Loving to Learn Day 2010 -- The Contest!

Loving to Learn Day is an annual event that encourages everyone — and we mean everyone! — to celebrate their love of learning. First established at the University of Waterloo in 2006, Loving to Learn Day has subsequently spread to the University of Manitoba, the University of Windsor, the University of Saskatchewan, and several Canadian colleges. This year's Loving to Learn Day falls on Monday, February 15.

At the heart of every Loving to Learn Day is a contest with prizes! Here's this year's contest:

 

CONTEST

You love to learn, right? Well, then undoubtedly you’ve had, or still have, a mentor: someone who encouraged you or guided you as you made your way along a learning journey. Some mentors are bigger than life – like Obi Wan Kenobi who helped guide Luke in Star Wars. Other mentors are just ordinary people – like Mr. Miyagi who helped Daniel discover his inner strengths in The Karate Kid. Who was (or is) your most memorable mentor? Why? What did your mentor teach you? What impact did your mentor have on your life? Where would you be if you had never met him or her? Email us a paragraph telling about one of your mentors, and you could win a prize. Even if you don’t win, we might publish your paragraph on the Loving to Learn Day website. And of course writing about your mentor is one way of honouring the gift of learning that he or she has given you.

There are four categories in our contest:

  1. Students in grades 1 to 8.
  2. Students in grades 9 to 12.
  3. Students, staff, and faculty at the University of Waterloo.
  4. Everyone else (that is, people anywhere in the world who don't fit into one of the first three categories).
Submissions should be anywhere between 100 and 500 words in length, and will be judged according to how vivid, thoughtful, and expressive they are. After you write it, send your submission with "Loving to Learn" in the subject line to this email address: mmorton@uwaterloo.ca. Include your name and your category, and make sure it arrives before 7:00 pm on Sunday, February 14. Winning submissions will be published the following day on this website, and winners will receive a book prize. Kitchener-Waterloo's daily newspaper, The Record, has published full-page items on previous year's Loving to Learn Day contest, including in 2009 and 2008; additionally, The Record has published an article in advance of the 2010 contest to help promote it. Feel free to spread the word about Loving to Learn Day, and about this year's contest! If you have any questions, please contact Mark Morton. Thank you for sharing the story of your mentor with us!