Former local teacher inspiring audiences across Canada, USA

got to watch their teacher deliver his message.

“I was asked to speak at that event to share what I was doing in my classroom with projectbased learning. People caught wind about the engagement and how it is that 99 percent of [my] grade eight students [showed up] on snow days,” he said.

“Code Breaker,” which morphed into consulting.

by Sylene Argent

Brian Aspinall,

Founder

of Code Breaker

Inc., spent 15-years teaching grade eight, integrating his passion for computer science into all subject areas as he had a homeroom. His love for teaching has morphed into consulting all over the world, primarily across North America, and publishing books to inspire other educators and students that they can find success, even from a rural area.

In 2014, the University of Windsor graduate participated in his first TED Talks, which took place in Chatham. It was aired live and his students

“Things we didn’t foresee is that when absenteeism goes down because engagement goes up, so do your test scores and so does standardized testing,” Aspinall said. “That stuff all happened as a by-product of the process, that was never the goal or initiative.”

Traditionally, good math students are defined as those who can solve a plethora of knowledgebased questions accurately and quickly, he said. “But the problem with that is that problem-solving and creativity takes time. Being immersed in a coding space, I have learned that when kids learn to code, it almost never works the first time through; challenging us to redefine what it means to fail at school.”

He said his classroom was gradeless. “And that removed a level of fear.”

At the end of 2017, he published his first book,

The book focuses on the message of, “Just like reading, if you can learn to read, you can read to learn. Coding is no different. If you can learn to code, you can code to learn. I know what it has done for me. I know what it has done for struggling students in my classroom, who have found success with it,” Aspinall said.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, his message is, as a graduate of Harrow District High School with 12 peers, “I don’t care that you live in a small town anymore. We live in a world, where you can change the world from your bedroom, from your backyard.”

He said it is not necessary to go to Toronto or other big cities to find success.

In 1998, he made the first Harrow District High School website. “It was part of my claim to fame as a kid, and I want other kids to experience what I experienced because of a decision made for me when I was in grade 10 in Harrow.”

To date, he has written five books for adults, in addition to two children’s books.

Aspinall’s first books were published through a publisher, then he launched Code Breaker Inc., his own publishing company.

“We really find that we are disrupting the traditional publishing space, while we try and disrupt what learning looks like, but not just student learning, adult learning, as well,” Aspinall said.

Aspinall called March 12, 2020 the day the world stopped, due to the start of the pandemic. He was in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was supposed to be the Friday the 13th morning keynote speaker at the Michigan Association of Computer Users Learning Conference. It didn’t happen. He got sent home a day early, because the borders were closing.

On March 14, he realized he resigned from teaching in 2018 –giving up a good job with a phenomenal pension and benefits – to chase his own dream. With the borders closing, he saw a multitude of consulting opportunities disappear overnight.

“It was a huge moment of panic,” he said. At that point, he had published three books with other publishers. He decided to reach back to the school leaders he met while conducting consulting work over the years and said, “You are from a small town and you guys are crushing it, and you have an amazing story to tell... let’s continue professional learning during lockdown by putting out books written by educators on the ground.”

He said not a single person he reached out to said no.

Three-years later, there are now 40 books in the leadership catalogue through Code Breaker Inc. In addition, these other school leaders are also getting opportunities to consult and participate in speaking opportunities. Topics ranged from content-related – including math assessment, math reform, science literacy – through to Social Emotional Learning, mental and leadership.