Spent two days at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, teaching Microsoft Office to a class of women inside the federal corrections system. The work mattered more than most engagements I do.
The learners were preparing for a return to the working world, and Office skills were one piece of the toolkit they were building. We worked through Word for letters and forms, Excel for tracking and budgets, and the everyday routines that show up in most office jobs. There was no time for theory and no need for it — we taught what was useful.
What stays with me from that engagement is how seriously the learners took the work. People who have been away from a desk for a long time often arrive with their guard up about technology, and by the end of day two the room had relaxed into the kind of focus you wish every classroom carried.