Linden School Founders Honored with Women of Distinction Award

5/29/19—The Linden School’s co-founders, Diane Goudie and Eleanor Moore, recently received the 2019 Women of Distinction Award by YWCA Toronto. The award denotes success in five areas: commitment and advocacy in improving the lives of girls and women; being role models and door openers to help women achieve greater independence and success in traditional and non-traditional careers; breaking new ground and old barriers; being agents for change; and commitment to equity across barriers including gender, race, socio-economic status, and sexual orientation.

Goudie and Moore are trailblazers in all-girls education having introduced feminist pedagogy to Toronto and creating tangible, structural change in how girls socialize, learn, and engage with their studies to overcome gender-based bias. Reflecting on their accomplishment, the co-founders said, “When we founded Linden, girls told us that they had felt silenced in their schools. Therefore, enabling our students to have a voice is an essential tenet at Linden, as it is in all quests for equity, liberation and change. In our curriculum and structures, we teach our students to ask: Who speaks? Who is heard? Who is missing? And who decides who has the voice at any given time and in any place?”

Emma Warnken Johnson ’04, a Linden alumna and member of the school’s Board of Trustees, noted, “Teaching young women to think critically about the world around them—and then go out and improve the world for other women and girls—has never been more important. It was Diane and Eleanor’s fierce determination that created a community in Toronto where girls learn to do just that.”