conference on @faithandhistory — warm, hospitable, and thoughtfully challenging.
October 21, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Canadian summer begins…
June 29, 2025 at 4:09 AM
At Baylor in 2022.
June 24, 2025 at 4:24 AM
A towering figure who cultivated a “prophetic imagination” that nourished gentle, holy resistance to the violence and oppression of our empires. Rest in peace and rise in glory, Walter!
June 5, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Historians/Educator friends: You heard it here first: the Western Regional @faithandhistory Call for Papers has been EXTENDED!

Join us in British Columbia 🇨🇦 Oct. 16-18.

Ignore the deadline currently on the site!

✉️socialstudies@mypacificacademy.net

faithandhistory.org/conferences/
May 30, 2025 at 7:37 PM
I was humbled to be at Kelly Ingram Park in downtown Birmingham, Alabama back in October and I’d love to connect this for my #IBHistory students.
April 2, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Return of the patio. For those who used to follow me on Twitter, I’ve flown a Cascadia flag for years. Now is the time for Canada. Elbows up!
March 27, 2025 at 3:05 AM
Proud subscriber to @theatlantic.com. 👊📰🔥
March 27, 2025 at 12:53 AM
March 25, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Historian @kkdumez.bsky.social and her excellent “Jesus and John Wayne” cited in in Gary Mason’s piece in @theglobeandmail.com this weekend 🇨🇦.
March 23, 2025 at 4:40 AM
🇨🇦 Canadian beef, Canadian aged cheddar, BC-grown tomato & onion, and Canadian condiments. The bun is from a local bakery. 🇨🇦

Okay, the lettuce 🥬 was grown in Salinas, CA, but it gets a pass because I love California 🌅 and the Salinas Valley. Trickier to source lettuce in February. Be real.
February 17, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Just a couple of Canadian millennials completing the @theglobeandmail.com crossword on a Saturday evening. 🇨🇦
February 9, 2025 at 5:44 AM
One of my favourite historians is California-based Rick Kennedy whose recent “spiritual history, environmental study, and sailing memoir of Southern California’s coast” arrived on my porch today. I can’t wait to dive in.
February 9, 2025 at 5:30 AM
A common and very understandable sentiment is that the news is often “just too much.” As a Social Studies teacher, I have a pretty high tolerance for the tensions of our political, social, and economic complexities. But tonight, rather than more headlines, it’s Leonard Cohen’s “You Want It Darker.”
February 5, 2025 at 5:57 AM
February 4, 2025 at 2:56 PM
I always read the obituaries. The stuff of life. The Sunday NY Times remains a ritual. In print is rare yet preferred. Usually acquired at Village Books in Fairhaven, but I found a stack today in a shop in Ambleside on Vancouver’s North Shore.
January 6, 2025 at 5:16 AM
Wrapping up an incredible week of collaboration and learning in Florida with some phenomenal educators from across North America, including dozens of Canadians (none of us were complaining).
December 9, 2024 at 4:47 AM
It’s an International Baccalaureate (IB) training week where I first began more than 10 years ago. Florida’s Gulf Coast, & St. Pete in particular, is emerging from the effects of Hurricanes Helene & Milton; hundreds of educators from across N. America coming to town seems like a big boost. ☀️
December 5, 2024 at 10:12 PM
Sometimes professional development means taking one for the team and heading to Florida in December.
December 4, 2024 at 5:36 AM
To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season… Practicing some new-to-me music amid some familiar favourites for the first Sunday of Advent. 🎹
November 30, 2024 at 4:33 AM
To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season… Practicing some new-to-me music amid some familiar favourites for the first Sunday of Advent. 🎹
November 30, 2024 at 4:33 AM
I snapped this pic in front of Birmingham, Alabama’s city hall last month. Today, we were discussing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and this quotation from Lyndon B. Johnson was part of an assigned reading for students.
November 30, 2024 at 1:44 AM
*nods in Canadian*
November 27, 2024 at 6:15 PM